Adam, Can you report on the netting program going on now? How it's working out?
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Adam, Can you report on the netting program going on now? How it's working out?
I haven't personally been involved with any of it other than some early work with site selection to minimize the impact on the brushpiles people have put out. There is an update on the western kentucky fisheries page with the latest details, but since I wasn't involved I don't have a lot of insight into how it went or how its going.
Regarding the concerns of lost fish habitat, I can tell you that whatever is removed is just going to be resunk outside of the small seining areas. So far it hasnt been any huge amounts of habitat. I have only personally seen the habitat removed from the sledd creek seine site and its small enough to fit on one boat. We very likely sank more habitat just this morning as part of our routine brush pile program than has been removed from all of the seining areas combined. The removal/relocation will have essentially no impact on the fishery as a whole, but I do realize that it is unfortunate for the small subset of anglers who initially placed that habitat without knowing it would eventually become a seining area.
Amartinbo, many thanks for your reply. Sorry, thought our people at KDFWR had had some 'control' with this effort. So, I guess If our state has no control, then to me, this effort is useless. We have NO say on if it should be continued. Hopefully, someone from the State will step up and 'Say what we do', and 'Do what we say'. Not much of this stuff is happening now, just a pile of 'spin' on why stuff can't be done in our state, SO dang many excuses for everything now why things don't happen as promised. Hopefully, others will chime in with my comments.
I think maybe Adam was just saying he personally wasn't involved but you can bet Jessica Morris was from KY F&W.
Adam, will you and Jessica be at the Murray Boat Show? I may need to borrow your projector again.
There is one thing for sure if the netting and associated experiments were going great the Government would be tooting their horn when
you don't hear anything not good. The commercial fisherman can catch more in one day than the Gov. will in all their experiments all the while spending millions of dollars and nothing to show for it. Pay the commercial fisherman to get rid or reduce the numbers also relax the rules to allow the commercial fisherman to shock them. Quit wasting money on experiments and do something that is known to work
UOTE=M R Dux;4105021]I think maybe Adam was just saying he personally wasn't involved but you can bet Jessica Morris was from KY F&W.[/QUOTE]
At this point we have been given approval to attend, and yes you are welcome to borrow the projector. Not sure yet whether we will be presenting, but we will bring it for you even if we don't present.
And yes you are correct about the carp netting. I wasn't there because I only work with sportfish. We were out sinking brushpiles everyday during that netting event. Jessica and her KDFWR crew were there assisting USGS so they have some details, but if the questions are about future plans for that project and government money expenditures those questions would be better asked to Duane Chapman with USGS who was the lead on the project.
Jessica Morris 270 759 5295 is a really good contact for anyone wanting to know details about the commercial industry in KY and why certain decisions are made. Electrofishing is extremely inefficient at catching carp in the lakes, but KDFWR has a legal mechanism to allow inventors and private citizens to test new methods under supervision. KDFWR allows testing all the time, and she can tell you more about that program as well as answer any carp specific questions.
Hope this helps,
Hey Adam what's your opinion on this year's crappie spawn? I know it's to early to have any data but was wondering what you thought with the water and weather conditions the last few weeks. Thanks
good question. I haven’t analyzed the discharge data yet, which plays a role, but based purely on temperature data and the degree of flooding I would say it was likely a poor white crappie spawn and potentially a good black crappie spawn. But the spawn isn’t even completely over, so it’s waaayyy too early to be certain of anything.
Here at Kentucky and Barkley we have finished compiling the results of our fall crappie trapnetting. The results are very encouraging. In Kentucky Lake the 2021 and 2022 year classes for crappie are basically equal to the long term average going back to 1985. Average doesn't sound great, but because crappie recruitment is so inconsistent this actually places them in the top ten out of the 37 years they have been evaluated. Its too soon to say if that will lead to good fishing as we don't yet know how many of the 2022 year class will survive the winter, but hopefully we will see good numbers of age 1 fish in the fall of 2023.
Lake Barkley was similar, although the 2021 year class of white crappie is among the highest we've ever seen. White crappie in lake Barkley have really good growth and most of that year class should be over the 10 inch mark by fall of 2023, (assuming we have a good shad spawn). Some of that year class will be over 10 by this spring, but I would expect a lot of short fish so please practice some restraint with those illegal 9 inch fish.
Crappie in both lakes are in really good condition (as evidenced by high weights relative to their lengths). This is likely due to the good shad spawns we've had over the past 2 years.
All in all, I was very pleased with the recent results and hope that leads to some good fishing. Kentucky lake should have a near even mix of white and black crappie, while lake barkley will have mostly white crappie. If I were picking which lake will fish best, I would give a slight edge to kentucky during the spring and would expect Barkley to fish much better in the fall.
I know this was brief, but let me know if you have questions.
-Adam