Coming soon: Okhissa: Lake will be No. 1 in many respects
By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 10/19/07 - 11:33:05 am CDT
MEADVILLE — Okhissa Lake is setting records and it hasn’t even opened yet.
The Homochitto National Forest lake, which will open to the public on Nov. 7, sports the largest dam in the U.S. Forest Service system, the tallest dam in Mississippi, and is the first Forest Service lake designed strictly for fishing.
“It is going to be world-class fishing,” predicted Homochitto district ranger Tim Reed. “I don’t think you’ll find a more intensively managed lake in the country for the fisheries.”
Forest Service officials hosted a media preview Thursday at the lake on Highway 98 East, Bude. They, and others involved, were brimming with enthusiasm as they stood under a gazebo overlooking the sparkling, windswept lake nestled among the piney ridges of the Homochitto Forest.
“This is one of my high points in my career,” said dam designer Kim Harris, state engineer for the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service.
“This is an unbelievable fishery,” said Paul Bishop, director of sales for Bill Dance Signature Lakes, which helped design the fisheries.
Biologists shocked parts of the lake in March — stunning fish to check their size — and found one bass up to 6 pounds, with many more in the 3-pound range. That’s just 23 months after stocking.
Bream are already up to a pound and are massive and numerous.
“It’s going to be good right off the bat for the bream fishermen,” Bishop said.
Catfish are in the 3-4-pound range. Crappie were introduced much later since they compete heavily with bass, and they’re hard to shock, so officials had little data on them.
The lake is still four feet low and likely won’t fill until next summer, by which time it should span 1,075 acres and reach more than 80 feet deep at the dam, with average depths of around 31 feet.
Since the lake isn’t full, officials urged boaters to be careful of submerged timber. Other hazards include falling trees and limbs, and wasp nests hanging from bushes.
Skiing will be allowed next year when the lake is full, along with swimming, when a sand beach is completed by the dam.
Well into the future are such amenities as campgrounds, lodges, cabins, a marina and a hiking trail. The Forest Service hopes to find a private company to build and run such facilities but so far none has applied. The service will issue a request for proposals again next year and hope that by then the popularity of the lake will entice someone to come forward.
Okhissa has cost a total of $24 million so far, with another $3 million projected to finish the day-use areas and $7 million to complete roads around the east side, Reed said.Okhissa offers abundant opportunity for bank fishing, particularly since the Forest Service installed fish beds and ledges just offshore in many places.
The lake stretches two miles long, and the southern upper end is choked with standing timber. Coves are abundant in the 39 miles of shoreline.
“If you go out in these fingers, you can go on forever,” Reed said during a boat tour of the lake. “That’s what’s pretty unique about it.”
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For more information, call 384-5876.
384-5876.
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Susan wrote on Oct 20, 2007 8:45 PM: