Experimental Management of a Group of Small Michigan Lakes

Abstract

Eight small pit lakes, located in the Pigeon River State Forest, were considered to be ecologically suited to trout as determined by a physical, chemical, and biological survey of these lakes in 1931 and 1932. Four of the lakes were found to be over‐run with yellow perch, the other four originally contained only forage fish. Trout (chiefly brook trout) were stocked in each of the lakes. They grew and survived well in those lakes which did not contain perch but were relatively unsuccessful in the “perch” lakes. One of these lakes was fertilized with phosphate and later yielded both trout and perch of fair size, the other three were poisoned and later restocked with trout and, in one instance, with Montana grayling.The trout were not easily caught in mid‐summer, and, for this reason, the lakes were opened to fishing during the regular trout fishing season starting about May first.Creel census on some of these lakes for several seasons indicates that the yield varied from 4.3 pounds per acre of trout in one lake to 30 pounds per acre of trout in another lake.These lakes, once valueless for fishing, are now attracting some of the anglers away from the heavily fished, perhaps over‐fished, section of the Pigeon River which flows through the immediate vicinity.