New Carp Just Stocked

Nets 1 through ~70 went to our front lake (Lake Le-An-Wa). Nets ~70-150 went to our Carp Lake (with nets up to 100 pounds, we broke 3 different nets).

Nets 1 thru 16 of a total 150 nets. See 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 41! About 6 minutes

Nets 17 thru 36 including a 37 and many 20’s

Nets 37 thru 57 15’s thru 30’s

Nets 58 through 78, right on!

Nets 79 thru 100, 12 to 20’s

Nets 101 thru 116, more Jumbos

Nets 117 thru 140, what a ride!

Nets 141 thru 150 – heaviest nets and includes several 22’s, 25 and other 20’s.

Data sheet for all 150 nets that we used to check in

Total stocked since 1992: ~108,000 pounds!

Stocked since Lake Le-An-Wa’s founding in ~1957: who knows but records indicate well north of 300,000 pounds of carp alone!

Status the next day on 4/29/11: Not one loss yet! Not one dead carp delivered. Incredible. Shane Carmichael slams a 30.1 jumbo from the back and wins over $4,500 in mid-afternoon!!

Status on 5/1/11: lucky 28+ hit twice, 27 takes over the Big Fish, 4 20’s, lucky 18, Carp board 17, night pools 17, it’s on! Over $9,000 won in 3 days. 0% loss!

Status on 5/3/11: Lucky 28 hit three times with the biggest yet at 30.7 by Rodney Wilson, more 20’s on the board! 0% loss still! Unbelievable, a strong, healthy Lake Erie load!

Status on 5/4/11: 16.8 exacta hit. We did lose 2 new carp in the front lake, 1 had a shiny hook in it’s mouth. Since we stocked about 400 jumbos, we expect some attrition, and we also dropped 2 or 3 accidentally, 1 also appeared scuffed so we expect a bit more loss. At <1% loss, Lake Erie to Indy Lakes is rockin’.

Status on 5/8/11: Bigger, pregnant ones have run the banks strongly, since stocking day, as well as hitting. They are moving a lot, perhaps stirring other fish up. We’ve lost a few nice ones, mostly in our Big Lake surprisingly. Since nearly every single carp (over 400!) was a jumbo, even one lost is very sad. We did drop 2 from the first tank and do get some lake attrition this time of year as the water warms. Our losses on these fragile jumbos after 11 days is about 4% (~15 carp = ~300 pounds including 1 30 pounder). Our hauler gave us 300 pounds free (paid for 6,630, delivered 6,900+).

23# wins the Friday night and Tim Robinson hits the 25# Saturday evening for over $2,400!

Status on 5/12/11: We appear to have received 1 tank of six that is weak (tank #3 of 6?), the problem may have been clogged airstones or lines and 3-day holding, coupled with rising water temps. Our loss, mostly in the front lake, is about 1/2 of that tank from our 6-tank massive stocking of all beautiful jumbo Lake Erie Carp (18 to 42 pounds!) on 4/28/11. Tank 3 was 15 to 31 pounds, as our videos show of every net (see video link). About 75% went to the front lake which accounts for lower losses in the back lake. It appears to be slowing on Wednesday after a slow death rate, indicating stress. No other abnormal fish problems. Our channel cats and established carp and cat are normal. The heat wave did not help as higher temps cause lower oxygen levels, even with pumps running as the lakes are extra high (deeper water can also aggravate deep-water oxygen levels even with bottom level airstones like we have). The rate of attrition and front lake indicates holding problems and fish were stressed as no disease is evident. A bummer, a loss of about 8% on 6,900 pounds of JUMBOS; Of the nearly 400 Jumbos delivered, we have lost about 25 to date. David Blair Fishing will make it up on the next load (which we have ordered!) but big Jumbos are very hard to get. This small loss is currently attributed to mechanical failure, weather conditions and normal 2-3% loss. As a point of note, we have stocked 22,900+ pounds of carp in the past 12 months (5/1/10 and 4/28/11) with less than 10% total loss in one year (which is still a TON). No other lake comes close to that stocking? Would they tell you of losses if they did stock?

Watch here for future updates or sign up for our Angler’s List at fishing@indylakes.com

Status on 5/15/11: Yippee! No more Jumbos lost (the above 5/12/11 appears correct, hot weather, new stressed fish, winter turn-over, etc.) and all is back to normal with <10% loss, , a cold front helped, losses of ½ tank as noted above. On 5/14/11 we had BIG HITS: 4-20’s and 1-30 hit since 6 a.m. including lucky 25 for $700+, 21 on the day pool, 30.0 Lucky 28 hit! A 24.4 caught by a channel fishermen, is a $3,800 fish but not in it, from the front lake, takes over 2^nd on Big Fish #2, Exacta 16.9 hit over night for $242!

A 32.0 caught from back lake Sunday afternoon: this weekend, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 29, 30 and 32.0! (plus plenty of smaller, of course)

Status on 5/19/11: All good! Over 90% of our jumbos survived and now thrive. No more updates planned unless changes.

FINAL REPORT JULY 9, 2011! RIGHT ON. JUST CHECK OUT OUR BOARDS. TO DATE, 5 OVER 30 CAUGHT, LUCKY 28+ HIT 7 TIMES ALREADY! RECORD HIGHS FOR BIG FISH CONTEST TAKING A 20.7# OR BIGGER (OLD RECORD WAS 17).

ONLY 2, THAT IS RIGHT, 2 JUMBOS LOST FROM MAY 19 TO JULY 9. THAT IS EXCELLENT FOR A PAYLAKE WITH 200,000+ POUNDS OF CARP. PLUS, VERY LOW FISH LOSSES AND RECORD LOW CHANNEL CAT LOSSES ALSO ATTRIBUTED TO HIGHER WATER AND OUR TIMELY BUG TREATMENTS AND MOSS REMOVAL. INDY LAKES MAINTAINS OUR HERD!