Shabbona Lake hosts Rockfest

Sportsman’s Club will put artificial structures into lake

Experienced anglers know that most fish are found in only a relatively small portion of a lake. The reason is structure.

Structure is what makes fish congregate in certain locations. Fish also use structure as a route when migrating from one place to another to feed or spawn.

What is structure? In a lake, natural structure is the lake bottom, rocks, trees, weeds, drop-offs and more.

But it can also be artificial. Fish cribs, stake beds and fish habitats, made by or put in the water by man, are examples of artificial structure. A fish crib can be pilings of criss-crossed wooden boards. Habitat can look like a bush made of a dozen or more pieces of plastic tubing set into a 5-gallon bucket filled with concrete. Sometimes discarded Christmas trees are tethered to a concrete block and sunk in the water. A pile of rocks is another example.

One thing that most artificial structures do is accumulate algae. Small-bait fish and fry are attracted for the food and cover. Their presence in turn attracts panfish and gamefish.

Fish use structure to find food and as cover, either from sunlight or from predators. Some fish will place themselves in cover as an ambush point when they are the predator.

The bottom line is that artificial structures are often placed in heavily fished lakes to create more fishable locations.

One such body of water is Shabbona Lake in DeKalb County. On Saturday, the Shabbona Lake Sportsman’s Club will host the 11th annual Rockfest. But this is no music festival. It’s an event where rocks will be placed into the lake for artificial structure.

“Three truck loads of rock, 20 tons each, are coming from the Macklin quarries in Rochelle.” said club President Rich McElligott. “So we’re always looking for helpers who will load rocks on plywood sleds. ATVs will drag the sleds out to onto the lake and the rocks will be dumped into the water through a hole in the ice. Bobcats will bring out the bigger rocks.”

The rocks are mostly the size of softballs or basketballs. They’re also getting about 50 rocks that are will be 2-foot-by-3-foot.

This year, rocks will be placed by an underwater point across from the spillway. Some large dead trees that have been collected at the Shabbona State Park also will be submerged at other parts of the lake. The Illinois DNR fisheries biologists are always consulted before adding the artificial structure.

Since this program started 11 years ago, more than 1,000 tons of rocks have been added to various locations at Shabbona Lake, including some shorelines where rock was used for rip rap to help reduce erosion. The Illinois Smallmouth Alliance, DuPage River Fly Tyers and Shabbona Lake Sportsman’s Club each purchased a truckload for this event.

The event has in years past drawn from 35 to 75 helpers. Once the work is completed, the club hosts a brat and hot dog cookout. Many helpers spend the rest of the day ice fishing.

Volunteers are asked to meet at the Shabbona Lake park office at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Shabbona Lake is off Route 30 by the town of Shabbona in DeKalb County. For more information on this event, call Rich McElligott at 815-824-2523.

Don Dziedzina’s blog is at Illinoisoutdoors.com

Fish Cribs 101 – Reprint from Ripples

Fish Cribs 101

By Bob Young – OCLRA Director

Attend some northern Wisconsin lake association meetings and you‘ll probably run into this before long: …let‘s put in some fish cribs so we can catch more fish?, or …the fishing has really gone downhill, let‘s put in some cribs to boost the fish population?.

If it‘s a clear water lake, you may get some folks who object to the prospect of seeing a man-made structure while they‘re out kayaking on a calm evening. But on most lakes there are some who are convinced it will turn the lake around, back to the great fishing spot it was when they fished it as a kid they‘ve already assembled a work crew, lined up materials, and have a funding proposal drafted for the group to vote on.

Row of fish cribs along a shoreline.

But just what is a fish crib, and what can it do for your lake? Before we can answer that question we need to step back a bit and also consider some other types of fish habitat structures, and the role they play in a lake‘s ecosystem.

All the commonly used fish habitat structures fish cribs, tree drops, brush bundles, half-logs, or even Christmas trees, involve replacing woody habitat to lakes that are often wood -starved. Ever visit a small backwoods lake with no development, and paddle around the shoreline? What strikes you immediately is the large number of downed trees, logs and branches you can see in the shallow waters. Larger, usually older logs are lying in deeper water that you can‘t see.

All of that wood provides food and cover for wood consuming organisms and fish of all sizes and species during some stage of their life. It‘s what lakes do – provide food and cover, aka habitat, for their natural residents.

Contrast that with your own lake. Do you see many downed trees, branches and logs lying in the shallow water? If not, it‘s like many other developed lakes here in northern Wisconsin. For a long time now, trees have either been removed from lake shorelines or pulled from shallow waters. They are wood-starved.

Which brings us back to fish cribs and the other man-made habitat structures. Fish cribs at- tract fish, no doubt about it. When the crib locations are well known, they increase fish harvest. Great for the knowledgeable angler, as long as the harvest is sustainable over time. It‘s still being debated by fisheries biologists whether cribs can actually increase overall fish numbers.

Yet many biologists believe that if installed properly, fish cribs can provide some benefit to lakes. First, consider the real need for cribs in your lake — they are best placed in lakes that don‘t have much natural woody habitat or vegetation. On the other end of the spectrum, lakes with an overabundance of vegetation often have a stunted panfish population — in this case adding cribs adds to the problem by providing even more places for overabundant panfish to hide from predators.

Some other guidelines to keep in mind if you‘re planning a crib project:

Plan to eventually install large numbers of cribs to spread out angling pressure. If you don‘t, your fish crib project may actually work against your goal of improving fishing.

Create effective habitat by weaving the maximum amount of brush into each structure.

Follow WDNR guidelines and rules for installing fish cribs found athttp://dnr.wi.gov/ waterways/checklists/checklist_fishcrib.pdf. Primary among them is the requirement to use natural materials (wood). No plastic or metal here, except for fasteners.

Now, what about tree drops, brush bundles and half-logs, or even Christmas trees? They are all forms of woody habitat structures, like fish cribs. Brush bundles and Christmas trees are not often used anymore, primarily because they rot away quickly, and they‘re difficult to anchor. When they break loose they can become a boating hazard or general nuisance.

That leaves the gold standards of fish habitat structures, tree drops and half-logs. Half-logs are thick planks supported on each end by a concrete block. Easy to build and relatively easy to place in shallow water, at least compared to a fish crib. And they work. In bass lakes without much natural woody cover, they are heavily used by spawning bass, especially small- mouths. Again, you must follow WDNR regulations, found at http://dnr.wi.gov/waterways/ checklists checklist_halflogs_old.pdf.

Consider tree drops. The term itself, tree drop, is self explanatory. Trees have been dropping naturally into our lakes since the glaciers receded. And until about a hundred years ago, they stayed where they dropped, providing excellent critter habitat. A man-made? tree drop is just that you cut or place a tree so that its butt end is on shore, with the rest extending out into the lake. It‘s secured with a cable to keep it in place.

It quickly becomes colonized with invertebrate life, which in turn attracts all sorts of fish and water lov- ing animals. Each year after the ice leaves, you‘ll see a procession of different fish species use the same tree for spawning and cover, but at different intervals. By the time summer gets here, the results of their spawning efforts – lots of little fish – are seeking shelter in the branches. Imagine that, just like Ma Nature, and it was man-made?. Once again, follow the rules you find at http:// dnr.wi.gov/waterways/checklists/checklist_treedrop.pdf.

One other bit of advice for the habitat minded – before you even start to plan your project, talk with your local fisheries biologist. They can help you decide what, if any, habitat projects are appropriate for your lake, and give advice along the way.

Mill Creek developer faces fines for harming fish habitat

Department of Ecology fined real estate developer David Milne $134,000 in connection with mismanagement of a 40-acre construction site that destroyed salmon and steelhead habitat in Mount Vernon — the third penalty for Milne in just over a year.

By Lynda V. Mapes

Seattle Times staff reporter

A Mill Creek-based real-estate developer has been fined for the third time in a little over a year by state regulators for mismanagement of construction sites that destroyed salmon habitat.

David Milne was fined $134,000 on May 1 by the state Department of Ecology in connection with more than 250 violations of stormwater regulations at a 40-acre construction site in Mount Vernon in 2008.

It was the third recent penalty in the past year for Milne, whose firm David Alan Development Co., was fined twice in 2009 for similar violations at the Horstman Heights construction project in Port Orchard. Ecology fined the company $28,000 in January 2009 and $48,000 in April 2009 in connection with that project. Milne has yet to respond to the agency, let alone pay the fines, said Katie Skipper, spokeswoman for the agency.

Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant said the agency’s next step will be to seek liens against the developer’s property. “Part of it is how do we make him pay for what he has done, and the other is how do we keep him from doing this again,” Sturdevant said.

The developer could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The most recent violation damaged a mile of steelhead and salmon spawning habitat, according to the agency, when on May 21, 2008, a stormwater detention pond failed on Milne’s Parkwood development. A flood of muddy water powerful enough to rip trees and stumps from the ground blasted down slope to Thunderbird and East Thunderbird Creeks, tributaries of the Skagit River, Skipper said.

The mud, water and debris scoured the bottom of the two creeks and settled in Trumpeter Creek. The creeks are home to coho and chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Both populations of chinook and steelhead are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. Juvenile salmon had been documented in the creek by state wildlife staff weeks before the stormwater pond blew out.

The failure was the result of a year of little or no effort to properly manage the construction site as required by federal and state law, as outlined in a construction stormwater permit granted to Milne, according to Ecology.

Inspectors repeatedly reported violations at the residential development, where Milne hired a series of contractors to prepare the 40-acre site for development — including clearing and leveling half of the site. Violations ranged from unstable soils to muddy water flowing from the site to the unfinished pond. Milne stopped paying the contractors, who left the site unsupervised, and conditions deteriorated until the pond failed, the agency says.

“It was a really egregious example,” Sturdevant said. “It’s hard for people to realize even in small amounts, when you add that up over a large amount of raw ground, it can really add up and mess with fish.”

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com

Calif. agencies to sue over sucker fish habitat

Twelve Southern California water agencies have notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they plan to sue to block expanded sucker fish habitat that could crimp water supplies for people, the agencies said Tuesday.

The action was prompted by a ruling, which went into effect in January and added 1,026 acres to the fish’s habitat, bringing the total protected area to more than 10,000 acres. The federal agency expanded the habitat for the small brown-and-black mottled fish after an environmental organization sued in 2005, alleging the fish was not protected in its namesake river, the Santa Ana River.

The legal notice, filed Monday, gives the federal agency 60 days to respond before a lawsuit is filed.

Jane Hendron, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Carlsbad office, did not immediately return a call or e-mail seeking comment.

The habitat designation does not mean any human water supplies will be shut off or altered, but it does mean that local water districts and cities must consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before doing work on any new or existing water projects with any federal involvement and could face stricter limits on what they can do.

The expanded habitat includes upstream areas that have no sucker fish living in them now — and that sometimes dry up entirely because those areas hold the gravel that is critical for the fish’s survival, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with Center for Biological Diversity, the group that sued in 2005. That gravel needs to be washed downstream to help the fish, she said.

“The whole reason is to identify areas that may not have any animals in them anymore, but historically did. The critical habitat looks at recovery opportunities as well, rather than just keeping them on life support,” Anderson said of the fish.

The water agencies that filed the notice said Tuesday they were most concerned that they would be required to use water that currently goes to residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties to push gravel downstream to areas where the creatures reproduce.

That could mean diverting water that could supply more than 500,000 people and impact the water supply for about 3 million residents who live downstream, said Douglas Headrick, general manager of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District’s sucker fish task force.

“The only way to move the gravel is with water. What we’re concerned about is that someone will require us to use the water that we’ve been diverting to move gravel. We don’t know any other way,” he said.

The Santa Ana sucker fish is listed as a federally threatened species with known populations in areas of Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties.

The fish in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, in the Santa Clara River, have interbred with other types of sucker fish, however, and are not included in the critical habitat listing because they are not considered genetically pure, Anderson said.

The critical habitat now includes portions of the Santa Ana river in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties and the San Gabriel River and Big Tujunga Creek in Los Angeles County.

The 12 agencies who are objecting to the final ruling on the habitat have planned or current projects or activities that will be affected by the inclusion of the Santa Ana River in the protected area, according to the 60-day notice paperwork. Included are water districts in Big Bear, San Bernardino, Riverside, Yucaipa and others, as well as the city of Redlands.

ATVs damaging fish habitat: DFO

Last Updated: Friday, July 23, 2010 | 6:10 AM ET

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