LAKE TAYLORVILLE STATUS REPORT SUMMARY

LARGEMOUTH BASS: LAKE TAYLORVILLE - This 1286 acre lake in Christian county has made a tremendous turn around over the past ten years. From 1982 1992 we averaged approximately 25 bass per hour of electrofishing and all fish were over 12". This indicates poor spawns and recruitment. That number has steadily increased from 1992 to an all time high of 100 bass per hour of electrofishing in 2001. In the Fall survey of 2003 only 63 bass were collected per hour but weather conditions were poor, making collection difficult. Of those sampled this past Fall, 19 % were over 15" and 2% were over 18". All sizes of bass are in excellent body condition due to the strong shad population. Lake Taylorville is a "sleeper" with good numbers of high quality fish. As some of you may know, in 1992 the city and the Department of Natural Resources began a sport fisheries recovery program attempting to increase the numbers of bass in the lake.

The city built several nursery ponds on arms of the lake. Two are used to raise largemouth bass and one is used to raise young crappie. These ponds are drained every fall releasing the young fish into the lake. To date we have stocked over 43,000 largemouth bass fingerlings and 63,000 crappie from those ponds. Because of the strong shad population both bass and crappie grow very well once they are released. For the fourth consecutive year young of the year bass were collected in the survey and comprised 12% of the total population. It appears that we have finally reached a bass density high enough that natural recruitment is occurring.

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