Flowage friends complete bluegill stocking

By RICHARD JENKINS

rjenkins@yourdailyglobe.com

CAREY, Wis. - There are more panfish in the Gile Flowage after the Friends of the Gile Flowage completed the second and final year of its bluegill stocking Saturday.

Approximately 5,600 to 6,000 bluegill minnows were released into the flowage, Friends of the Gile Flowage President Cathy Techtmann said.

"Bluegills are really important to the flowage. They eat spiny water fleas and we have an infestation here," Techtmann said. While combatting the invasive species is important, Techtmann joked the fish are also fun to catch.

"Everybody loves panfish - they're good for kids, parents, grandparents," she said, laughing.

During last year's stocking, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist Zach Lawson said bluegills preferred targeting the spiny water fleas.

"We selected bluegills because they have a tendency to prefer the invasive spiny water flea over other diet items, and more so than other panfish species in the Gile," Lawson said last May. "Because panfish levels are at very low density in (the Gile), that kind of releases the predation on spiny water fleas and so you can get them at really high (levels) during the summer."

Techtmann said Saturday's stocking brings the total number of bluegills released in the flowage to close to 11,000; with approximately 5,000 fish released last year.

The stocking effort was funded largely by donations, Techtmann said, but the group matched all donations with money raised through the collection of dues.

Stocking the flowage is just one prong of the strategy to increase the Gile's panfish population.

As the flowage is basically a large rock bowl, Techtmann said protective habitat is also being improved.

The DNR has also been working with Xcel Energy to fell trees along the flowage's shore to provided the cover necessary for these younger fish that can't take advantage of the fish cribs located in deeper water.

"In the Gile Flowage, when the water drops a little bit, there's not much near shore, complex habitat," Lawson said in March. "So that leaves very little refuge for small fish."

The hope is the tree tops will provide hiding spots for the smaller bluegills to escape some of the flowage's larger predators.

"(The Gile Flowage) is really a predator-dominated system, and so if you just put bluegills in (it won't last)," Lawson said last year. "We've tried that in the past, and it improves the fishery for a short period of time but then there is just very little refuge for these little bluegill from these predators - mainly walleye."

Lawson said stocking the flowage during spring further ensures the higher water levels provide extra brush and other cover to provide protection for the fish.

The third prong of the strategy is protecting the fish from overfishing.

"Obviously these are just baby fish," Techtmann said. "We want them to grow in habitat where we can get a more sustainable population."

Part of that protection was a proposed rule change to the daily bag limits for panfish in the Gile, which was approved at the Wisconsin Conservation Congress' annual spring meeting in April.

The measure - which passed 22 to 2 in Iron County and 2,181 to 730 statewide - calls for reducing the daily limit on the number of panfish kept from 25 to 10.

The thought behind the measure was the flowage is able to produce good-sized panfish yet a larger population would be beneficial.

"We've got very large panfish in here, but we don't have a lot of smaller, younger stock," Techtmann said. "So we're trying to rebuild that."