LAKE SPRINGFIELD STATUS REPORT SUMMARY

LARGEMOUTH BASS: LAKE SPRINGFIELD - Bass fishing should be excellent on this 4,234 acre lake. Historically we have collected 100+ bass per hour of electrofishing with the upper third of the lake (west of the I 55 Bridge) producing over 150 bass per hour. That trend has held since 1992. In this year’s survey the catch was 70 fish per hour, down from the ten year average but many of the lakes sampled in the Fall of 2003 were down slightly. The 1999 and 2000 year classes dominate the bass fishery with fish ranging from 12" 14.5". The 1999 year class passed the 15" minimum length limit in 2003. The spawn was a little above average this year. Young ranged from 4" 7.5" averaging 6" making up 19% of the catch. One unexplainable and frustrating aspect of the bass fishery is that the lake always produces excellent numbers of bass under 18" but very few are seen past that number. Again in 2003 the population continued that trend. Fifty eight percent (58%) of the bass collected were over 12", with 13% over 15" but only 4 fish out of the 626 (1%) collected were over 18". There is a high bass density in the lake and their body conditions and growth rates are excellent due to the shad forage base but we seldom see the larger fish, as we do in other lakes.

The district biologist has been approached by several bass clubs asking about a slot limit but slot limits are only effective if: 1) There is a stunted bass population with 90% of the bass under 12"; 2) The bass are in poor body condition(skinny) and; 3) if there is high fishing presure. Lake Springfield meets none of those criteria, so it is not a candidate for a slot limit. As a matter of fact, there are relatively few lakes in Illinois that slots work in because we generally don’t have stunted bass populations due to strong shad forage bases and because bass fishermen are reluctant to harvest the smaller ones.

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