Articles : The Muskie Waterslide of Death

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The Muskie Waterslide of Death
By: Steven James Rusteberg

For years I have been writing in Outdoor Notebook about the problem of muskie spillway encampment in Illinois waters. Even today, with the numbers of lost fish in the tens-of-thousands, the IDNR and the muskie fishing community have done very little to correct the problem. With the exception of a few spillway barriers on less than a handful of muskie waters, we have done nothing but spend more money and manpower to make more fish. Thousands upon thousands of dollars are flushed down the proverbial toilet (or spillway depending on how you look at it) every year, because we choose to ignore or brush aside the chronic problem of spillway escapement.

A significant number of our hard to raise muskie fingerlings and adults fish die every year at the bottom of a reservoir spillway, or what I call “the muskie waterslide of death”. Each one of our muskie stocked reservoirs has a spillway leading out of them, and many lead to a small creek or stream that becomes a warm water muskie death pool. Many more muskie go over spillways than the average muskie angler might think.

Shabbona Lake
In one “spillway rescue” on Shabbona Lake (DeKalb, Co.) alone we managed to return seventy-two muskies to the lake after they had fallen over the dam. Without this rescue these muskies would be left to die in Indian Creek, a small, shallow waterway that exits the lake. Many become prey to predatory birds and mammals frequenting these warm water pools of death. Don’t we spend way too much money and effort creating these fish in our hatcheries to allow them to congregate and die in these small pools of water? Shouldn’t these fish be contained to stay where we put them?

Duane Landmeier, muskie guide and author, has expressed to me the difference between a working spillway barrier and an unsupervised non-working escarpment barrier. You can only imagine from his statement what can happen to a waterway without an installed working barrier.

Duane said, “You can defiantly tell when Shabbona Lake’s spillway barrier is working and when it has failed. My clients in the few years after the spillway barrier was installed had a heyday on Shabbona (Lake) catching fish and seeing follows. When the spillway barrier failed this year (and a few years back) the numbers of fish were noticeably different in the lake. After noticing my success ratio falling I wasn’t surprised to find seventy-two fish in Indian Creek this year. It was clear to me, even more went over the spillway because of lax management and poor design. I caught less fish and saw less fish because of this. It is truly sad these fish don’t stay where we put them, but without a barrier net you are likely to catch less fish without a doubt.”

In today’s day and age we tend to worry more about catch and release and ignore the spillway escapement problem, yet spillway encampment is a far larger problem. The spillway epidemic is far more detmentral to our muskie populations than a single muskie angler keeping fish. It is also far more expensive to “make” more muskie due to encampment than to prevent the encampment from happening in the first place. Should we be stocking lakes and reservoirs that don’t have a spillway barrier for protection? I argue, No! We could raise far fewer fish if we could keep them in the lake or reservoir we intended them to be in.

Another problem can exist in spillway encampment I will just mention, but not focus on. Remember your predator prey relationships from high school and junior high. We stock the highest predator in the food chain in the fewest numbers for a reason. This reason is so that predator doesn’t out number prey and so that balance of nature doesn’t experience turmoil. What happens when high levels of our predator escapes from a reservoir and contaminates a creek or stream? I argue turmoil! This is especially true for some of the minnow and endangered fish species we try to protect. When these fish are in high densities below a spillway they are likely to eat everything before the inevitable starvation sets in.

I would like to list below several Illinois reservoirs that we currently have on the stocking list. In these reservoirs, I believe, we are wasting money and effort on without some kind of a spillway barrier.

Canton Lake
In Canton Lake, this year alone, we have currently stocked 2,500 muskie fingerlings. In a recent trip to the town of Canton I stopped by the spillway to observe a potential stocking problems. Canton Lake has a spillway that exits at the south end of the lake. The spillway is easily one of the longest stretches of concrete I have observed at an Illinois lake. This “waterslide” leads down to a small drainage area I estimate to be about the size of a football in zone. This “in zone area” leads to an even smaller shallow creek next to a water treatment plant.

One of the locals who lived near the water treatment plant has observed early season spillway encampment first hand. He said, “at times you could almost walk across the fish trapped in the spillway”. This lake was first stocked with Tiger Muskie years ago. Today we aggressively stock natural muskie. Every flood several adult fish have been seen below it’s spillway in this creek.

According to the local man, one Tiger Muskie had been taken by a snagger in the spillway at over forty-seven inches. He informed me that snagging trapped muskie in the creek was a common occurrence before the City of Canton made the spillway and its creek inaccessible to the public. This was more of a liability issue for the City. They were worried more about people slipping and suing, than the poaching, or escapement, problem. This detoured snaggers until they realized they could go further down stream (off the property) to do their illegal activity. Without a spillway barrier on Canton Lake we will waste money and manpower producing muskie. This lake may never become properly stocked with the level of escarpment that occurs.

Story Lake
Story Lake got four-hundred and five muskie fingerlings this year. If my math serves me correctly that is somewhere around four-thousand dollars worth of fish that will soon find their way to a small creek and die. This lake has a classic “waterslide of death” for a spillway. At the bottom of the spillway lies a small pool and this leads to an even smaller creek. When the lake floods in the spring the locals are well aware of what happens at the bottom of the concrete causeway. The result is bountiful fishing situation that lasts about a couple weeks and then the fish start to float to the surface. Those that stay in the stagnant water after the flood will die in the small pool. The rest will continue down the small creek in search of deeper pools and cooler water. Forage in the pools will run out and the muskie (and other fish species) will eventually die if the water in the small pool doesn’t evaporate first.

The populations of muskie in this lake dramatically changes biased on spring and summer floods. It is much like Shabbona in this aspect. One year there are fish and follows everywhere, the next fish are hard to find unless you look in the spillway. Think of what we could do to the lake if we would make an effort to keep the muskie in it we stock. Again, we are just wasting stock and manpower to introduce muskie into a lake such as this one without installing some sort of spillway barrier.

Pierce Lake
Pierce Lake is a very special lake, and close to my heart. Pierce Lake has been selected to hold “Project Green Gene” fish for a research study I started up with help of the IDNR a couple of years ago. Yes, Pierce Lake too has massive spillway barrier problems. In fact, when it was suggested that Pierce Lake be added to Project Green Gene as a research lake, I was not in favor of it. The spillway causes the loss of massive numbers of fish in a spring rain. Therefore, I don’t believe it is a good study lake or one we should focus stocking fingerling into regardless of a research project. The IDNR and local muskie clubs have tried to get the powers that be involved with the construction of some sort of barrier to keep muskies in the lake. So far, this effort has been to no avail. Fingerlings and “project fish” will continue to go over the spillway in heavy numbers until we do something about it.

The bottom line is that our waters need spillway barriers before muskie are “installed”. The ones that are already stocked need special attention to correct the spillway escarpment problem. Without correcting this problem we waste muskie fingerlings (at approximately $10 each) and manpower of the production of these fish. Stocking more muskie to compensate for the “spillway losses” is a backward approach to the solution. Until we as muskie fisherman speak out about this serious problem nothing will be done, and more muskie and manpower and fish will be wasted.

I encourage every concerned fisherman to attend the IMA (Illinois Muskie Alliance) meeting before the Chicago Muskie Show in January. This meeting is open to the public and it is a true open forum where angler and IDNR can debate priority of waterway concerns. Hopefully Illinois spillway escarpment will be at the top of discussion this year. If it isn’t, I fear we are walking backwards in time and ignoring a very serious problem. We now can produce adequate numbers of muskie in our hatchers. Let us attempt to keep our hard work where it belongs… in our lakes… not in the waterslides of death.