Fish have new homes in Lake Freeman

WHITE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - Many species of fish in Lake Freeman have new places to call home underwater.
The Shafer and Freeman Lakes Environmental Conservancy Corporation sank 22 new fish habitats throughout the lake.

 SFLECC Executive Director Daryl Johns said the project costs about $5,000.

"Lake Shafer has a lot of spawning areas due to the tributaries that come into it. Lake Freeman is a little different, and we hear from the local fishermen that fish this lake that they need more fish structure and spawning areas down here," Johns said.
"We hope that we can get some tournaments down here, and it fits in nicely with our tourism industry, so that's our goal."

Lake Freeman resident Steve Jones helped develop the more than 5' diameter saucer-shaped fish pods.   He said similar but much larger habitats have been used in the oceans for years.

"We are putting in today some fish pods as we call them, it's a new product we developed. It's a fish attractor.
What they're meant to do with the depletion of shoreline trees and rubbish, people are putting in sea walls and taking out the habitat for the fish.
Our bass population has decreased and so have some of the panfish.
With the artificial reefs we are putting in we hope to build that population back up," Jones said.

Jones said the pods will help fisherman by creating an attraction for predator fish.

"What they do is they attract in the smaller fish which live in them, and in turn that brings in the larger fish to eat the small ones.
They're made at U.S. Molders in Reynolds, Indiana. They're a rotary molding process. They're made out of high density polyethylene so the life span of them is almost forever," Jones said.

Johns said in addition to the new habitats, the SFLECC plans to stock about $5,000 worth of largemouth bass into Lake Freeman in late 2009.