Scugog walleye

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Originally Posted by Woodsman

It's not the weight of the ice but the weight of the snow on the ice which causes the ice to be pushed down.
Ice floats but can only hold so much weight before the ice's floatation is over powered by the weight on it.

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You beat me to it had to take a call before I could sent it lol.



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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Woodsman

It's not the weight of the ice but the weight of the snow on the ice which causes the ice to be pushed down.
Ice floats but can only hold so much weight before the ice's floatation is over powered by the weight on it.

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You are correct.

I highly doubt that Scugog will ever again support a quality Walleye fishery like it did in the past. The nail was first tapped into the coffin when zebra mussels entered the Kawarthas in the eighties. It quickly changed the entire primary productivity and trophic status of the lake. The Secchi disk reading (light penetration/water transparency) tripled in less than a decade as they effectively filtered the phytoplankton out of the lake. Scugog is a puddle, so now you have light penetration right to the bottom. Bad news for Walleye that prefer turbid habitat. Good news for anything that's a sight feeder. Then the nail got tapped in another inch when spiny water flea arrived. The entire primary productivity of the lake again dropped as this new invasive zooplankter efficiently predated our native zooplankton . If like many of the other studied Kawartha Lakes, they were so effective that many of the key native cladocerans, copepods, etc are now totally absent. This was the base rung on your food chain for just about everything that swims in the lake. Give it a few harder taps when Bluegill arrived, adding another competitor to the food chain. The final, and arguably the biggest, nail drive occurred when Black Crappie invaded. To give you an idea how substantial this is, all you have to do is look at the OMNR spring/early summer trap netting data starting in the early 90's. The density is now so high they were getting something like 4200 crappie per lift in a six foot NSCIN trap net!! Almost hard to envision. Imagine the direct competition all all life stages now for anything swimming in the lake. Better still, imagine the level of predation that occurs with a crappie density like that. Regardless of spawning success, with a crappie density like this you'll be lucky to get any walleye recruitment. A newly hatched walleye fry would probably have a better chance at the Lotto 649 versus beating the odds and surviving predation to age one. Add to this 15 years of unregulated angling when the writing was on the wall and the fishery was in decline. No wonder the MNR couldn't catch hardly a single Walleye the last time they did BSM (Broad Scale Monitoring) gill netting on the lake. In hindsight, poor lake Scugog had it's fate sealed when the first set of Trent Severn navigational locks were built in Bobcaygeon (something like 1829). Maybe she'll now be known as a world class crappie destination!

Agree with all your comments Fenlon. World class carp fishing on Scubog as well.

Fenalon.. excellent post.. if only there was something that could be done to fix it ..

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Originally Posted by Fenelon

I highly doubt that Scugog will ever again support a quality Walleye fishery like it did in the past. The nail was first tapped into the coffin when zebra mussels entered the Kawarthas in the eighties. It quickly changed the entire primary productivity and trophic status of the lake. The Secchi disk reading (light penetration/water transparency) tripled in less than a decade as they effectively filtered the phytoplankton out of the lake. Scugog is a puddle, so now you have light penetration right to the bottom. Bad news for Walleye that prefer turbid habitat. Good news for anything that's a sight feeder. Then the nail got tapped in another inch when spiny water flea arrived. The entire primary productivity of the lake again dropped as this new invasive zooplankter efficiently predated our native zooplankton . If like many of the other studied Kawartha Lakes, they were so effective that many of the key native cladocerans, copepods, etc are now totally absent. This was the base rung on your food chain for just about everything that swims in the lake. Give it a few harder taps when Bluegill arrived, adding another competitor to the food chain. The final, and arguably the biggest, nail drive occurred when Black Crappie invaded. To give you an idea how substantial this is, all you have to do is look at the OMNR spring/early summer trap netting data starting in the early 90's. The density is now so high they were getting something like 4200 crappie per lift in a six foot NSCIN trap net!! Almost hard to envision. Imagine the direct competition all all life stages now for anything swimming in the lake. Better still, imagine the level of predation that occurs with a crappie density like that. Regardless of spawning success, with a crappie density like this you'll be lucky to get any walleye recruitment. A newly hatched walleye fry would probably have a better chance at the Lotto 649 versus beating the odds and surviving predation to age one. Add to this 15 years of unregulated angling when the writing was on the wall and the fishery was in decline. No wonder the MNR couldn't catch hardly a single Walleye the last time they did BSM (Broad Scale Monitoring) gill netting on the lake. In hindsight, poor lake Scugog had it's fate sealed when the first set of Trent Severn navigational locks were built in Bobcaygeon (something like 1829). Maybe she'll now be known as a world class crappie destination!

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That's an excellent well-researched post. Not only is Scugog world class for Crappie,Blue Gill,but,they provide lots of feed for giant Muskie that this lake has always been noted for. If Trent-Severn would pay more attention to maintaining water levels throughout the year,maybe more waterfowl hunters would be attracted to the area,also. Tourism in the area has taken a terrific hit for the last few years. Some political lobbying at the federal level is certainly what's needed to influence the decision makers at T-S. It's past time to read the bureaucrats the riot act.

T .. the best waterfowl hunting grounds in the area are privately owned.

We have been lobbying the Trent Water Way system for years and it has fallen on deft ears. Unfortunately it's Lake Scugog that feeds the Trent system. But on the other hand we've been told we loose more through evaporation than anything else, and with Scugog being such a shallow lake to begin with it's more noticeable..

Scugog is only part of the feed. Canal, Mitchell, Balsam and Cameron are others that feed into the system.

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Originally Posted by fishermccann

T .. the best waterfowl hunting grounds in the area are privately owned.

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Yep,it's called The Syndicate on the southeast shore of the east arm south of Cesarea. Private property extends out into the lake (flooded farmland). It's guarded jealously,but,the owners allow fishing all summer (excellent Bass and Crappie),but,once fall rolls around,the "No Trespassing" signs come out.