January 2013 Newsletter Robby Limerick - - Lake Manager. LAKE LU Fishing Newslette

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1 January 2013 Newsletter Robby Limerick - - Lake Manager LAKE LU Fishing Newslette

2 January March May July September November Inches of Rainfall Three year Rainfall Comparison Monthly Rainfall Monthly Rainfall 2011 Monthly Rainfall 2 0 January 2013 Fish Report Number of Anglers Number of Pounds of Number of Pounds of Bass Bass Bream Bream Monthly Previous Calendar YTD

3 January March May July September November Number of Anglers per month lb/bass Average lb/acre Average lb/bream lb/acre Average Average Formula: Pounds of fish (lbs) divided by number of fish = lb/fish average Three year Monthly Angler Attendance Comparison 2013 Angler Attendance 2012 Angler Attendance 2011 Angler Attendance

4 January March May July September November Number of Bream caught Number of Bass Caught Three year Bass Harvest Comparison Number of Bass Harvested 2012 Number of Bass Harvested 2011 Number of Bass Harvested Three year Bream Harvest Comparison Number of Bream Harvested 2012 Number of Bream Harvested 2011 Number of Bream Harvested Monthly Harvest Comparison Month January 2013 January 2012 January 2011 Number of Anglers Number of Bass Pounds of Bass Number of Bream Pounds of Bream

5 Calendar Year-to-Date Year Number of Anglers Number of Bass Pounds of Bass Number of Bream P Fish Averages (Year-to-Date) Month/Year January 2013 January 2012 January 2011 lb/bass Average lb/acre Average lb/bream Average lb/acre Average

6 Lake Conditions Welcome to the beginning of another angling year at Lake LU. I have made some minor changes to the newsletter with mainly a new background image and new photographs to accompany the headings for the sections. Some people that receive the newsletter comment that the thing is jumbled up at the very beginning. Some readers say that it takes a lot of paper to print the newsletter. The reason is because I write the newsletter in a web layout view. If you want to see the newsletter in the format that I write it, simply go to the VIEW section in Word and select the web layout icon. This will change it over to a continuous flowing page. I like this format because I can make it seem like a webpage when it s really not. If you have any problems send me an and I ll try something new.

7 As you can see from the above photo, the lake is muddy and at full elevation. It s been a cold January so far this year. We got 8.1 inches of rainfall for the month. We ended the year 2012 with a total of 58.1 inches of rainfall making the overall year a wet one. The average yearly rainfall is inches. The 8.1 inches of rainfall we got for January has really changed the lake. I was on the pier the other day and I was discussing the lake color with Mark Grant. The lake actually had a good bit of green color to the water. This was surprising because it was following a cloudy weather section in which the sun did not shine for an 11 day duration. I talked with Jay Haffner around this time on the phone and Jay said that Dallas County Lake also had some nice color. Secchi disc readings indicate around 28 inches of visibility. The lake cycles from muddy to clear following rainfall events. Water temperature at the surface is 56º F at the surface. Bass Fishing (I m going to leave the eagle photo that I took from the Internet up with the bass fishing heading for the entire newsletter year.) I m wondering what to do with the Bass Harvest Chart. We are apparently going to have the bass harvest closed for at least the first six months of this year, if not for the entire year. What information would bass

8 anglers like to see in a bass chart? Any input would be appreciated. If I can t decide what to do I will just simply take out the bass data chart until we reopen bass fishing. BASS HARVEST IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. NO BASS OF ANY SIZE MAY BE REMOVED FROM THE WATERS OF LAKE LU. BASS ANGLERS MAY CATCH AND RELEASE BASS WITH BARBLESS HOOKS ONLY. BARBLESS HOOKS ARE SIMPLY HOOKS THAT HAVE HAD THE BARB TURNED DOWN WITH A SET OF PLIERS.

9 Brandon Rivers caught a nice fat 6.5 pound, 22 inch bass one day after class. Nice fish Brandon!! All bass are released.

10 One cold, cold January morning Mark called the office and said that he had a really big bass. I drove down to the lake and weighed it and it was 8.75 pounds and was 24 inches long. The bass are very fat from feeding on all the shiners in the lake. Mark has a good write up in his section for this month. This bass was released. We do want to continue to remind anglers that they must fish with hooks that have the barb turned down. These deputy lake assistants do an excellent job of following this regulation, but we will watch and see what happens when the angling public returns in the spring. I want to encourage bass anglers to call the Lake Office and get Tim or me to come to the lake and take your photo with the big bass you catch. We want to see how fat the big ones are growing and also want to send you home with a keepsake photo, however all bass MUST BE RELEASED BACK TO LAKE LU. We are going to implement a new angling violations policy this year to help protect our shiner eating bass population. You do not want to get put on the naughty list! Remember, I have spies everywhere!!!

11 Mark s Remarks (by UWA student Mark Grant) January was slow at first, but fishing really picked up at the end. I spent a great deal of time early in the month just exploring the lake, searching for different types of structure and probing areas for all different types of cover. Later on in the last weekend of January, I had a great Saturday. My biggest was the 8.75 pound fish pictured in the newsletter. The big bass was caught on a Rapala BX Minnow. I used a slow, steady retrieve. Other hot productive lures are the Rapala MaxRap and the Mirrolure Catch Fish from 3 to 5 pounds are plentiful. One huge tip I can offer is to use your lures as a fish finder. Sometimes you don t see the shiners on the surface, but you can find their depth using lures. I start with subsurface walkers, which travel 6 to maybe 1.5 below the surface. If I can t feel the lure hitting shiners, I know I need to go deeper. Next, I throw a lure of mine that runs 2-3 down. If I still can t feel them, last comes a lure that runs 3-5 down. They are seldom deeper than 5 feet. Whatever depth the shiners are at is the depth the bass will be feeding at, and is therefore the depth your lure needs to be at. Good luck to all anglers, God bless!

12 Bream Fishing Bream fishing has been GANGBUSTERS considering how cold the month has been! We had lower than average angler attendance but look at the number of bream that they caught! They caught 351 bream for pounds! Last year bream anglers didn t do that good until March! If this is any indication of the forecast model for the 2013 bluegill harvest, it should be a predictor that bream angling will be off the chart! Ryan Harris caught about 250 of the bream last month on some of the coldest, dreariest days imaginable. Ryan says that the best bait to use is little tiny red worms fished on the bottom. I ll try to include more bream photos in next month s newsletter.

13 Additional Lake Information January begins our dormant season prescribed fire/controlled burn season. If you are hiking the nature trails and discover a burned out area, it is our handiwork.

14 Above is a photo of a patch of native Blue Flag Iris that we transplanted near the Civic Center. I noticed that the dead grass was smothering the iris so Tim and I burned it off. The iris did not mind the fire and they are now getting ample sunshine. I have to put up a sign here to remind visitors to please do not pick the flowers.

15 Nature Trails The hiking trails are in excellent condition thanks to the gravel that was put down last fall. Here s my big helper working to smooth out the holes in the gravel path that washed out with the 8.1 inches of rain. It s a good thing we lined

16 the path with cedar logs before the winter break or else the lake would now have a nice gravel bottom in it. Here s my big helper working to staple down some no skid strips on all the nature trail footbridges.

17 I called the City of Livingston and requested that they bring me all the old Christmas trees that were used in city wide holiday decorations.

18 Here they are in their new home. Years ago a big chunk of seaweed floated in and got lodged at the pier and bream anglers must have caught 1500 bream out of the Sargasso. By placing these trees here I think that perhaps they would land fish and not pull the trees out on land. We ll see what happens.

19 The boys and I walked down to the pier one day to try out the new tackle that Santa Claus had given them for Christmas.

20 This is the original version of the photo that I used for the background of the newsletter. Look at all that good luck clover in the picture!

21 It was a cold and frosty morn when I went to open the lake one day last month. It really looked like a winter wonderland.

22 If anyone wants any advice on fishing Lake LU, please call me at or me at Feel free to visit Lake LU s website at Thank you, Robby Limerick Lake Manager Lake LU lrr@uwa.edu Alabama Flag -- hypeandfail.blogspot.com American Flag --independentrealist.blogspot.com American Bald Eagle alejandrosportfolio.freeiz.com Great Blue Heron -- flickriver.com All other photos by R.Limerick unless otherwise noted.