Lake Biologist is Aware of the Dead Gizzard Shad

[Greasy B]

IMHO minimum flow has had a dramatic effect on the quality of the habitat in white river. Unfortunately due to continued put and take management on Rainbows only the Brown trout have responded. If AFG could get out of the numbers game and allow a little grow between the put and the take the rainbow fishery would be amazing.

[Fishin Hodge]

Agreed, at times like this I do forget about the increase in LMB population. I do feel these flood years have had an impact on the KY bass on BS in a negative way, or at least my catch rate of the larger specimens (2+ lbrs) is much lower. Maybe it is because more people know how to fish for them now or that the fish scatter more due to the flucuating levels, I don't know.

I guess it is a give and take deal, but man I'd like to see the lake at very least nominally lower than it is right now.

Thanks for your very informative info Mojo.

[Ron Burgundy]

IMO a lot of this issue could be alleviated if the Corp would drop the lake in the winter months to free up some water storage so they don't have to run all this water through our lakes.

Ryan, I wish I agreed with you, but I am afraid that more water is only going to compound this problem with continuous flow of water and jacking up with temp/thermocline situation. I was on Bull the day of the big walleye kill a couple years back. It was quite a sad sight. I could have netted several 100. Our walleye population sure doesn't need this, but fortunately the bass seem to cope fairly well with it.

Back at the very start of my memory it seemed like the Corp use to drop Bull Shoals fairly substantially in the winter, it just seems logical. I mean they don't have to drop the bottom out of it, but 10 foot below pool would seem like a no brainer.

Has the walleye been affected this year with the high water?.....Walleye fishing hasn't been the same for me on BS since the kill.

[Fishin Hodge]

All I have heard on the walleye is that people were catching them pretty well light fishing early in the summer. Catching 4 or 5 a night which I found quite encouraging; Some pretty nice size as well. With the high water I haven't heard any real reports for the past month at least. I would think this high water should protect the ones we have over the summer.

Last summer was definitely off for me. I don't target the walleyes a ton, but I do have a pretty good feel for them and when I go I am usually able to catch them. Last year, my best trip was 3 keepers, so definitely tougher than the glory days. Had several days with 1 or 2 keepers and is definitely sub par.

I have not heard of a die off in Bull this year, but am afraid with all this water movement and already talking about low O2 levels it may be inevitable I just hope it is isolated and minimal.

[mojorig]

We currently don't believe there will be a fish kill on Bull Shoals Lake, this year, based off the DO readings for July. We should have a better idea once we receive the new readings for this month.

[Fishin Hodge]

Please do keep us posted on the new readings. Thanks again.

[merc1997 Bo]

if you look at that chart of lake levels, there is clearly an upward trend of winter pool elevation. nearly everytime we are not at least down to 905 going into spring there has been flooding issues. if you look closely at the chart, from the late 90's on, there is clearly a path of higher winter water levels. the corp is clearly not a flood control lake as they claim, but a power generation first thought mentality.

bo

[Justin Spencer]

IMHO minimum flow has had a dramatic effect on the quality of the habitat in white river. Unfortunately due to continued put and take management on Rainbows only the Brown trout have responded. If AFG could get out of the numbers game and allow a little grow between the put and the take the rainbow fishery would be amazing.

I don't know about survival rates for rainbow in the white, but I know that regardless of angler harvest stocker rainbow survival is around the 5% range (living past 5 months or so) in many instances (such as the 11 point) I was shocked to hear how low the survival rate is for them. I think this is why that are used as a put and take fish if they know most will die anyway might as well make the meat fishermen happy. I think putting a maximum size of 15 inches would reward those fish that do survive and then you would have more big rainbows to be caught with plenty of stockers to be kept.

[bviles20]

I was in long creek today...I saw atleast 60 dead game fish...lots of walleye, bass, and crappie. Just go look along back bone bluff on the cricket creek side they are everywhere. Mostly walleye and some really nice largemouth. I saw one that had to be 5 lbs. I'm pretty alarmed at the numbers of fish I saw. I'm guessing close to 100 from cricket creek to the state line. A lot of them have washed up on the brush, but you can see the white bellies floating. I took a couple pictures but they didn't turn out to good.

[5bites]

Beh this sucks