In this episode of NDO Podcast we’re hole hopping around Jamestown Reservoir in pursuit of crappies. Bruce Kreft, Department conservation and communications division chief, steps in as co-host to visit with BJ Kratz, southeast fisheries district supervisor, about this renowned crappie fishery.
Cayla: Welcome to episode 92 of the NDO podcast. On this episode, we have a lot of strange things going on. We are on the ice on Jamestown Reservoir. Uh, Casey is not with us. So, uh, Bruce Kreft is either co-host or just a second guest.
Bruce: I'm just going for the second guest.
Cayla: Okay. All right. Um, but. So mainly we're here to talk to BJ. Is it Kratz?
BJ: Yes.
Cayla: Okay. BJ, who manages this district about all about Jamestown Reservoir. But, um. Yeah, if it sounds different, it's because we're sitting in a pop up ice house. Um, yeah. BJ, just want to talk about, um, your background, how you got started with the department and what you do now.
BJ: Sure. Well, as you said, BJ Kratz, Southeast district fisheries supervisor here out of the Jamestown office. I, um, went to school way back a long time ago at NDSU and graduated.
Cayla: We won't name years.
Bruce: Go bison.
BJ: Early 90s, and, uh, was fortunate enough to get a part time job with the Game and Fish, um, and lasted for about a year, and I became full time technician started out and and here we are today quite, quite some time later.
Cayla: Always in Jamestown fisheries?
BJ: Yes.
Cayla: Okay.
Bruce: You've always been in the central district or i mean, the southeast district?
BJ: Yes.
Cayla: Wow. Bruce?
Bruce: Bruce Kreft.
Cayla: Don't do too good or you're gonna get hired on as a co-host.
Bruce: No, I'm just a costar right now.
Cayla: Okay. All right.
Bruce: BJ's the star. Bruce Kreft, I'm the chief of our conservation communications division. Uh, but in my former life, I was also a fishery biologist up in Riverdale for the central district.
Cayla: Nice. All right. Yeah. Tell us about. So we're fishing for crappies today. They have been a little elusive, but we've found a few. Um, but yeah. Tell us about, uh, when when did crappies even get put in Jamestown?
BJ: Yeah. So kind of all started back in the late 70s, early 80s when the gang at the time brought some broodstock from Bowman Haley Reservoir and Patterson Reservoir over here. And there was a few that came out of Nelson Lake too, um, you know, a couple thousand fish. Brood fish started the fishery here. And then it was probably 6 or 7 years later, you know, anglers started to capitalize on that. And then ever since then, it's become nothing but good as far as the crappies go. And that's kind of where we're at today. Great great population of fish.
Bruce: Which is pretty unique for North Dakota really. You know, we're not known to be a crappie state per se, you know. So and that's one question that I always used to get is why can't we have crappie in our lake? You know, they're I fished for them in Minnesota. I'd love to have a nice population like Jamestown. But you know why? In a lot of our lakes across the state, aren't we able to really sustain a good, healthy population?
BJ: Right. That's a great question. And, you know, there are no definitive answers. But cumulatively, we've found that, you know, that first winter for crappie survival is huge. It's and that's one of the reasons like in Jamestown Reservoir we have what everybody you know all the fish are the same size for example because you have one winter where those if one makes it, they all make it. And so uh, a lot of winters they don't. And that's the biggest bottleneck. But then, you know, there's other things involved. You have water chemistry, you know, conductivity. The fresher the water, typically the better panfish species in general reproduce. Um, you also have vegetation, you know, crappie, you know, biologically they're pretty diverse. There's a lot of habitats that they prefer open water, obviously, that's where they're, you know, most anglers capitalize on them, but they also there's vegetative components to their life that that requirements too, that are pretty important. And uh, deeper water, warmer water in the wintertime, you know, decent oxygen. So there's a lot of different things there. Jamestown's pretty unique because we have a pretty good substrate for, you know, pretty much consistent natural reproduction each year. Um, like I said, it's the winters that really.
Cayla: Is it the oxygen or the temperature or both that they don't make it through the winter?
BJ: No, it's, it's a, it's a reserve food reserve thing. So and this is based on some research done out, um, east that they found that, you know, lipids and stuff in the fish is very important for panfish, especially even bluegills. We see that in a lot of our other places where bluegills reproduce consistently. They don't make that first winner. Um, you also have thermal requirements, you know, panfish. We're kind of at the upper range, right, of, of, you know, bass, bluegill and so forth here in this latitude. And so those energy components are pretty important to fish at this latitude to make their first year of life.
Bruce: How about, you know, you make it through the first year. How long does it take, really for those fish to be catchable size, you know, nine, ten inches, you know, because we are on the northern edge of their region and so are their growth rates slower, average or how, you know, how well are those fish growing in North Dakota?
BJ: Yeah. And that's we've that's a good question too. It doesn't take long for, for us to raise a nine inch crappie. However, you know, it takes considerably longer to get to a 12 inch crappie. So in other words, those fish in four years on average will shoot up to be 9 to 10in. But then they really plateau. In fact, you know, some of the aging that we've done on crappies, we've found, you know, five-year-olds as long or a little longer than some eight year olds, you know, just because, you know, there's so much competition for that. Plankton is what they primarily are consuming in Jamestown Reservoir. Um, you know, plankton grows fish quickly, but when you get to be a little bigger, it's not exactly the the meal of choice to continue that good growth throughout their life. So but they live a long time, so they grow really slow the first half of their life. They grow, you know, really well. And then the second half they really slow down.
Bruce: Yeah. But with that also being said, a lot of our prairie lakes can experience winter kills, lower oxygen levels in the winters, you know? So in a lot of cases, crappie are in reservoirs. It seems like where they got a little bit deeper water clarity generally is.
BJ: Yeah, it is the deeper water, I think because like I had mentioned before, that thermal refuge, if you can get 40 degrees or so, 39 degrees in the wintertime, I think that's pretty important. And you usually find that in deeper water when you have tough winters. Um, and you know, your, your places that are 12, 13ft deep just don't have that. And then additionally, you know, if your water is salty enough, we've got places where we have negative water temperatures, literally it's salty enough and that's, you know, not a good thing at all for panfish. It's bad enough that when it gets to be 35, 36 degrees, much less, you know, that, you know, below freezing theoretically.
Bruce: So there's a lot more dynamics to water quality than a lot of people realize.
BJ: A lot of different chemistry. We're pretty a lot of diversity in our watersheds and our landscape. For what kind of water quality we have.
Cayla: In your time have you seen then like a whole year class or like you had a lot of easy winters and they're all like really big?
BJ: No, not really, because there's so much competition there. You know, there's so many. If we could have. But again, when you're when plankton is your primary forage, you're just not going to get big quick. Uh, other places are a little different. You know, Lake Ashtabula is another good crappie fishery, and that's got a lot of different. You know, you got a pretty good bluegill population there. And I'm sure those adult crappies are consuming those struggling bluegills. Like I just said, that don't get through the winter very well. And they get picked off pretty well. And in Lake LaMoure is another one that's similar dynamic there. But they are reservoirs a lot like Jamestown. Pipestem used to be one of our premier crappie lakes, too, until we had the winter kill in 2018, and we're still trying to get her back. So hopefully one of these years it'll it'll take.
Bruce: But Jamestown really seemed to have gained a lot more popularity in recent years for crappie fishing. I mean, they've been here, like you said, for many, many years, but you really haven't heard about it as much. And maybe that's just social media and just our communications that's going on these days. That really makes this lake more visible to a lot of anglers across the state.
BJ: Yeah. And that's true, you know, and it always it's always been a decent crappie lake ever since we, you know, started it. But more recently, you know, the walleye fishing has been so-so just because of the productivity of the system and some pretty catastrophic flood events we had and the flushing of the system in general. So your productivity has went down quite a bit. And those fish rely on other fish to eat, you know, to to thrive and stuff don't do as well as planktivores. And that's one of the reasons, you know, the crappies have taken off and anglers have taken, you know, every year. They certainly, you know, seem to be happy that we have them and we get a lot of requests that they want another lake, Crappie Lake, somewhere closer to where they live.
Bruce: I heard that many times.
BJ: Yep, yep.
Bruce: You know, we aged ourselves a little bit ago and and when I was in school and everything we learned about population dynamics, predator prey relationships, you know, and really, as as fishing has grown and gotten popular, really, man has become a major predator in a lot of our lakes for different species, not just specifically crappie, but for a lot of lakes. The electronics have changed the advancements we've had in that. Um, so really, where have we had any impacts of of anglers to the crappie fishery here? That's anything more than usual.
BJ: Well, you know, that's kind of a hard, hard question to answer at this point. We've certainly some of the creel surveys we've done winter creel surveys in particular, uh, like Twin Lake, for example, Lake L'Amour. Recently we've, you know, we're trying to get a feel for what anglers are using for electronics and maybe correlate a better catch rate with more sophisticated equipment, but we haven't been able to tease that out 100% yet. Certainly it depends on your skill level of using those electronics, and then you still have to catch fish, of course. And, you know, going back to your original question about, you know, we've got a strong population and, you know, you start to see some avoidance, perhaps, of just people drilling holes on top of fish. You might have the equipment that, you know, and I've talked to other people, anglers and stuff that have had this experience where, oh yeah, you know, crappies are 50ft this way. And you go over there and pop a hole and well, wait a minute now. They're not here anymore. They leave. I mean, so, you know, it is evolution and it is what it is, but certainly has had a, you know, somewhat of an impact and it makes our job a little more challenging, no doubt about it.
Cayla: Do we, uh, still, like, supplement by stocking in here as well, or. It's all just natural reproduction?
BJ: Yeah, the crappie population is totally natural. You know, back back before we became such a walleye machine of a state, we were able to, you know, supplement some crappie populations with and start some that way with fingerlings at the hatchery. But again, you know, it's it's not the adults that don't produce the offspring. It's the, the you know, the survivability of those juvenile fish over the winter. So you can stock hatchery fish. And sometimes they're in better shape. A lot of times they're in worse shape. Just depends on the pond that they came out of. And you know, if they just don't have the energy, it's they're not going to make the winter. So that fingerling type stocking didn't really wasn't very effective based on our experience. So now what we do is trap and transport broodstock to different lakes. And I've started Attempted in the process of about 12 different water bodies in the southeast district, that we're seeing what happens with them. Um, you know, it's one of those things, like I said, if you get an age class every six years or so because crappies live to be 11 or 12, 13, that's enough to keep fishery going.
Bruce: So yeah, I tried them in numerous lakes, you know, as an experiment, really, uh, because of some desirable characteristics to them, desirability from anglers. But, um, the lake itself will tell you if it'll be sustainable or not. And, you know, a few years down the road, you'll find out if they actually were successful or would be able to manage to sustain a population.
BJ: Right. And that's ultimately what it's about, because like I said, we're we can't stock every fish species. So if Mother Nature can do it herself sometimes it's a it's certainly a better deal for everybody.
Cayla: I was with I can't remember his last spring or the spring before. I think that we came out here when you guys were netting, uh, like, what are you gaining from those surveys in the spring?
BJ: Yep. So we do a special, what we call crappie assessment on Jamestown Reservoir and and Pipestem. And the reason we do that is because the time that we usually do our standard adult survey, which is when we check all the other fish out, so to speak, in the population, it's a little late, uh, for maximum catch, if you will. You know, crappies are pretty short oriented in May, and we can really get a good sample of fish and trap nets, and they're all trapped and trap nets and we way measure them. And then in some situations we move some of them to different lakes to try to start new populations. But that time of the year has been really effective for us to actually get a good handle on what we're dealing with, with numbers and so forth. Um, you know, because when June comes around, those fish tend to push offshore, suspend. And even if you use gill nets and stuff, a lot of times, you know, they're higher than your gill gillnets fishing. So you just they almost become very difficult to sample. Uh, you know, past June 15th or so.
Bruce: So some of our traditional gears just aren't, aren't great for certain species. A lot of times bass need to use electrofishing crappie, as you're saying here. So a lot of times our standard netting does not give us a clear picture of exactly what's going on in that lake.
BJ: Yeah. And it's some of the data that we've gotten is pretty neat. You can see age classes if you do a huge kind of a chart, you can see how each age class plays out. And when it drops off, you know, graphically and it just shows you that, you know, one age class is there for ten, 11, 12 years drops off, and then there's another one coming up and takes its place. And so the cycle has been a lot more consistent. And that was one of the reasons we, based on some of that age and growth stuff that we did on Pipestem and a Creel survey that we did out there, uh, you know, we did have a more liberal crappie limit. And you know, the thought back then was to go from 20 to 10 because and it had a fair amount of support and we could do that because unlike perch, for example, I'll just use perch. We don't they don't live in most of our lakes past 6 or 7. So, you know, they're going to die sooner or later. Whereas in a crappie, you know, you can get 11, 12 years, 13. So if you can kind of kick the can down the road, you provide a little more recreational opportunities and spread it out over the course of 5 or 6 years, rather than having, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people come and taken, you know, literally hundreds and hundreds of fish and then collapse the the population before it naturally, you know, way before it naturally would fizzle out. So it's become more consistent for sure on Jamestown Reservoir, I think somewhat because of that for sure, because it's just it's more consistent, stable, crop efficient, predictable.
Bruce: You kind of gave a shout out to a creel survey. You know, those surveys are important for your management of these lakes and the use that they get. And you can you can modify regulations and look at some of those changes potentially with that information. So when you're out there fishing please talk to the Creel survey. We that information is used and and could change the regulations on that lake.
BJ: Yeah. And that is one of our index. You know, when we get to talk to the public in general and, you know, face to face and have what they have to say, that's important just the interaction with the public in general. But yeah, there isn't very often we're not doing a creel survey for an intended purpose. And it isn't to make the fishery worse. It's usually to try to improve it for the benefit of the anglers.
Cayla: Do you feel like most of the people fishing here are like live around here, or is there a lot of people traveling here for
BJ: You know, I would say, and we haven't done a creel survey, winter creel survey on Jamestown for a while, but based on historically, it was primarily what we would consider local people. And local can mean Fargo. I mean, I'm saying North Dakota, folks, certainly. You see, you know, it seems like each year, I suppose, because of the way the news gets out anymore, uh, different states represented out here fishing. Uh, but for the most part, it's, uh, you know, it's it's a local type fishery, uh, that's enjoyed by them.
Bruce: Yeah, yeah. Well, we've I don't know how many holes were drilled today, but it's it's work trying to keep up with those crappie. They're moving around a lot trying to find different schools. But I was surprised today at how much they were moving.
BJ: Yeah. And that's true. You see it seems like when you start first ice out here or first month or so, you can you can hunker down on a, on a group of fish. And I mean, you could, you might, you'll probably have downtime, you know, half hour or something. But if you're staying there all day, you'll have all fish on you all day. But I think as the season progresses and more people are punching holes and they get harassed a little bit. They isolate into smaller groups, more numerous groups, but smaller groups. And they certainly, you know, don't feel real comfortable. I think when they start hearing people working above them, drilling some holes and stuff. So they are on the move, no doubt about it.
Cayla: It feels like they're on the move, but then they're just gonna, if possible, sit somewhere where they aren't disturbed cause then it's like, okay, they're headed this way, but then they don't head that way. They just stop.
Bruce: And but several times I've gone to a hole that I was at 20 minutes ago, and all of a sudden there were fish there. So, you know, whatever disturbance they were experiencing, just keep going back to a different holes and checking them out.
BJ: Yep. That's that's kind of the key there to be mobile if you got the right kind of day. But there are some days just like fishing, you sit in one spot, you might be better off than traversing all the way.
Cayla: Yeah maybe it does track to just sit here the whole time. You wouldn't really know, I guess.
Bruce: Just wanted to get out of the house, get and go.
BJ: Now that I think about it, we probably should have had a fishing rod down and a machine right here. We could have seen what we're what was happening.
Cayla: Maybe we should have put a bobber for doing the podcast. But we did not. We just left it. I've never really had a house without any holes drilled in it. Um. What else? Uh, any other, like, fisheries or projects or anything you want to highlight in your district that you guys have going on? That's really fun.
BJ: Well, this year we'll be doing, you know, a kind of a continuance of a statewide effort to determine exploitation or angler harvest rates for walleye fisheries, primarily. So we'll have, uh, haven't decided which one we're going to tag walleyes in this year. But some of the folks out there might know that we did Twin Lake down toward Lamoure the first year and most recently Mosher. We found some interesting information so far based on that, uh, those those tagging projects. And again, we're not doing out there because we got a lot of time to waste and we enjoy putting tags in fish. It's usually to learn something and how to better manage a fishery, for example. You know, I'll just quickly highlight a Twin lake. We had, uh, pretty low exploitation or harvest rates on fish. A lot of released fish. Now you take Mosher, for example, and the fish are smaller there on the average. You know, we exceeded 30%, which is pretty high. So we learned and it is kind of a put and take type fishery anyway because, you know, it's a small shallow lake. Um, but we have had natural reproduction in there. So, you know, you learn things from those. Um, considering doing a crappie population estimate on Jamestown this year, it just kind of depends on the help. You know, we get and our just our timeline and what's going on. We've also got some trap and transport of perch that we do annually. I think we'll be providing a few to Devil's Lake to try to get some answers up there. Uh, from, from a couple local sources that we have. Um, and of course, we'll assist in spawning and stuff where needed.
Bruce: So I'm going to go back to exploitation or the harvest on those tagged fish. You know, a lot of people don't know how many, and we don't know exactly how many number of fish are out there either. But like, what percentage of harvest of that population is sustainable and what isn't? You know, where we maybe need to come in and stock and try to repopulate, you know, a year class. You know, you mentioned 30% exploitation was kind of high. That's on the higher end. Or where does that sit?
BJ: Yeah. That is I mean, we typically like to see less than a third of the population above, you know, we're we're talking about like 14in. We assume we put the assumption on these fisheries that most of the fish that are, you know, less than 14 will be released. And so we don't tag anything less than 14 typically. So exploitation rate of adult fish, you know, you don't want to get over 30-33% or so if you can help it. But there's a lot I mean that's you got to consider the fishery. You got to consider is it a natural reproduction that you're concerned about and keeping adult brood in there? But if it's something you're stocking 20 or 30,000 walleyes in each year and you can get growth rates are another important thing. If you can get, you know, eater fish that people are keeping in three seasons, you can think about that for a second, three years. If you can replace the one that's been caught and you have an exploitation rate, that's a third of the population is being removed each year, then, you know, that's kind of sustainable. Um, but there's times where you can have great populations in a lake and they don't catch anything. So just because you have an annual exploitation.
Cayla: Feels like all of those are by us.
BJ: Of 33% one year does not mean that it's that every year, you know, for example, Moser was a hot lake this year. They just they just bit and they needed to there was too many fish in there, really. I mean, they were hungry. So that's kind of it's not a bad thing.
Bruce: That always seems like there's a few hot lakes around the district or around the state that really get hit hard for a season. Why? Because I have to get there. They're biting. And then some other lakes are being forgotten, which is almost resting those fisheries at times.
BJ: And a lot of times anglers will figure that out. You know, it's not like it was 30 years ago, where we have a lot of opportunity on the landscape now. And whether an angler drives 15 miles to this lake or 15 miles to a different lake. You know, that's not the issue. As long as there's some fish to be caught, is the issue. You know, we most of our lakes, other than, you know, some of the bigger developed lakes, Jamestown Reservoir, Ashtabula, a lot of anglers are hitting these lakes that have no development on it. So it's not like you have local people that are living on the lake because their fishing sucks one year and it's really good another year that they want it this way all the time. Anglers tend to, you know, jump around and be mobile and take advantage of those bites when they're happening.
Bruce: They're not afraid of traveling.
BJ: No, no, not at all.
Cayla: I‘d drive 80 miles. If I knew I was going to gonna catch fish rather than 30 and maybe catch it.
Bruce: Yeah, but is that the lake or you?
Cayla: I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I caught a few today, but yeah, there's definitely some angler error to account for.
BJ: 80 miles by foot today. Yeah. Walking around chasing them.
Cayla: Well not you. You're driving your pickups everywhere.
Bruce: First time in many years I've driven the pickup. Kind of kind of in my age has gotten a little more careful about that.
Cayla: It is convenient, though, to have everything right there.
BJ: Yeah, the windbreak is nice.
Cayla: So people interested in coming and chasing them in the open water. What is, uh, like what cues them to spawn and what time of year is usually. Well, obviously spring, but specifically what.
BJ: Usually on Jamestown Reservoir, it's when that water gets in the low 60s, the high 50s, they'll start moving in. And I say they meaning primarily males because they'll kind of search out an area for, you know, they’re nest builders, like a bluegill and like a bass. The males will actually build the nest, and then the females come in and deposit their eggs with the with the male's sperm, and then the male guards the nest until those fish are, you know, able to swim up and disperse on their own. But that May period May through you know, early June is is really good in general and especially good for shore type access because all those most of the crappie spawn, you know, within eight feet of water or so. And it kind of depends on the year. But um, a lot of times you can look down on the water and see their spawning beds and they're pretty, you know, pretty vulnerable to, to anglers at that time. And, uh, they can be a lot of fun, a lot of action. And it's a great time to get out and enjoy the outdoors in the spring and not, not have to have a lot of gear, just simple fishing rod and a lawn chair and some small jigs or a bobber and a minnow is all it really takes.
Bruce: And those males tend to be a little more aggressive that time of year. Protecting.
BJ: Yep. And some of the listeners might know that, you know, they get colored up pretty dark. I mean, there's some pretty they're pretty colored up and kind of different for sure.
Bruce: And some people might know we do have a couple of different types of crappie. We were talking about that today, both black crappie and white crappie. But Jamestown is mostly comprised of black crappie?
BJ: Yeah, that's that's correct, Bruce. We've got I mean, there's certainly whites in here, and they seem to be certainly they've never been as numerous as black crappie. But there are years where, you know, we've certainly had a higher percentage of our crappie assessment, you know, made up of them. But it's usually, um, just off the top, probably less than 5%. Typically of our catch for a crappie assessment is white crappie. And there's, you know, there's a little different habitat requirements or life Requirements for those two fish species. You know, black crappies are primarily a clear water feeder. White crappies do a little better, turbidity wise, or so they say they tend to be. Whites tend to be a little more carnivorous, you know, or piscivorous more so than the black crappie. And it's plankton. So I think that's probably why Black's probably outcompete the whites in here a little bit, because they are more adapted to that zooplankton like Daphnia and so forth.
Bruce: Any significant difference in size between the two species?
BJ: There really isn't. You know, we don't we see a few big whites. We see a few big blacks each year. Um, I don't see any difference in growth rates between the two species. It's just the numbers thing. Blacks dominate the fishery.
Cayla: Yeah. When we were here, there was one really big white I feel like I remember a picture of.
BJ: Did you? But yeah. Yeah. But they're yeah they're both species are here. You never know. You might catch I think the whites fight a little better actually. Uh, I won. There used to be whites in Pipestem too, and you could tell when you had a white crappie on because they just seemed to scrap a little harder than the blacks, you know, and and they didn't like being hook removed from them either. They had to flop around. They'd be difficult sometimes.
Cayla: I don't know anything else.
BJ: No. That worked out good for having you here with his background.
Bruce: She told me I couldn't just sit here and be quiet.
BJ: Yeah. You didn’t. That's good. Did a good job, I think. Those. And as a fisherman, listen to it. The questions as he's asked, at least I would be. Of course, biologists wise, you're thinking the same thing. But maybe we're biased fishermen, too. Oh, yeah.
Bruce: Don't kid yourself. This is the first time I've ever been ice fishing for crappie. Um, Lake Sakakawea, Garrison Bay, you know, 25 years ago, we did very, very well on black crappie there, too. But this was my first experience ice fishing for them.
Cayla: I miss em, yeah, like you said. I guess I'm bummed to hear they're just harder to establish here, but, um, I feel like I fished them a lot in Minnesota. I miss having them close.
BJ: Yeah.
Bruce: Some species just aren't as adaptable to our water quality and our weather conditions. Our winters.
BJ: A lot of people don't realize in Minnesota that, you know, you're freaking water is about as fresh, not like distilled water, but it's a heck of a difference. Even their salty lakes are, I'd say salty, at least in the central portion of the state, are twice as fresh as something like Jamestown Reservoir or Ashtabula. And those are pretty by standards are pretty fresh by, you know, North Dakota standards. So that's a big thing with bass and bluegill is that and crappies is the fresh water. And then just the diversity of vegetation. Mhm. And we just there isn't anything in this reservoir in the wintertime for vegetation, you know, because they suck the water out any place that would have got established. And it's usually about a 4 to 8 foot flux in water elevation. And anytime you got sago that got established somewhere, it's high and dry in the winter, and then the shale in the summer just shifts around like sand on a desert in the wind. I mean, we've had nets we couldn't even pull out of the shale because just the windy day, that bottom shifts so much.
Cayla: So yeah, it used to just be a fun fish to target because they'd be in like, weeds suspended in like 8 to 10ft in weeds. And you have to really like, I don't know, there's just a lot of finesse to it. Like get your little jig to drop in there, but don't catch a weed. And then always hit it on the drop. So you have to feel that little like right. Yeah.
BJ: Sight fishing.
Bruce: But our, our fishery, uh, division here has done an exceptional job with developing fisheries all the way across the state, given what Mother Nature is, is taking what Mother Nature is giving us and really doing the best that we can with those opportunities.
BJ: We've been blessed with a lot of new lakes. I mean, when you have when you have new pastures, so to speak, that you can put cattle in, it's going to raise cattle, you know. And that's a lot of times what it what it takes to get something started and then cooperating. You know, Mother Nature cooperates a little bit and helps you out.
Bruce: And we were having that conversation on the way over about the productivity of these lakes a lot. We've been wet for, what, 25 years? Whatever. Yeah. Uh, a lot of those lakes with that newly flooded vegetation really brought the productivity to that lake and was excellent for fish growth.
BJ: Yeah. And stability is good. Some situations, but not always.
Cayla: All right. Should we get back to fishing? We got a little bit of time left.
Bruce: Hey, Cayla. Yeah. I was pumped to be here. And for everybody else. From my ice house to your ice house go hook a fish.
BJ: Right on. Thank you.
Cayla: Thanks.