Fri, May 16 2008
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My morel season has gotten off to a slow start. Last season, I was the lucky one. At the beginning of this season, I couldn’t find one on a white table cloth. My daughter Jourdan was barely speaking to me. She kept asking, “When will we be having morels for dinner?”
We had that dinner Monday evening, but not without some tense moments. About a month ago, I was a guest pie maker at Mrs. Cox’s Pendleton Heights Cooking Class. I promised to bring in some morels when the time was right. When Jourdan found out the morels were going to class, she gave me a stern warning. “You had better not fix those at school.”
I gave Mrs. Cox a few to show her classes. She offered her students extra credit if they brought morels to class. A field trip might be a possibility Friday morning.
I was on my way to North Christian Church in Markleville Sunday morning when I looked at the clock and decided that I would be 20 minutes late. I drove back home, changed clothes and headed for the woods.
Finally, I see this little 2-inch morel. My jinx was over. I found a few more small grays scattered. My roaming led me to a favorite area. I looked over a spot the diameter of a wash tub and saw morels, and lots of them. I found four touching each other, then five in one tight bunch. There were 22 in that little nook..
I hurried to another woods and found more. This was the fastest I’ve ever hunted morels. Jourdan wanted me back home in time to change and take her to “The Bridge Church” at Highland High School.
This church is especially geared for youth, but I enjoy it as well. The Bridge features Christian rock music (well done) while serving doughnuts, bagels, coffee, juice, and other drinks. One can bring these delights into the service.
When I returned home there were 70 morels in my sack. “Cool” is all Jourdan could say.
I write this column on Tuesday mornings, but first was able to hunt morels for about an hour. Even though early morning temperatures were near freezing, a few fresh morels were up.
This weekend should be prime time to find morels, but from now on, I’ll be hunting them without my old friend, Jackie Baker. He died Monday at age 72. We spent many memorable times in the mushroom woods. He will be missed.
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My good friend Alan Muey sends along a fabulous fish story with directions. He, Sam Manghelli, Jerrod Taylor and Moe Manghelli experienced quite a trip to Michigan last week.
The guys were fishing for smallmouth bass. There is a closed season on bass in Michigan until after the spawn. However, you may practice catch-and-release.
“We fished three different lakes: Green, Platte, and Skegamog,” said Muey. “We all caught smallmouths over 4 pounds, but most were 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.” Largest smallmouth of the trip, 5 pounds, 12 ounces, was landed by Taylor.
The hot lures were jerk baits, crank baits and tubes.
The four anglers would like to see others enjoy this kind of action. They ask that even if the season is in, please practice catch-and-release. They also recommend staying at the Kingsly Motel, Kingsly, Mich. A trip there the next two weeks could combine smallmouths and morels.
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What looks like nothing more than an easy boat ride across Lake Everett’s surface for Steve Donabauer, an assistant biologist with the Indiana DNR, is really a day of “hard work” gathering data on the fish population.
What’s deceptive is that his effort involves setting neither nets nor traps to catch fish in the 43-acre Allen County lake, nor even use of a hook, line and sinker. In fact, Donabauer never touches a fish.
Instead, he “fishes” with sonar — sophisticated sonar, to be sure — but the equipment works much like a typical electronic fish locator used by countless anglers to find and catch fish.
Mounted along the left side of his 18-foot boat is a split-beam transducer that emits sound waves to the bottom that echo back to a laptop computer in the boat. The computer is linked to a real-time global positioning system unit that can store and process large amounts of data.
By integrating the electronic signals with complex computer software, biologists can estimate the abundance and biomass of fish.
“We want to know the total volume of fish in Lake Everett,” Donabauer said. “The equipment and sampling techniques we are using should give us a precise estimate of the overall number of fish in the lake.”
According to Donabauer, Lake Everett is overrun with gizzard shad, a silver forage fish that hurts fishing by competing with bluegills and other sport fish.
To reduce the shad population, biologists plan to apply the fish toxicant rotenone to the Lake Everett in September. Meanwhile, Donabauer’s data will help monitor the decline in shad and success of the project.
Donabauer also uses the electronic gear to study fish populations in Crooked and Round lakes in Whitley County.
At Crooked Lake he hopes to get an idea of the number and locations of ciscoes. Ciscoes are deepwater fish that are difficult to sample using traditional equipment.
At Round Lake, Donabauer is assessing the number of bluegills, bass and other fish present.
“What we’re doing is called hydroacoustic sampling and should open up a whole new way to look at lakes and their fish populations,” Donabauer said.
Plans are to use the equipment to also construct detailed contour maps of each lake, plot their aquatic plant beds, quantify plant abundance, and even provide data on zooplankton, which are microscopic animals that are part of the aquatic food chain.
In mid-April, Donabauer found zooplankton throughout the water column of Lake Everett at night. The next day they were concentrated in water deeper than 24 feet.
“We learn more about our lakes every time we use the equipment,” Donabauer said.
Rick Bramwell’s column appears Thursdays. He can be reached at rickbramwell@aol.com
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