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City enters into agreement with MDC to manage lake at Complex
SIKESTON — There will be a notable fishing improvement at the Sikeston Recreation Complex Lake thanks to a partnership between the City of Sikeston and the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Under the agreement, which is valid for 25 years, the MDC will provide surveys, enforcement of rules and regulations and regularly stock the lake as needed while the City will continue to provide maintenance.
“We just want to have a place local where people can catch fish,” said Matt Holifield with the Sikeston Parks and Recreation Department. “People don’t have to travel to catch fish because they have it right here in their back yard.”
Scott County Conservation Agent Andrew Mothershead said the Sikeston Parks and Recreation Department approached the MDC about the Community Assistance Program (CAP).
“(The City) had been putting a lot of time and effort into managing the fishery but were having a lot of complaints about people not catching fish,” Mothershead said.
The MDC had been working for several years with Parks and Recreation, offering consultation and advice so a CAP program was the logical next step.
“We have a history that goes back about 12 years or so,” said Mike Reed, fisheries management biologist with MDC. “A lot of community ponds do not have active management, especially with the state.”
Sikeston Director of Parks and Recreation Dustin Care said the first thing that was done was some improvement to the bank on the south end to help prevent the overflow when it rains.
“Two years ago in the winter time we rebuilt that bank,” Care said. “We had to set that bank higher and had to come around higher than what we anticipated. That was a week-long project.”
Then MDC began conducting surveys over the last couple of years to determine what was needed to improve the fishing habitat in the lake. Salvador Mondragon, fisheries management biologist with MDC said there were a couple of issues they wanted to address, including the need for stocking some fish.
“We have stocked, for example, channel catfish, a few bass and hopefully within a few months we will get bluegill stocked,” Mondragon said. “We’ll get another stocking of bass early next year and then channel catfish will be on a yearly basis.”
Another species of fish that is planned is trout. Mondragon said it is a two-year process with the hopes that trout will be added to the lake in November of 2022. Then the Sikeston will be added to the winter trout program, becoming one of only four in the region.
“That’s a limited program statewide,” Reed said. “There is only a handful of communities in the state that do that. Way fewer than do catfish. That really changes park usage in the winter.”
Reed added that the Feb. 1 trout opener is a big draw and one that is immensely popular.
“That will be February of 2023,” Reed said. “A lot of people are asking for that.”
Mothershead said before the lake became a CAP area, it was a municipal lake, which fell under statewide regulations. The number of fish that were allowed to be kept statewide were relatively high. Now that the lake is enrolled in the CAP program, the regulations will be a little more restrictive on some species of fish.
“That is just so that we can sustain this fishery long term,” Mothershead said. “So the folks that are concerned it coming into a CAP program, the only thing that really changes is some of the daily limits on our fish, primarily or channel catfish. It goes from 10 to 4.”
The limit on channel catfish will help keep fish in the lake, which has been an issue for years.
“We were spending $2,000 on average a year to stock it and one weekend it would be pretty much fished out of catfish,” Care said. “People would come out here the second the kids fishing derby was over and people were waiting in the parking lot to go.”
Mothershead said he checked people as far as three hours away fishing the lake after the derby, as people knew the lake would be stocked with catfish.
“The reason that regulation is used statewide in these small settings is because the fishing pressure tends to be pretty intense,” Reed said. “There are folks that fish this pond day, night, weekends, all the time. And if you don’t restrict that harvest, you can’t put enough catfish in there to keep it high quality. So it kind of sustains that and allows us to keep up.”
Mondragon said that keeping the lake stocked with different species of fish allows for many opportunities with youth outside of just the kids fishing derby.
“It gives an opportunity for novice anglers to catch more fish, conduct youth programs where students or kids who haven’t had the opportunity to fish, to come out here and catch something,” Mondragon said. “A couple of weeks ago we had a program out here and kids actually caught more fish than they ever had before. And it also allows people in the community to start thinking of other things they can do with youth.”
Mothershead said the MDC now shares the cost with the city of keeping fish stocked in the lake.
“Now the state has a vested interest in keeping this lake sustainable so if they have issues with their well or other structural issues or are seeking improvements, like a dock in the future, we will share that cost as it comes along,” Mothershead said. “Whereas before it was completely on the city.
“It’s an exciting partnership for our agency and the City of Sikeston. Our ultimate goal is we want the people that live here in Sikeston to have a place that they can come fish and reasonably expect to catch a wide variety of species.”