Outdoor Notes : Preliminary Reports Are Favorable at Lake Mead

Favorable preliminary findings are reported two months after about 20,000 gallons of fertilizer were spread over 20,000 acres of Lake Mead’s Overton Arm May 30 in an effort to revive the lake’s declining sport fishery.

The fertilizer, ammonium polyphosphate, was meant to enhance the phosphate level, which dropped largely because of federal clean-water regulations imposed in the late 1970s at the Clark County waste water treatment plant in Las Vegas. Phosphates are the bottom link in the lake’s food chain.

“Right now, we’ve had a moderate algae bloom, and we’ve gotten a significant response in the zooplankton population,” said scientist Larry Paulson, a freshwater specialist from the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

“This in turn has significantly increased--over the past several years we’ve measured it--the population of juvenile shad, the prime food source of largemouth and striped bass. “We scheduled the fertilization project to coincide with the Lake Mead shad spawn, which is normally late May or early June.

“We don’t expect an improvement this year in largemouth numbers, but next year, that might be different. Right now, we hear of improved surface striper activity in the Overton Arm, and that very well could be related to increased numbers of juvenile shad.”

According to Denny Meyer, who owns a bait shop at the lake, stripers and shad are beginning to show. “There is some increased striper activity and there are shad showing up where they have not been in a couple years,” he said. “Striper fishing there has been on the increase.”

Paulson said that fertilization is a long-term project and will probably have to be done yearly.

Briefly

The Department of Fish and Game reminds fishermen that Crowley Lake fishing regulations will change considerably for the rest of 1987, beginning Aug. 1. Anglers will be restricted to two trout daily, which must be at least 18 inches long and taken only on artificial lures with a single barbless hook. . . . The DFG this week completed three days of aerial dropping of 642,500 kamloops-strain rainbow trout fingerlings into 147 Eastern Sierra mountain lakes. . . . Reservation applications for the fall deer and wild hog hunting season, which runs from Aug. 29 through Sept. 7 at Camp Roberts near San Luis Obispo, are available and should be returned by Aug. 8, the DFG announced. . . . The last grunion run of the season on Southern California beaches is expected during a four-day period from Aug. 11-14.