Information On Bv Lakes

[EddieRay]

Thanks for the additional info, bfishn and Quillback. It is much appreciated. Feathers and Fins mentioned Beaver Lake which I have never fished. If we find time we may venture over to it as well.

[Guest]

Bass are the most pressured species in the village

Redear fishing is really good

Catfish is the most overlooked but most plentiful

No wake lakes:

Norwood is a total waste of time.

Rayburn has the highest population of bass per acre. albeit very small

Brittany has trophy bass and trout, but its really deep and gives me fits.

Avalon is the biggest no wake lake and most overlooked of the larger lakes.

I catch my biggest bass when Im bream fishing in May/June

'Big Lakes'

Windsor is the best all around lake

Loch Lomond was the best but its hasn't been its old self

Lake Ann is very fertile and I haven't fished it lately

The biggest problem nowadays is that mother nature & the POA keeps jacking with the water quality.

Avalon was loaded with floating green scum the other day, worst Ive ever seen it.

I wish they would just let these lakes do their thing but

people complain and they dry to keep it free of aquatic grass, the scum can go.

this is the biggest problem in my opinion

After huge rains, some of the lakes have a major plankton problem and I wouldn't advise putting my hands in that nasty stuff.

Norwood has a warning out right now, so stay away from that cess pool.

Good luck

[Guest]

I'll give you my 2 cents:

As far as best lake for big bass - Hard to say, I saw a photo of a 12.5 lb. bass caught in Brittany this spring, Brittany certainly has some big bass and is not too bad for average size fish either. Windsor is a good lake for big bass, but getting any over 8 lbs. is tough, there are decent numbers of 4 - 7lb. bass in Windsor. Avalon also has some big bass, my personal best, 9.5 lbs. (approximately) came from Avalon. Lake Ann also has some good bass in the 4 - 7 lb. range.

Numbers? You can catch a bunch of 10-12 inch bass on Avalon. Windsor and Ann are good for numbers and better average size. I have not fished Loch Lomond much in the last few years, but it has decent numbers of bass also.

Crappie? Crappie fishing is tough in the BV lakes, lots of pressure. If you can go out and catch 6 keeper crappie in a day, you're doing darn good. If I had to choose a lake for crappie, I'd probably go to Avalon, lots of brush piles and they stocked several thousand fingerlings in there a couple of years ago and they should be around keepers sized by now.

The lakes are fairly murky right now from the rains we received this spring, but unless there's a gully washer before you get here, they should be in great shape by the end of May.

When you get close to coming down here, feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll tell you what's going on.

Another option for your wife, if she likes panfish, is there are some good bluegills (8-10") in Lakes Ann, Windsor, and Loch Lomond. I like to use a #8 Eagle Claw longshank panfish hook, and a split shot (no bobber), use a redworm hooked one tijme through the middle, or a cricket and fish flats 6 -10 feet deep.

I didn't know you liked to panfish, QB.

Ann and Avalon are my favorites, but I would like to figure out the Windsor bluegills.

Let me know when you get on the Gills

[Quillback]

Trophy, I haven't fished for them in about 3 years, panfish that is. I don't know If I'll do it this year, I just spend too much time bass fishing.

A couple of years ago Darrell had shocked up some fish and had them in a washtub by the Windsor dam for some school kids that were there for a field trip. He had some BIG redears, I think one of them was 14", probably weighed 1.5 lbs. They are in there, but those big redears are tough to figure out, I can only catch them early in the spring.

[bfishn]

Old-timers used to call redear "shellcrackers" for their taste for small mollusks, shell & all. 20+ years ago, when Windsor and Avalon were pretty mossy, tiny crawdads (<1.5") were the ticket. When they got rid of the moss, crawdad populations nosedived (comparatively), and the redear seem to like mussels & snails just as well now. If you can find a live mussel shallow enough to grab it, do so, and you'll be in redear bait for the day. Cut the meat into pea-sized baits and fish right on the bottom, moving the bait every ~30 seconds in small twitches. Redear country is also stump country, so take plenty of hooks.

Ralph Fourt claimed Avalon as the best redear lake, but I could never pin down locations there like I did on Windsor. On the latter, in the Tanyard arm, there's a barely-definable creek channel lined with short stumps, starting on the south bank, cutting to the north bank at about 9-10FOW, then returning to the south bank at about 14-15ft, where it stays almost to the fork. Where it's not on the bank, the creek is pretty hard to follow until you learn it, but worth the effort doing so. I used to make maps for folks long before I had a computer, using a pantograph to enlarge a pre-impoundment topo I had and copied on a blueprint machine, but I'm sure they're long gone, that was in the '80s.

Until you've done it a lot, targeting BV redear isn't particularly suited to 30 minute "I'll try it for a little bit" strategies. Bluegill get nearly as big, are way more numerous and easier to find/catch.

Oh... and don't be surprised if a big cat smokes your panfish rig. :-)

[Guest]

Old-timers used to call redear "shellcrackers" for their taste for small mollusks, shell & all. 20+ years ago, when Windsor and Avalon were pretty mossy, tiny crawdads (<1.5") were the ticket. When they got rid of the moss, crawdad populations nosedived (comparatively), and the redear seem to like mussels & snails just as well now. If you can find a live mussel shallow enough to grab it, do so, and you'll be in redear bait for the day. Cut the meat into pea-sized baits and fish right on the bottom, moving the bait every ~30 seconds in small twitches. Redear country is also stump country, so take plenty of hooks.

Ralph Fourt claimed Avalon as the best redear lake, but I could never pin down locations there like I did on Windsor. On the latter, in the Tanyard arm, there's a barely-definable creek channel lined with short stumps, starting on the south bank, cutting to the north bank at about 9-10FOW, then returning to the south bank at about 14-15ft, where it stays almost to the fork. Where it's not on the bank, the creek is pretty hard to follow until you learn it, but worth the effort doing so. I used to make maps for folks long before I had a computer, using a pantograph to enlarge a pre-impoundment topo I had and copied on a blueprint machine, but I'm sure they're long gone, that was in the '80s.

Until you've done it a lot, targeting BV redear isn't particularly suited to 30 minute "I'll try it for a little bit" strategies. Bluegill get nearly as big, are way more numerous and easier to find/catch.

Oh... and don't be surprised if a big cat smokes your panfish rig. :-)

That's some great insight, bfishn!

Tell me a little more about the lakes when they had grass!

Oh and I like your mapping technique.

[bfishn]

Well, it wasn't grass, it was moss. The upper ends were choked with it out to 6-8 foot depths, at times it was a chore to get through it to the ramps. If you got into it with a hook, you brought in a gallon of the junk. It even had a distintive smell on a warm summer night. Real PITA, but an excellent nursery for 'gills, bass, and especially crawdads. I did a lot of catfishing then, and the monster hardshell craws were the ticket. I could stand on the whistle at Chelsea and get 2-3 dozen of those "fresh water lobsters" in a single toss of the net. I love crawdads, and at times was tempted to just take them to eat instead of using them for bait, but many nights I turned a pound or two of 'dads into 100+ lbs of catfish, so it was really a no-brainer. Best night I had was a limit of 10 for 160lbs... two 80lb stringers, all rod-n-reeled. I'll see if I can find a picture of that mess. I was wore plumb out. Back then the Centerton hatchery dumped their old brood channels in Windsor every year or two, it was rare to see one under 6-8lbs.

But some residents whined about the moss, so the POA bought several loads of grass carp. That didn't work. Then they finally took the AGFC advice and began a fertilization program. That did the job, with fertility up, the resulting phytoplankton bloom reduced light penetration to where the moss couldn't grow, and fish production boomed as well. Then some residents whined some more because the water was no longer clear and pretty, and fertilization became spotty and poorly controlled. I knew some of the Lakes crew then, and as often as not, they'd dump half a boatload of fertilizer in one spot, then find a place to hide and drink. I think it's finally settled into some semblance of compromise now, and having a staff bio on board has to be a good thing. It's also a job I wouldn't take for any amount of money.

[Guest]

Well, it wasn't grass, it was moss. The upper ends were choked with it out to 6-8 foot depths, at times it was a chore to get through it to the ramps. If you got into it with a hook, you brought in a gallon of the junk. It even had a distintive smell on a warm summer night. Real PITA, but an excellent nursery for 'gills, bass, and especially crawdads. I did a lot of catfishing then, and the monster hardshell craws were the ticket. I could stand on the whistle at Chelsea and get 2-3 dozen of those "fresh water lobsters" in a single toss of the net. I love crawdads, and at times was tempted to just take them to eat instead of using them for bait, but many nights I turned a pound or two of 'dads into 100+ lbs of catfish, so it was really a no-brainer. Best night I had was a limit of 10 for 160lbs... two 80lb stringers, all rod-n-reeled. I'll see if I can find a picture of that mess. I was wore plumb out. Back then the Centerton hatchery dumped their old brood channels in Windsor every year or two, it was rare to see one under 6-8lbs.

But some residents whined about the moss, so the POA bought several loads of grass carp. That didn't work. Then they finally took the AGFC advice and began a fertilization program. That did the job, with fertility up, the resulting phytoplankton bloom reduced light penetration to where the moss couldn't grow, and fish production boomed as well. Then some residents whined some more because the water was no longer clear and pretty, and fertilization became spotty and poorly controlled. I knew some of the Lakes crew then, and as often as not, they'd dump half a boatload of fertilizer in one spot, then find a place to hide and drink. I think it's finally settled into some semblance of compromise now, and having a staff bio on board has to be a good thing. It's also a job I wouldn't take for any amount of money.

That moss is what Im calling scum.

Avalon is loaded with that stuff right now.

Its floating in certain areas and completed matted up.

Usually it grows on the bottom and on logs and rocks, but this stuff is floating.

I had no idea that crawdads lived in the crap.

So, I was wrong maybe its good for the ecosystem.

The whole fertilizer, grass carp, weed boat idea is stupid but I understand trying to appease a few residents.

It seems like chasing your tail though.

Windsor had stalky vegetation growing a couple summers back,

I call it angel hair, or milfoil

They used the weed harvesting boat and rakes to get rid of it all.

Is it true that lilly pads existed back in those shallow pockets?

It sure would be a good spot for a lily pad field.

[EddieRay]

Are there any maps available for any of the BV lakes and, if so, from where can they be obtained?

[Quillback]

There is a Loch Lomond map and you can pick it up at the POA office, it ain't free BTW but I forget what it is priced at. They were supposed to come out with maps of some of the other lakes, but I haven't heard of any others, as far as I know Loch Lomond it the one and only.