Fishery & Water Quality Committee Meeting Minutes
Fishery & Water Quality Committee Update
Autumn 2021 LLAA Newsletter
Submitted by Jim Zach, Chairperson
jzach@wi-net.com, 715-572-4646
Status of Fish Stick Project
A total of 43 fish sticks were placed during winter 2021. WDNR fishery technicians and I have checked the fish sticks over the summer. Technicians reported to Greg Matzke, WDNR Fish Biologist, that they saw what is hoped for in such a project— lots of small fish and the life that supports them. The fish sticks have remained in the positions where they were placed. Trees are settling into bottom of lake, if trees remain in position thru second winter, it is unlikely they will move. The cables tying trees together are rusting, and they are expected to eventually rust away.
Some additional property owners along the northern portion of Lucerne are interested in hosting a fish stick. Greg Matzke has said it is ok to have some fish sticks less than 1000’ apart if we don’t have more than a half dozen within a mile of shoreline in this area of the lake. We would need to find donor trees and try for early spring placement. If you have an interest in a fish stick, and/or are willing to donate some medium sized hardwood trees, please let me know.
Fish stocking and Survey Update
Walleye: 7854 fingerlings were placed in Lucerne on Oct 5. They were 6” to 8” size (average 7.4”, 9 fish/pound). Cost of this was covered under the WDNR fishery budget. Walleye stocking has been occurring during odd-numbered years.
Mike Preul’s Mole Lake team will be completing their every-other-year Lucerne fish survey this month. Results will be used to assess whether there is significant natural Walleye reproduction occurring. Prior surveys have not been finding evidence of much occurring. Specific environmental reasons for poor natural Walleye reproduction are uncertain but this is a widespread trend across the northern Midwest US and into Canada. Natural reproduction is worse in more developed and clear water lakes. Goals of Lucerne walleye management may evolve towards maintaining the quality of a smaller population of Walleye rather than quantity in Lucerne if there is continued failure of natural reproduction thru efforts to maintain a population of forage fish.
Mike Preul’s survey will be studying the Cisco population and reproduction in Lucerne. Results will be used to determine if WDNR will attempt to do additional Cisco stocking in Lucerne in fall 2022. There have been several oral reports of people sighting what appear to be many small Cisco feeding upon small flies at the water’s surface. If you have observed this and have photos, please send them to me. The survey will also be monitoring the Smallmouth Bass population. Indications so far are that the new harvest regulations are having the desired effect of reducing their numbers in our lake for a better fish predator/prey balance.
Fish Mythbusters: Three Common Walleye Myths Your Lake Group Should Know About
Article submitted by Jim Zach
July 2021
Lake Lucerne Fish Stick Project Summary — March 2021
By Jim Zach
Chair, LLAA Fishery and Water Quality Committee
LLAA Board Member
715-572-4646
A total of 41 fish sticks have been created this winter along southern Lucerne shorelines by LLAA volunteers and Ken Mihalko utilizing his skid steer. Two additional fish sticks have been built along the northern Lucerne shoreline.
A couple years of planning culminated with a month of lake and Anthony Island preparatory efforts followed by a couple weekends of tree cutting, skidding and fish stick assembly that was completed on February 27. Trees were donated by the Novak family and came from Anthony Island.
Steve VanGrinsven, Tim Sprink, Jim Wienser, Kole Olson, Robert Pfeiffer, and Jake Wincapaw packed down slushy snow with snowmobiles and tracked vehicles. After areas froze solid, they cleared wide roads and tree staging areas on the ice during February. Some well-timed Arctic temperatures arrived in early February to thicken the ice. That was followed by a warm up that made for pleasant project working conditions for volunteers later that month.
Tractors, trucks, and UTVs driven by Roy Conrad, Steve VanGrinsven, John E. Novak, Tim Sprink, and Jim Wienser dragged trees off the island and across the ice, where Ken Mihalko picked them up and built the fish sticks.
Ken was very happy to finish the project! No injuries or equipment lost although we did have a couple close encounters with water.
Using pre-cut cables, the fish stick tree clusters were tied together with 3/16” aircraft cable and crimped. Mike Heim applies the muscle power.
WI DNR staff, Greg Matzke and Katie Renschen, successfully tried innovative anchoring-thru-ice techniques. Anchoring of the 5 tree fish sticks clusters into lake bottom was completed on March 3.
Additional volunteers included Dave Schlitz, Matt Steeno, Rick Hermus, Dave Ebben, Ryan Siggelkow, Joe Heilmann, Ken and John Novak, Jim Zach, Jenny Zach and Mackenzie.
Thanks to DNR Forester Liz Wood and Tim Sprink who connected our fish stick project idea to the Novak Family’s Anthony Island MFL tree harvest. Steve Kircher, Forest County Land and Water Conservation greatly assisted with the DNR permit application. The Forest County Potawatomi Community through the Town of Lincoln provided the financial grant to LLAA. WI DNR staff including Greg Matzke, Scott Van Egeren, Scott Toshner, Greg Sass and UW Extension’s Eric Olson and Lynn Markham all provided education, advice, and encouragement along the way.
What to expect now?
The hardwood tree clusters will take a year or two to become waterlogged and settle into the bottom. Some of the trees may leaf-out this spring. The woody material will provide carbon and habitat for the shoreline web-of-life. There will be critters ranging from the microscopic to the visible that will provide a food chain that includes fish and those who feed upon fish. This includes bigger fish, loons, eagles, and people.
Our WI DNR fish stick permit is valid till 2025, and we have some cabling/anchoring materials remaining. If you have a shoreline area to consider for a future fish stick, or a littoral tree fall that you would secured in place, please contact me.
A final thought since we did this project to improve fishing. There will be lots of opportunity to tangle fish hooks in all these branches. Please consider using nonleaded tackle — up to 50% of necropsied loons in studies have had lead poisoning from sinkers and jigs. A single small lead split shot sinker can be lethal to a loon after ingestion.
Fishery & Water Quality Committee Update, Fall 2020
By Jim Zach, Chair
The LLAA application for a WI DNR fish stick permit was approved October 28th. The application process was more complicated and took longer to gather all the necessary information than expected. The application was accomplished with the assistance of Steve Kircher, Forest County Land and Water Conservation Department, and Greg Matzke, WI DNR Fish Biologist for Forest and Florence Counties. Funding for this project has been provided through a grant from the Forest County Potawatomi Community through the Town of Lincoln. The revised design shown below includes up to 42 fish sticks along the shallower southern area of Lucerne bounded by Anthony Island and the DNR-owned islands. There are 6 private landowner host sites — 3 along the northern third of Lucerne, 1 on the eastern shore mid-lake, and 4 on the south end. Joe Heilmann volunteered to order and assemble the cables and anchoring materials over the next few weeks for securing the trees, so we’ll be prepared by January, 2021.
The remaining uncertainties at this point will be weather, ice conditions, COVID, and coordinating with the Novak family’s Managed Forest Law thinning of Anthony Island which is our source for the trees. Several volunteers (labor and equipment) have offered to assist, but for a project of this nature we can use additional offers. Please contact me if you are interested in helping, 715-572-4646. Given the warmer winters and heavier snowfalls Lake Lucerne has experienced in recent years, creation of ice roads would help assure the access to cut the trees on Anthony Island for the Novak family and for LLAA volunteers to drag trees to fish stick sites over the ice and assemble them in bundles of 5 trees. In particular, a skid steer with tire chains and a hydraulic grapple would be very helpful.
For more information, please review this link: https://p.widencdn.net/jcv7ac/Outreach_FishSticksBestPractices
Lake Lucerne Fish Stick Project Update
Jim Zach MD
Chair, Fish Habitat Committee
November 29, 2019
The LLAA Board approved moving forward with the proposal developed by the Fish Habitat Committee for creating multiple fish sticks along the shore of Lake Lucerne at our September 21 meeting. This project utilizes a grant provided by the Town of Lincoln and the Forest County Potawatomi Community, the assistance of our local DNR Fishery Team, and the generosity of Lake Lucerne property owners.
The goal is to promote our lake’s fishery by restoring an element fishery researchers are finding to be important for a healthy fishery — the woody carbon of submerged trees in the near shore environment. This is where life begins for some fish species, as well as providing food sources and habitat within the littoral zone’s cycle of life. The fish sticks will primarily be located in the shallower southern end of Lake Lucerne, but some can be established elsewhere along the shoreline.
This photo is a fish stick built a few years ago by the DNR’s Fishery Biologist’s Team in Keyes Lake, Florence County. A fish stick consists of 2-4 trees cabled to the shoreline and secured to the lake bottom with anchors and steel cables.
If you would like more information about this project, please refer to the LLAA website (http://www.lakelucernewi.com), and click on “Fish Habitat Committee” tabs on the lower left side of the LLAA webpage.
At this point, I have two requests of LLAA members:
- Are you are interested in hosting a fish stick along your shoreline?.
- Are you are interested in volunteering to personally help with this project?
Possible volunteer labor may be to help attach and detach tree dragging cables and temporarily attaching butt end of trees to the shore. The final cabling and anchoring of trees to create a fish stick would be done by the DNR’s Fishery Team.
If you are interested in one or both options, please let me know soon. Fishery Biologist Greg Matzke will be starting the design phase of this project soon. We will then need to submit a permit to the DNR. If the weather and lake ice conditions cooperate, we could begin placing trees later this winter. What doesn’t get done this winter can be continued next winter.
I can be contacted at: jzach@wi-net.com, or 715-572-4646.
The LLAA Board appointed a Fish Habitat Committee fall of 2018 to study options for creating additional habitat to promote the Lake Lucerne fishery. The Lake Association received a $10,000 grant from the Forest County Potawatomi through the Town of Lincoln for the purpose of improving fish habitat.
Members appointed include Mary Heilmann, Ed Mullaney, Jim
We met on Feb 21, 2019, and participants included 3 local fish biologists with knowledge of Lake Lucerne: Greg Matzke (DNR), Mike
A very interesting and detailed discussion of Lake Lucerne’s past and present status regarding the fishery occurred, and there have been additional discussions with the biologists and a Rhinelander DNR Water Resource Management Biologist who wasn’t able to be at the meeting, Scott Van Egeren. Rick Hermus has also had additional discussions with Mike
Lake Lucerne has some significant fishery ecosystem challenges.
The long term management goal of a self-sustaining walleye population has not been achieved over several decades of stocking walleye. The main obstacles seem to include lack of forage fish and the possible persistence of a rainbow smelt population in the deeper waters of the lake. The recent
There seems to be
There is an abundance of smallmouth bass in Lucerne which are also contending with a lack of adequate forage. This is resulting in stunting of their growth potential and depletion of crayfish forage. Bass are not the cause of the fishery problems leading to an abundance of bass, but by their numbers in Lucerne, they do create ecosystem problems. As Greg Matzke says, “All fish eat all fish.” As a response to try reducing the bass population, the DNR in 2018 eliminated the size limits on harvesting bass. An advantage for persons to consume smaller and younger bass and other predator
In the late 1980s/early 1990s, LLAA members constructed 128 fish cribs on the ice which dropped into 15-20 feet of water. Many were stuffed with
Two other options have come out of subsequent discussions:
1) Scott Van Egeren has offered to work with LLAA to have the DNR fully fund a habitat survey of the entire lake. This would be a complete survey of the lake’s current habitat — rocky/gravel areas, woody debris, and vegetation; so that we have a more science-based perspective to make decisions regarding habitat in the future. This information could also become part of a revised comprehensive lake management plan. Our last one was done in 2005, and those of us who have been around awhile, have seen how our lake is changing since then.
2) The DNR is also offering to assist in possibly making use of our FCP grant by doing a few tree drops or fish sticks in the shallower south end where there is warmer summer water and isn’t deeper water walleye habitat. The presence of coarse woody vegetation has been demonstrated to improve populations of invertebrates, which provides food and shelter for smaller fish, which provides forage for bigger fish including perch, bluegills, large/smallmouth bass, and northern. In a less developed shoreline than Lucerne, aging of trees and storms would be contributing more woody vegetation into the shallow littoral zone
It would be useful to know what the predator fish of Lake Lucerne are eating. It could provide evidence if smelt
Submitted by Jim Zach MD, 3/27/2019
Chair, LLAA Fish Habitat Committee
LLAA Board Member