INSA Calendar

PLANNED ACTIVITIES

Our 2nd Smallie Stravaganza Coming Soon!

Be sure and save the date: March 6, 2010 at the Zionsville American Legion. Our 2nd Annual Smallie Stravaganza will be held from 4-8PM with lots of fun, food, guests, speakers and raffle items. Your $20 admission ticket buys you a catered barbeque dinner, as well as a couple great seminars with guests from Wildcat CReek Outfitters and Friends of the White River. There will also be raffle items as well as a kayak demo/display, not to mention lots of smallmouth anglers to talk to for an evening. Meet other anglers from the area and talk fishing hot spots. 

INSA Completes River Survey

Several members of the Indiana Smallmouth Alliance spent the past couple weeks surveying a 21 mile stretch of Big Walnut Creek for a grant project supported by the Putnam County SWCD, the United Way and the Lilly Foundation. This project was geared toward documenting the destruction from the huge spring floods on this particular waterway. All locations were photographed and marked into a spreadsheet using GPS coordinates. When combined with our Spring 2007 survey of another stretch of this creek, our group has now catalogued over 35 miles of this scenic river bounded by US36 to the north and stretching to the end of the watershed where it meets I-70 down south. In total we have combined for over 100 man-hours and nearly 1500 road miles to accompish this great feat.

INSA & IDNR Team Up on Signage

Matt, Kevin and Brenden from INSA just finished a project working with the IDNR to replace and erect new signs on our two specially regulated smallmouth waterways here in Indiana. Matt and his father tackled the Blue R. in southern Indiana and Kevin and Brenden took on Sugar Cr. The IDNR supplied the special reg signs for us and the guys replaced old, damaged or destroyed signs as well as erecting new signs at many access points previously unmarked. INSA and many of its members were part of the campaign supporting specialized regulations for smallmouth bass in selected waters of our state.

INSA Helps With USGS Stream Survey - 9/12

Mike Cummings, Matt Doddridge and I assisted in a stream shocking today with the USGS. We surveyed a 300m section of Big Walnut Creek north of US36. This is part of an ongoing study of the watershed and is done twice a year. The intent is to monitor the aquatic biomass along with water quality as a "base" for the midwest, kinda strange Indiana is the bar that others are measured by concerning water quality!!

We started off by shocking on one side of the stream segment and dip netting everything that was stunned. We placed the specimens into a cooler on the barge that holds the generator and equipment. Once we had surveyed this side of the creek, we took the collected fish (and Lamprey eels!!) down stream to sort and identify. We counted the number of each specie along with weights and general health of the fish.

Several smallies were collected from just a few inches to a 17" pig!!! We also netted a LARGE carp, it was HUGE!! It took two nets to get him out of the water and onto the bank where he belongs!!

We then surveyed the opposite bank and counted and measured as before. This took all day and we had to endure quite a bit of rain along the way. All in all it was a great day!

-John Bunner

INSA - Partnering to Protect the White R. (9/13)

State Fair Fishing Pond - August 9

Saturday was an awesome day at the Indiana State Fair!! We had lot's of fun fishing with A LOT of kids!! I can't describe the enthusiasm and pure joy the kids experienced catching fish all day!! I truely enjoyed the experience!

We also had the pleasure of working with the Indiana Wildlife Federation along with the DNR's Project Wild crew at the fishing pond.

INSA members that attended were:

Mike Taylor
Zack Pagac
Gary Ruston
Jim Foreman
Chuck Brinkman
John Bunner