Fishing

WALLEYES

Lake Beulah has been designated as a sentinel lake for the Wisconsin Walleye Initiative (WWI), giving it a higher priority for walleye stocking and monitoring. The WWI stocking program is an unprecedented investment in walleye stocking via state and private hatcheries. The program is expected to result in stocking of fall fingerling walleyes across the state, which should produce fishable and, in some lakes, sustainable walleye populations for years to come.

CISCO

On August 23, volunteers from Camp Charles Allis, the Lake Beulah Protective and Improvement Association, a Madison fish research team and a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) crew used specialized netting to find out if any Cisco fish still live in the lake. Lake Beulah, being a deeper lake, is one of only a few southeast Wisconsin lakes that could support a population of Cisco fish. While the DNR knows that Cisco lived in the lake in the past, the last two attempts to find them proved unsuccessful and it is now believed there is no longer a population of Cisco in Lake Beulah as the water has warmed to the point the fish cannot survive. The Cisco is a deep and cold-water loving fish that cannot tolerate warmer waters. It can grow to around 20” in length.

The crew set out two sets of nets, one in the deepest part of the upper lake and one on the other side of the channel in about 50 feet of water. The  nets are set vertically in deep water, with large floats at the surface. The size of the openings in the nets vary in order to trap different size fish. Nearly all the fish were dead upon being reeled up. After extricating them from the net, basic data was recorded. Netted species were crappie, large mouth bass, bluegill and one nice sized northern pike. Final survey results are pending.
Photos courtesy of Tom Bernhardt, Camp Charles Allis

Fishes of Wisconsin
by George C. Becker