Badger Creek

[63110]

Have not heard anything about it lately.  Might head over Friday if storm is not too bad.  Anyone doing any good?

[vexaholic]

Have not fished Badger since the tourney. Caught alot of dinks so done alot of sorting to get a respectable 15 fish limit. Heard this from a Scheels fishing guy. They are planing on draining Badger because of shad problem. Anyone here this??

[Big fish tuck]

Anyone been out there lately

[toothfish]

They are planing on draining Badger because of shad problem. Anyone hear this??

Yes ... I heard the same thing from a fairly reliable source.

[MidnightRambler]

I've not heard anything about draining Badger Creek, but completely draining the lake to cure a shad problem seems like overkill in a lake that produces nice crappie and bluegill. Are you sure the reliable sources were talking about Badger Creek by Winterset, and not Badger Lake up in Wright County?

Around Iowa City, we have a perpetual shad problem in Lake Macbride, and one symptom of the shad problem is a lack of decent-sized bluegills, who compete with shad for food. I fish Badger Creek two or three times a year, and I haven't noticed any size problems with the bluegill in there.

There are shad in Badger Creek, but I've not seen anything to indicate that they are so numerous that it would be best to completely drain the lake, killing all fish at a pretty hefty price tag while ending fishing there for a couple years.

If Badger Creek is the target of shad reduction, perhaps the IDNR plans a partial draining next winter that will kill most of the shad while sparing the panfish. Shad in Iowa are near the northern edge of their range, which is why we see lots of dead shad floating around at ice out.  Dropping lake levels in the winter stresses shad out and kills them, but you can do so while leaving enough water for the bluegill, crappie, and bass to survive. This method does not work on carp and bullhead, who can handle tougher winter conditions than most gamefish.

[toothfish]

Badger creek (south west of DesMoines -> Winterset)
 I know of some bass fisherman that are on the lake allot during open water. They tell me the shad jump in front of their boat in huge numbers as they move down the shore casting at LM bass.
 Shad won't kill the existing population of gills but will destroy any future population as they devour the food supply used be the pan fish fry.
 One day at the ramp they spoke with a DNR officer that said Badger was being considered for renovation which would include shad eradication. How this will be accomplished is still up in the air.
 
 My question was "HOW do these fish get started in a lake that has no connection to the DesMoines river ? The bass fishermen claim they are used as bait. I asked "By bass fishermen?" "NO" they say.... "by cat-fishermen!"
 I have no idea ... but they got in there somehow and I can't go along with the duck feet picking up Gizzard shad eggs school of thought.

[therealjt]

Ahquabi has a golden shiner problem and they say its from people dumping their minnows. Was sitting over a brush pile and the flashes lit up and it was fourteen inch shiners.

[toothfish]

Interesting.  I found this on the Iowa DNR site :
    Golden shiners are an excellent bait fish, used either alive or dead. They are used extensively in fisheries resource management programs as forage fish.

[toothfish]

Also found this on the DNR site :
 
Gizzard shad 
  Dense shad populations provide considerable forage as young for other predatory fishes, and their schooling behavior during the first year make them easy prey for larger fish. Some controversy surrounds this forage value, however, as shad quickly outgrow the vulnerable forage size and rapidly assume pest levels in some closed watersheds or when predator populations are insufficient to control their numbers. Evidence is quite strong that shad compete with young bluegill for food items, and when populations reach very dense levels, bluegill survival is inevitably lowered. At that time, eradication of the entire fish population and game fish species restocking, particularly in small lakes seems to be the only alternative in restoring acceptable fishing.

[MidnightRambler]

The key word may be that the IDNR is "considering" a renovation at Badger Creek. Hopefully things aren't that bad, or don't get that bad.

Cat guys do sometimes use live shad as bait, despite the fact that it is illegal to transport live gizzard shad from one water to another. Cut (obviously dead) shad is another popular cat bait, but that would not transport live shad from one water to another.

When I first moved to Iowa City, I talked to two catfishermen from west of here somewhere who brought some small yellow bass with them to use as bait in Macbride--at the time I did not know how destructive yellow bass could be in a small lake down here. Luckily they did not apparently dump those scourges in the lake when they were done.

The "eggs sticking to duck feet" explanation is popular around the local bait shops, but there is no evidence to suggest it could be true. Fish eggs cannot survive being out of water for any length of time.

I wouldn't totally let all the bass guys off the hook, though. When Macbride was partially drained eight and nine years ago in the winters to kill off the shad and add more habitat, I ran in to a couple of self-described bass fishermen who were angry at the IDNR for killing the shad. These two hoped someone would put shad back in the lake to provide a forage species for bass. Shad popped up in Macbride soon after the renovation, and are once more thick in there, but since it wasn't a total drawdown it is likely some survived.

South of here, the IDNR totally drained Lake Darling last winter, in part to get rid of shad. This spring, as the lake started to refill, guess what showed up in Darling? Shad. Maybe someone thought they were doing the lake a favor. I heard there were people fishing out there who apparently didn't know about the renovation project--maybe they dumped their extra shad in the lake when they didn't catch anything. Maybe some of the die-hard "I hate the DNR" types did it just to spite the state. Whatever happened, the state had to drain the lake and start from scratch a second time.

Another problem with shad in Macbride, in addition to competing with bluegill for food, is that they make angling for other gamefish more difficult, especially in the winter. I can find walleye through the ice on Macbride fairly easily, and look at them on my camera all day, but good luck getting them to bite when the water around them is filled with dead and dying shad.

[Rehtnug185vx]

Ahquabi has a golden shiner problem and they say its from people dumping their minnows. Was sitting over a brush pile and the flashes lit up and it was fourteen inch shiners.

I will second this   I caught several out of there this season


people just dont understand the side effects of what can come about from dumping there minnows into any lake   big problem

[cubby]

From talking to the local DNR sounds like they want to do something to Badger, "Badger is close to Des Moines and people deserve better than what it  is."  Not only do they need to fix the shad problem but the run off is terrible.  You get one rain storm and the lake is chocolate milk and all farmland drains into the lake.  I have fished Badger a lot, the last couple of years the panfish keep getting thinner.  The crappie are very narrow and genetically are poor.  Yes, some nice crappie are caught but it could be much better.  The gill quality has gotten bad in the last two years in my opinion. 

[TRCrappie]

Live in Des Moines and never fish Badger.  The quality of the fish you catch does not seem to be worth it.  Would rather drive an extra half hour or hour than fish Big Creek or Badger.  Hope they do drain it and get the number of fish in check.  You can catch bluegills and crappies in numbers but not in size.  Hopefully if they drain it they will put something in their to manage their numbers more.  Don't mind not catching fish that often if the ones you do catch are nice.