Partnership installs fishing habitats in Braidwood Lake

BRACEVILLE – Jeffrey Jenkins was competing years ago in a fishing tournament at Kentucky Lake, casting his line near an underwater brush pile, when an idea struck him.

“Why put in a fish habitat if it’s not going to stay in place?” wondered Jenkins, owner and operator of Fish Habitat Forever.

Artificial fish habitats need to stick to the floor of the lake, Jenkins said, so he developed artificial habitats made out of mostly PVC pipe that mimic tomato stakes in a garden.

Friday morning, Jenkins and others from Exelon Generation’s Braidwood Station, Illinois Department of Natural Resources and three local bass fishing clubs – American Bass Anglers, Bass PAC (a B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Club) and National Bass Anglers Association – installed 90 habitats in the Braidwood Cooling Lake.

It’s been an annual tradition since 2007, Braidwood Station Communications Manager Pegg Warnick said, typically done following the early May fishing tournament, Fishing for a Cure. To date, the partnership has installed 770 habitats that cost $80 each, Bass PAC member Jay O’Connell said.

Braidwood Lake is a man-made body of water formed as a result of strip mining. Heat from the generating station is discharged into the lake, and to Warnick’s knowledge, it has never frozen. O’Connell’s boat recorded a temperature of 82 degrees Friday.

Because it’s man-made, O’Connell said it’s important to install the permanent artificial habitats because they allow algae to collect on the structures, which attracts plankton, which brings in minnows, which larger fish can feed on.

It gives fish areas to congregate during spawning season.

O’Connell and a few other anglers drove their boats out to specific areas of the lake to drop the habitats in about 6 feet of water. The habitats feature a solid foundation with a flat bottom and curved edges to allow them to sink to the bottom. The PVC stakes stand vertically in the water.

“You really see the results in tournaments,” O’Connell said. “We’ve started catching 5-pound bass in the last few years. It used to be a 3-pound average.”

The IDNR annually stocks the lake with 60,000 4-inch fingerling largemouth bass. The combined effort has significantly enhanced the fishery.

Since 2002, Fishing for a Cure tournaments have raised more than $412,000 for local charities, including the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Illinois in 2013 and the Coal City/Diamond Tornado Disaster Relief Effort in 2014.

The 2015 tournament held May 2 raised $47,700, Warnick said, for three local hospices – the Grundy Community Volunteer Hospice, Joliet Area Community Hospice and Hospice of Kankakee Valley. The tournament had 93 entrants, each paying a $150 entry fee.

Funds are raised by Exelon employees, other volunteers and the 100 fishing teams’ entry fees. Exelon gives $10,000 in team prizes, so all entry fees go to charity.

With so much acreage dedicated to the operation of its many facilities, Exelon makes efforts at all its locations to maintain and grow wildlife, Warnick said

All six of Exelon's nuclear stations in Illinois have Wildlife at Work certifications from the Wildlife Habitat Council, Warnick said. The program provides a structure for cooperative efforts between management, employees and community members to create, conserve and restore wildlife habitats on corporate lands, according to the website. Braidwood Lake is managed as a fishery and hunting area by the IDNR as part of the Mazonia-Braidwood Fish and Wildlife Area.