Fished Wilde Lake 12/5 amd 12/7

[Yak Fish]

About 10 or 11 years ago I live in the apartments next to Lake Kittamakundi, and I used to run past it and around Wilde Lake. Never once did I see people fish there, and neither did I! Jeeze, now I feel like I missed an opportunity. It was a nice lake with a boardwalk that went along one side of it. It probably doesn't get much pressure.

It's hard to believe that the residents wouldn't actually enjoy seeing a couple of people on the lake in kayaks. It's kind of a peaceful, friendly scene. It's hard to be belligerent and obnoxious while on a kayak. You really have to try to make someone mad....what are you going to do, make big splashes with your paddle?!

[DanMarino]

I did well at Kittamaquondi on bass before they dredged the lake and changed the top end around. Haven't fished it since that mess.

[bunnielab]

It's hard to believe that the residents wouldn't actually enjoy seeing a couple of people on the lake in kayaks. It's kind of a peaceful, friendly scene. It's hard to be belligerent and obnoxious while on a kayak. You really have to try to make someone mad....what are you going to do, make big splashes with your paddle?!

Oh....so you guy's don't fish with one of these:


strapped to the back of your yak, blasting The Message at max volume?


Damm....maybe that's why I never tend to catch anything?

[bignose]

It's hard to believe that the residents wouldn't actually enjoy seeing a couple of people on the lake in kayaks. It's kind of a peaceful, friendly scene. It's hard to be belligerent and obnoxious while on a kayak. You really have to try to make someone mad....what are you going to do, make big splashes with your paddle?!

Funny, but true, story:
Somewhere around the early 1990s, I used to fish Wilde Lake from my canoe a couple of afternoons per week in the Spring.
I taught at a nearby middle school and I could be on the water half an hour after school was dismissed.
One warm day, I am drifting out on the pond, checking my eye lids for holes ( I was sound asleep, and anchored, just holding my rod), when some elderly woman with a shrill voice, who was standing on the shore line 20 yards away, with her rag mop of a dog, began screaming at me: "You can't fish there!" (I was in one of those unmarked fishing zones-there were no signs).

Now I am from the school of thought that waking somebody from a sound sleep shouldn't be a capital offense (at least, the first time).
Startled from my nap, I looked over at her and yelled back: "Why don't you and "little Toto" go back to Kansas!"
I added a couple of other choice comments about how she had been in a movie where a house fell on her sister…..…or something like that.
I don't remember cursing or using foul language.

Two of the women I taught with were doing their exercise laps around the lake, and they caught this encounter, and the next day at school I had several people come up to me and ask why I was so mean to that old lady!

That was the beginning of the Wilde Lake fishing regs war!
It turned out that she was known as the "Sheriff" of Wilde Lake, and you didn't cross her.

[DanMarino]

So is she dead yet?

[Mark]

Bignose,

All you have to do is splash some water on her!

That worked well for Dorothy.

[bignose]

I came to know her well as I met repeatedly with her Waterfowl and Habitat Committee.
She was stubborn and adamant about how evil fishermen were, but with her attitude, it was apparent why she thought that. She was all about protecting the swans.
She was one who wanted fishing banned from the lake.
I came to respect her, although I obviously disagreed with her.
She was unwilling to compromise, and I ended up going around her and her committee and with the help of a CA representative, was able to put together a set of regs that nobody totally liked, but was enforceable and fair. That was in 1996. It took more than two years to get this resolved….the lake was drained and being dredged at the time.

You cannot not believe some of the nut jobs that came to these hearings.
One resident was concerned that criminals could use boats to scout the residences for break-ins! That there is a pathway directly next to these units with steady foot traffic seemed to escape him!

But in 2008, without public hearings, CA changed the regs to what they are today.

The problem is that the new addendum to the current regs were not vetted, and are so poorly written that they leave way too much up for individual interpretation.
For example: one rule says: "no fishing in front of certain residences"…..to me, that means no fishing in the street in front of the houses, because the pond is in back of them……you get the idea.
Or: "No fishing the shoreline area." O.K. how far off shore is the "shoreline area?

Bottom line, they want an unmarked boundary down the middle of the lake, much like it was prior to 1996.

There are swan protection zones around the lake, but it has been 10 years since CA has had swans there, they got into a fight with the company that provided the hybrid swans (they are not native) so why have the protection areas?
It is O.K. to paddle in the restricted zones, but not to fish………..

CA does not have this problem with any of the other ponds! It is just those few residents!

Like I said: fishing wars

[Mark]

At the risk of controversy, I suggest that while those who protest anglers enjoying our hobby are wrong on many counts, some have good reason for their annoyance. How often have we seen fishing line and empty bait containers on the banks and at launch sites of the waters we fish? Non-anglers toss trash on the shoreline too but discarded fishing residue is unmistakable and as a result anglers catch the brunt of blame for all who litter the waterways.

Each of my kayak friends (and I’m certain that Snaggedliners taking the time to post here) are thoroughly responsible individuals who leave no trail of their presence on the water. Unfortunately we are tarred by those who are as not as responsible. There’s no easy answer but I go out of my way to dispose of litter I find left by others at launch sites. It’s frustrating and I don’t like to do it, but other than the efforts of folks like Bignose who work with policy makers, it’s the least I can do.

[sparky1423]

Well said Mark! Every launch site I've used has been littered with trash unless maintained by the county or state. Some riddled with drugs and prostitution, most of us kayakers are forged with conservation in mind. I pick up what I can, and hope others follow suit. Fishing has always attracted all classes of people and it can be bitter/sweet.

[bignose]

At the risk of controversy, I suggest that while those who protest anglers enjoying our hobby are wrong on many counts, some have good reason for their annoyance. How often have we seen fishing line and empty bait containers on the banks and at launch sites of the waters we fish? Non-anglers toss trash on the shoreline too but discarded fishing residue is unmistakable and as a result anglers catch the brunt of blame for all who litter the waterways.

Each of my kayak friends (and I’m certain that Snaggedliners taking the time to post here) are thoroughly responsible individuals who leave no trail of their presence on the water. Unfortunately we are tarred by those who are as not as responsible. There’s no easy answer but I go out of my way to dispose of litter I find left by others at launch sites. It’s frustrating and I don’t like to do it, but other than the efforts of folks like Bignose who work with policy makers, it’s the least I can do.

Mark, you are absolutely right!
The resident's attitudes had been shaped by their interactions with the "slob meat fishermen" that followed the stocking truck, along with the close proximity of their houses to the pond.
Unfortunately, as you pointed out, fishing trash is easily identified, and nothing I could do could change their attitudes about the behavior of responsible sportsmen.
To them, fishing was a threat to the Swans, and their real motive, a threat to their privacy.
When I suggested that if the activities offended them, or if they were concerned about fishermen "casing" their residences for crime, they could always draw their curtains, it was met with universal disdain.
And even after we had the State change the stocking to Lake Elkhorn, it didn't matter.
I hauled out a tremendous amount of trash out of the pond one Sunday, only to have a resident accuse me of dumping the trash that I picked up!

And the irony that boating is permitted anywhere on the Lake, including the summer camp with 7-10 canoes full of kids, but pick up a fishing rod in the wrong part of the pond and………….