DeKalb County Lake Shows What Habitat Work and Targeted Bass Harvest Can Do

Alabama's DeKalb County Public Fishing Lake has earned national recognition for a restoration project that paired habitat work with deliberate bass stocking and harvest rules. The 120-acre public lake offers a practical example of Sport Fish Restoration dollars being put back into better fishing.

The American Fisheries Society's Fisheries Administrator Section gave the state's District II fisheries staff its 2025 Sport Fish Restoration Outstanding Project Award. Alabama announced the recognition September 3, 2026. The work itself is not new: crews renovated the lake in 2014–2015 and reopened it in 2016 after years of poor fishing and declining angler use.

While the lake was drained, crews added trees and woody structure, cut ditches and spread gravel for bluegill spawning. Managers then combined carefully chosen bass stocking rates with shoreline vegetation, fertilization and supplemental bluegill stocking. Bass were protected by catch-and-release rules from 2016 to 2020. In spring 2020, the rule changed to allow anglers to keep five bass under 13 inches daily.

The fisheries staff reports that permit sales doubled and larger bass became more abundant. Bluegill catch rates also improved. Those results came from managing habitat, forage and harvest together, not simply pouring more bass into the water.

Additional access work is underway. ADCNR says it is spending more than $600,000 on pier renovations and other access and fishing improvements at DeKalb. Anglers planning a trip should check the lake's current rules and facility information before leaving; this award announcement does not say that every improvement is finished.