Fished the culverts on Rush and Blue Dog this morning and noticed quite a few nice crappies – up to 14″ – dead on the shoreline along with some walleyes (mostly small.) Has anybody heard if they have netted to check the extent of the winter kill, or if there are plans to net? Hopefully its not too bad because we have caught and released a ton of 20-28″ fish out of this system the past 2 years.
Hey 61,
You are talking SD; correct?
Tweed
Correct. Sorry, I thought I posted in the South Dakota fishing section. New to the forums so probably a rookie mistake! 
I dont know exactly how they do the nettings in SD it seems to be cyclic. I know we were catching alot of eyes late ice on Bluedog, so late that people were already fishing the culvurts. I am sure there is some die off but if there was any significant die off it would be very noticeable. – QB
Thanks for the reply Qunitin. Talking to some locals, it sounds like the crappies and white bass took the brunt of the hit on Blue Dog. The dead eyes could maybe be from people high grading or terrible catch and release practices? North Rush looked pretty bad as I went there again with some buddies and snagged quite a few dead walleyes of all sizes. Like you said, hopefully its just a partial freeze out.
I don’t know nearly enough about winterkill and conditions but wat suprised me is that last year didnt winterkill when the ice was on the lake for probably 3 weeks longer with alot more snow. With the size of Rush it is hard to say though last year the way the wind blew following Ice off could have dictated where the dead fish blew off. Who knows just a theory. – QB
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