Plan Dropped For Waubee Lake Cisco Stocking
MILFORD — The Indiana DNR is dropping plans to reintroduce ciscoes at Waubee Lake in Kosciusko County. The fish species was once common in the lake.
Biologists say not enough oxygen is available in the deep, cold-water layer of the 187-acre lake for ciscoes to survive. Had conditions been adequate, the DNR and lake residents were interested in launching a cisco restocking program.
Ciscoes are related to trout and salmon and require clean, cold water with plenty of dissolved oxygen. They were once present in more than 40 Indiana lakes 60 years ago but are now found in 10 lakes. Their demise was due mainly to declines in water quality related to runoff of nutrients and sediment into lakes.
Ciscoes disappeared from Waubee Lake before the 1970s. Since then, local residents and government agencies have carried out watershed management efforts to improve water quality. Although these efforts improved water quality in the lake, they have not restored cisco habitat.
If cisco habitat had been suitable, the DNR could have transferred adult ciscoes from other Indiana lakes to Waubee or produced and reared young ciscoes in state hatcheries for stocking.
In the early 1900s, Indiana obtained cisco eggs from out-of-state sources and stocked newly hatched fry in several lakes. A cisco population was also established during the 1990s in a lake in Steuben County after ciscoes were transferred from another lake.
Biologists monitored habitat conditions at Waubee Lake from 2007 through 2014 by measuring late-summer water temperatures and oxygen amounts at 2-foot depth intervals.
Temperatures higher than 68 degrees are considered too warm for ciscoes and oxygen levels below three parts per million are deemed too low.
In four of the eight years, no cisco habitat was present. A marginal layer less than 1 foot thick was available during three years. Based on the results, ciscoes could have survived only in 2012.
For a restoration program to be successful, adequate cisco habitat must be present at all times.
In contrast, Waubee Lake has ample warm-water habitat suited for species such as largemouth bass, bluegills and crappies. The amount of warm-water habitat typically extends from the surface down to 18 feet deep.
In between the top warm-water layer and bottom cold-water layer is a third cool-water layer where habitat conditions are better suited for yellow perch, northern pike and walleyes. Although narrow, this cool-water layer was present each year at Waubee Lake except in 2011.