By T. Scott Boatright
The big ones eat the little ones, so the little ones have to be fast — that’s the “Law of the Fish.”
But it takes a balanced population to make the “Law of the Fish” a reality. An unbalanced fish population happens when the ratio of hunter fish (predators like bass) to prey fish (like bream) breaks down, leading to overcrowding, starving or “stunted” fish, where fish stop growing normally because of too little food or too little hunting pressure.
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Kevin Houston reported to the Lincoln Parish Police Jury during Tuesday night’s LPPJ meeting at the Lincoln Parish Courthouse, explaining what the LDWF is doing to restore balance to Lake Hoogland, the Lincoln Parish Park lake named in honor of Fredric Hoogland, founder of Lincoln Parish Park.
“In 2024 I came out and looked at the fish population (at Lake Hoogland),” Houston told the LPPJ as he began his report. “We’ve never really truly done anything in this area. So we came out in 2024, put our electrofisher (a scientific tool that uses a controlled electrical field in water to temporarily stun fish) into the pond and looked at the fish population.
“And ultimately, we realized that the population — the bass population — was overexpanded. There were too many bass in the lake. There was no forage available for those bass to feed on, and so we (recently) talked to (Lincoln Parish Park Director) Alfred (Young) and told him we thought that we can make this lake better.”
Houston said he knew that in the past, there have been fishing events and tournaments held at Lincoln Parish Park and that LDWF wants to return the lake to a state where such events can happen again.
“In February of 2025 we added 48 tons of (agricultural lime used as a shock treatment) to the pond,” Houston said.
That treatment was done to correct water chemistry to support a new fertilization program to grow healthy plankton and balance the fish population at the lake.
“We followed that up in 2025 with a fertilization regime,” Houston said. “So, we were adding fertilizer to the lake so that we could create a base to the food pyramid there. You’ve got to have food for there to be an abundance of fish, starting from algae all the way to large bass. That’s the ultimate predator at the top of that pyramid.
“What we also had to do was take some mass out of that lake. If I showed you a graph tonight you would see that between 6-10 inches (deep) was where most of those bass were at. So, we ended up cropping off 7 1/2 pounds (of fish) per acre out of the lake.”
Houston said the LDWF also looked at the relative weights of the fish.
“If you go to a doctor, they take your height and your weight and they say that you may be getting a little bit heavy, or you’re a little light and need to put some weight on. So these fish were extremely low. They were in the 80% mark, and on our public water bodies we want between 90% and 100% as far as relative weights go.
“What we also saw was very, very few bream. There were very few bream and they were poor in size. And when I say very few, we saw one (bream) out of 100 (fish) and the rest was just bass, everywhere. So we did that in 2024 — took 7 1/2 pounds of bass per acre out of the pond. And that fall we sampled that and we moved the needle a little bit as far as the health factors on the bass and were starting to see more forage available.”
Houston said the LDWF stepped up that work in 2025, taking close to 15 pounds per acre (of bass) out of the pond.
“We’re talking about small bass,” Houston said. “We weren’t taking out the larger bass we were seeing in the pond. And since then we’ve (added more shock) — we plan on shocking in September and go back and get another reading on how the pond is performing. We’re seeing lots of good bream. We’re seeing lots of forage available for these bass and we truly believe we’re moving the needle on that fishery (Lake Hoogland). Hopefully we can come back and report that to you when we come back and shock in September.
“So, that’s what we’ve been doing and our intent was to improve the fishery. I know Dan and Alfred have talked to us about filamentous algae around the pond, and that is a concern about the aesthetics of the Lincoln Parish Park lake.”
Houston said that in 2025 the LDWF applied some copper sulfate crystals to the algae mats (filamentous algae) on the lake.
“These mats aren’t necessarily harmful, they’re just not quite as aesthetic as you would like to see,” Houston said. “And that’s the one thing about adding nutrients to a pond — it’s going to go into something. It’s going to go into the algae bloom that’s out there, which is the color in the pond. If you can go out there and see to the bottom of the pond, there’s really no nutrients there and you’re not going to grow a whole lot of fish.
“But if you go out there and it’s got color, that means there’s life. So, it’s a balancing act as far as the filamentous algae goes. Last week we treated it with some copper sulfate and saw a little bit of a mark. We drove out there earlier and it looks better. And if we continue to treat that, maybe not this year but next year, and get ahead of it a little bit, it will keep it from expanding.”
Houston said that if there are nutrients and the sun can penetrate to the bottom of the pond, there will be vegetation growing in it.
“We would love to continue working with the park and to benefit the fishery. I grew up as a Ruston native, so I’d like to see this benefit the park,” he said.
Houston said the LDWF isn’t adding bream to the park but instead hopes the work being done will increase that population.
“It’s about the predator (bass)-prey (bream) relationship,” Houston said. “On Caddo Lake, it’s 2.6 prey to 1 predator. At Lincoln Parish Park, it was .16 prey to 1 predator. So, it’s (created) like an inverted pyramid. There should be a big base at the bottom of the food chain, which in this case is algae, insects and little bitty, smaller fish. So getting a call that there’s algae growing at the bottom of the pond, that’s a good thing for right now.
“We want to knock back the mats (water surface algae growth), but as we’re doing that, the same chemical that knocks out that filamentous algae is also the same chemical that knocks out your beneficial algae. Filamentous algae does provide shade and cover for the fish. You could remove it with a rake, but it’s going to come back. It’s a byproduct of excessive amounts on the (pond) that’s built up for years. In some years it’s going to be worse than others depending on rainfall amounts and temperatures.
“Fertilizing is stimulating some of that algae growth but it’s also stimulating the beneficial algae. And even though it’s ugly, that (filamentous algae) is serving a purpose because it’s serving as refuge for those small fish we’re trying to hold on to reproduce themselves, it’s providing refuge and escape places for them.”
As far as adding more of different species to the pond, such as catfish, the LDWF feels that’s not the answer for Lincoln Parish Park.
“The makeup of the pond is just fine,” Houston said. “The bream are expanding. There’s nothing wrong with the fish population, the species population itself. We have a few catfish and we’ve seen one crappie, but in a 24-acre lake, adding those other species complicates these predator-prey interactions.
“So, until we get that back into balance, I wouldn’t advise it. If we can get it more self-sustaining than where it got to, then maybe down the road we can add that or something else to anglers, but right now is probably not the most appropriate time to add anything like that.”
