Fishery Assessments & Management
Fishery Assessments & Management
Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois
Cason Land & Water Management, LLC has assisted hundreds of lake and pond owners with the development and improvement of their fishery. If your goal is to provide a fast-action fishing opportunity for your campground visitors, or you want to keep a few meals of fish from the backyard pond, our biologists have the tools, knowledge, and experience to make this a reality. We can assist you in improving your lake’s entire fishery to develop trophy bass, musky, walleye, and panfish fishing opportunities. Or, if you have a unique fishery management goal, we will help you achieve that!
Often, an understanding of the existing fish community is necessary to make management adjustments. Multiple tools are necessary to comprehensively understand fishery communities. We commonly utilize fyke netting, electrofishing, seining, and minnow traps to collect relevant and accurate fishery data. Each waterbody holds unique fish communities, management objectives, and physical characteristics. Selecting the right sampling tools, and developing a proper study design, are essential to obtaining quality data to guide fishery management decisions.
Our fishery biologists will work with you to identify your specific management objectives and develop a customized study to obtain the data needed to achieve them. Fishery assessments vary in complexity. Basic assessments are commonly performed to identify what fish species are present, and at what sizes. More complex studies are designed to calculate age structure, species composition, growth rates, mortality, relative abundance, condition, population, food web interactions, and more. Following a survey, customers are supplied with a report that summarizes the findings and provides recommendations for improved management.
Electrofishing
Electrofishing is a safe technique to sample populations of fish in lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds. As the name implies, electrofishing uses mild electricity to sample fish populations. By using an onboard generator, an electrofishing boat produces mild electrical currents between positive and negative electrodes that hang, partially submerged, in the water. When fish encounter this mild electrical field, an involuntary muscular response, called taxis, causes fish to swim towards the electrodes, where they become temporarily stunned. Once stunned, the fish are dip-netted by the boat crew and placed in a tank for processing. Since this stunned state only lasts a few seconds, fish can be sampled and return to the water body unharmed.
Not all fish species can be adequately sampled in traditional fyke-net surveys. Some game fish species, such as largemouth bass, are difficult to adequately sample in fyke-nets due to their natural behaviors. Without proper data on all species, it is difficult to make sound management decisions.
Cason Land & Water Management, LLC is uniquely equipped with electrofishing gear, fyke nets, seins, minnow traps, and the expertise to help you accurately understand your fishery!
