Springfield Lake 6/11

[Bassmaster21]

Sorry for the late report but i went out Thursday morning and the fishing was awful. Caught 2 on the buzzbait and 1 on a texas rig. Where did the lilly pads come from? They are new as of the last few years and I have struggled to catch fish ever since they started growing in the lake. Any thoughts?

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Lilly's have been around for years, i think they used to put somthing on them to kill a lot of them, from what others have told me. But there have always been a lot in the lake, Makes for some fun frog fishing

[Bassmaster21]

hmmm... before last year I have only seen a very few lillys.. From 2008-13 the main lake area barely had any. Putting stuff on them to kill them must have been what they were doing then. They do make for fun frog fishing but they are killing my fun buzzbait fishing

[JRay]

Prior to treatment, all of the flat East of the two power plant pumps were covered in pads. They were causing issues clogging the pumps so they began spraying. At first they sprayed paths in the pads and it made them phenomenal. The next year all were sprayed and in my humble unprofessional opinion the fishing suffered. Those pad stems/roots make exceptional spawning areas in a lake with primarily mud bottom.

[JOBurke]

I read a report on MDC a few months back about the electofishing on springfield lake. That said since they started killing off the grass and pads in the lake the number of fish and quality of the fish in the lake has dropped dramatically. They should and need to place some fish attractors and other fish friendly structure in the lake. I always thought a dock path from the boathouse thru all the grass and pads on that large flat to the  old grain silo maybe with a few fishing docks branched off of it would be pretty cool.

[lollygagger]

The lake needs to be dredged (scraped) and have a complete makeover....there is 59 years of muck on the bottom.....the purpose of the lake was to provide fresh water to cool the coal powered power plant owned by City Utilities......City Utilities is a private business.....and their contract included taking care of the lake....that control was passed onto the park board,,,,,Now the lake has flooded twice this year from the freak "100 year flood" which we had 2 of so far this year.....which affected highway traffic on federaly maintained highways.....(read taxpayered funded) City Utilities is not taking care of the lake, the parkboard is not doing it either....the boat ramp got wiped out during the "100 year floods" perfect time to dredge the lake....

 

[Flysmallie]

You want Springfield to do something that might improve fishing? Good luck with that. The park board has been doing all they can to decrease fishing in this town for the last 15 years.