Recently Amber Lake has been fishing slow during the day. Today 3 of us went out and caught 10 fish in 6 hours. They were nice healthy fish ranging from 13-19", but few and far between. Has anyone been fishing the lake in the evening or early morning. I am wondering if the fish are feeding heavily in either the early morning or late evening.

BTW, there is talk going around that the fish in Amber are being affected by a parasite carried by snails. We did not notice any problems with the fish, but did notice some snails floating near the water surface. No evidence that the fish had been feeding on snails either.

If anyone has any info on the feeding cycles lately, please post what you have seen.

Here is the story on Amber as told to me by several DFW staff.

Due to over stocking, they crashed the food base in Amber three to four years ago. With the diminished food base, the fish started moving into the shallows to feed on snails. Some of these snails carry a parasite that resulted in many of the fish becoming quite ill 2 years ago. The first half of the 2001 season was pretty dreadful with a number of sick, lethargic fish, some of which died.

Last year, the DFW spent a lot of time at Amber taking fish samples and examining the food base. They determined that some changes were needed in their stocking practices so part of the reason that fishing is so slow this year is they dramatically reduced the plant to help the food base recovery.

As a result of these practices, we are seeing less fish but more fish in the 18-20 inch range starting to appear. Gone are the days of 20+ fish per trip but in exchange we are getting healthy fish with some shoulders to them.
The DFW must feel that they are making progress because they introduced limited numbers of cutts back into the lake in the Fall.

As a final FYI, you can recognize a fish with the parasite by looking for a worm like lump on the side of the fish. Some fish are lethargic while others show no side effects to the infection.