Two thousand and twenty-two (2022) was the last year we experienced great fishing at the tubes. In 2023 and 2024 the tubes were closed most of the time due to maintenance and new construction work in the channel. During that period of time, we lost large numbers of blue cat due to lack of oxygen. We started 2025 with fewer numbers of all species and to make things worse we were on a dry year to the north. We also don’t know for sure if we lost fish because of the dredging. I think that fishing was worse after the dredging. All year we have been short on crappie. Almost none! If they dredge for two more years, I expect fishing to be the same as 2025 unless we have a wet year. The crappie and saugeye fishing couldn’t have been any worse this year. The flathead fishing was also bad but that could be due to not enough outflow. We probably won’t know for a few years if the dredging hurt the numbers of fish in the basin.

Time is the answer: The world is changing and so is fishing!