re: False River made Bassmaster news.

I think I remember reading that drawing down the water allows sunlight to reach the bottom of the lake and promote vegetation growth. Then once vegetation is growing it keeps the water clear enough for sunlight to continue to reach the bottom.

Back in the old people days they had grass all the was around the lake. Lush Lilly pads in the South Flats and hard shell bottom on the North Flats.

The year was 1978 and I bought my first boat from bonfanti marine. It rocked and I caught 23 bass none under 3 lbs trolling around the lake fishing with a popping bug over the grass. It was beautiful.

1980 late summer you could go to the South Flats and run an H&H frog over the lilly pads catching some nice bass all evening long with a cold K&B beer in your hands.

Best trip came back home for a visit and a friend and I caught 53 bass off a lunker lure fishing the side of docks. The bass were sitting between the edge of the grass and the first piling on the docks. It was awesom drinking ice cold K&B beer, hearing and seeing bass explode on top of the water for that lunker lure.

Then I moved to California and miss those days.

Does the Chinquapin run still happen or has the silt ruined that too?

I got a map from 1970's era that shows the lake contours and on the back said LDWLF has it as most fertile lake for fish in Louisiana.
It broke down the main species of fish by percent in the lake.

I remember when Bill Dance did a show from False River. Then bass tournament for most of the area clubs always seem to have False River as the first tournament. I can remember fishing one Jan and they had so many boats at times you had to slow down after fishing a dock to not be in the way of the next fisherman. The thing is you caught fish. This time of year on the False River worm you could catch some fish.

Jan/ Feb - jig and pig was great

Feb/ March the lizard or rouge (most jerkbaits) you could catch some fish.

March/ April chrome blue rattle trap was a good bait around the piers.

Summer and fall / winter False River worm

I will never mention this I caught 8lb bass off a pier on the island side. I cranked a bandit crankbait slow in LA shad off brush pile and was cranking back to the boat. The fish was coming after the bait so fast it accidentally jumped in the boat. I weighed him on my hand scale and it was 8lbs 4 oz give or take about 3 oz on that scale. My friend still thinks I caught it to this day.


My father use to send me articles from The State Times paper with the size bass they wee catching on a regular basis.

It was a lake that was really a great fishery at one time. It is just hard to vision it coming back to where it was years ago.

Best part about this lake you could fish it in a bateau with a trollmotor or a big boat and still catch fish. You just had to watch the wind.

Fishing pressure will probably prevent the lake from ever being as good as it once was.

Drawdowns like this are usually designed to all the bottom organic matter to decay. Muck bottoms suck at fish reproduction compared to hard bottoms. I doubt that the improvement from this draw down will be enough to completely turn this lake around. Probably need to keep it drawn down for a lot longer than they probably will.

quote:

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The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, in conjunction with the False River Watershed Council and Pointe Coupee Parish Police Jury, has suspended the drawdown of False River for 2017.

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quote:

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The drawdown structure was scheduled to close on January 15, 2018. However, due to heavy rainfall over the past weekend the lake water level had increased to 17.4 feet MSL, 1.4 feet above pool stage, as of October 25, 2017.

The discharge rate of 1.5 inches per day precludes the lake from being lowered for a sufficient amount of time, and to a significant level this year in order to achieve appreciable benefits from a drawdown.

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