The "Friends of CJ Brown Reservoir' Project #3

[lowellhturner]

We are to soon meet again with ODNR and the Army Corps of Engineers and the Park Manager to 'seal the deal' for the next phase of attractors and spawning cover. We hope to emplace very long lasting cedar, osage orange, catfish spawning culverts and possibly several rubble/ block and red brick piles into CJ. We HOPE to be allowed to go to 20 fow which will allow us to "litter' upwards of 5X the previous area, potentially. We will be grateful for any assistance of manpower, materials, ect. The only real change will be that I will NOT be permitted to post the GPS coordinates; the parties assisting WILL recieve them in their entirety. This was NOT my personal decision, but as a condition imposed by many of the "Friends' I will accept it. Thank You !

[Optfish]

 :)keep  will try to make myself available.

[lowellhturner]

Optfish, Thanks ! We will start come spring. We are looking for 6- 8` tall cedar trees as well as osage orange (hedge apple ) trees,  clean 5 gallon buckets, clean unpainted cement blocks 3 and 10 hole bricks and willing bodies...more later, sir !

[MDBuckeye]

For sure keep us posted.  I am more than willing to be involved in this project.  I don't fish CJ much but I'm willing to help out whenever I can.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

[lowellhturner]

Thank You MD Buckeye ! If you can locate any of the needed items they will be of help sir ! More later...

[CJ Brown IceMan]

I too will be willing to help with the manpower...
Dont know about locating needed items but will keep an "EYE"
out for them

[Matthew Fiedler]

i wish i was closer, i have about 12 cinder blocks i would love to get rid of.

[lowellhturner]

CJ Brown Iceman, even being available to help at all would be of assistance. It has proven to be a "multi faceted" endeavor, collecting the materials, moving it, assembly, donating/ buying needed materials and providing boats to get it all to it`s final resting spots. Fathead 45, perhaps we can "network and see if we can get them here. So long as the blocks are unpainted we could use them. Where are you located? If anyone knows anyone who works for a tree/ lawn servive those cedars and osage orange limbs would still be there 20 yrs from now after going in...

[Matthew Fiedler]

im in lima, but my dad lives in conover which is about 25 mins from springfield.  i could talk with him and see if he could pick up and bring to his house and you could get from there.

what other materials are you looking for?

[Jawjacker12]

Fathead I have a truck, and can pick them up and take to wherever. I plan on helping out. I also have a boat that can be used for this operation.

[lowellhturner]

Thank you for offering, bigbr1. What type of boat do you have available? Fathead 45, the materials we looking for are clean 5 gallon buckets, cement blocks, bags of cement, large and small dia PVC piping, 1x1" and 2x2" HARDWOOD stakes, 12" dia plastic culvert cut into 3` pieces and any osage orange limbs/ branches 3" in dia at cut ends and as many 6- 8` cedar trees and shrubs we can secure. Lastly as many 3 and 10 hole red bricks as we can get our hands on. Some items we will try to get locally, but we`ll gladly accept ANY help/ materials offered, especially the cedars and osage orange ! Thanks !   

[Jawjacker12]

I have a 16' Alum boat with a pretty good open space to carry stuff, all though I don't know how many bricks would be considered safe. But I will help where needed.

[Matthew Fiedler]

alright, i know my dad just tore down a whole chimney an it was 2 truck loads lol.  ill talk with him and see what hes doing with it.

[Intimidator]

Please let me explain why we decided not to publish the GPS locations of the cover we are placing this time!
CJ has benefited recently from weather not allowing most fishermen out in the Spring during most spawns, the high water has offered more spawning areas and when the fry have hatched the water has receded perfectly and the fry moved to the rocks and previous laydown cover and brushpiles.
The hot summers have allowed multiple shad spawns that have exploded this baitfish population and allowed the predators a huge food source, which in turn has allowed the natural minnow population, perch, and gill populations to grow. The increase of small shad fry every few months is feeding all of the new small predator fish, and the larger predators that are not cannibalizing the fry.
The crappie size and creel limits and the wet springs have kept the normal bank fishing down which has allowed their population to grow in size and numbers.
There have been 3-4 years of Huge Bass spawns, the number of Bass and size, is noticeable by everyone.
Even the Cat population is Stronger.
CJ has experienced a population growth that hasn't happened since it was first built.

The bad news is that a major shad kill right now could be really be bad for fishing...short term it would be good for the fishermen who would enjoy that first year without food for all the fish...but soon the predators would face a die-off also.
We are trying to bridge the shad kill that IS coming. If we continue the projects, we can continue to build the natural baitfish population and avert a drastic kill-off! The more areas we provide for all of the fish the better the whole population will be.

The reasoning for not giving out locations is that we have seen people sitting on these locations daily...sometimes all day....just poaching easy fish until that area had no more to offer!
The idea now is to provide something for the fish and so CJ becomes capable to handle the population increase like it did when it was NEW and had all the stumps, trees, posts etc. In the long run and if we do this right, it will benefit the fishermen more than just allowing them to set on a brushpile until they strip it!

We will set up a meeting in early Spring to talk and pick out locations (that we all agree on), then we will have examples of bucket trees etc, that can be built at home or at CJ, we will have meetings to build the "Block" tree at CJ for those that can attend, and if people cannot attend they can make "Bucket" trees at home.
People who build stuff at home or have blocks etc can bring it to the maintenance area of CJ at anytime through the Spring and Summer (we do not want to interfere with everyones Spring Fishing) then we will hopefully set one date in the late summer where we all can meet after supper and sink everything we have built and accumulated...Quick, Easy, and Done for the year! No GPS, no maps, nothing...all for CJ!

If all we have is 50 bucket trees, then we'll be thankful for that and they will go in. Anything is better than nothing and the best part is that we will be legally allowed to drop structure to help CJ!

[Salmonid]

Lowell, Ill help anyway I can, I do have a pile of old cinder blocks to donate and my 19 ft boot may help with accurate GPS available on it.  My Wed and Thursday afternoons and some weekends ar emy best days. all depends on each weeks schedule from work. Keep me in the loop!
Salmonid