Arkabulta's Future

I listened to a radio interview with the Colonel in charge of the Corps of Engineers at Vicksburg. He was saying it will take several years to complete the repair. This is a good news bad news situation for the lake. Good in the sense their will be a lot of new growth and will virtually be a new lake when it gets back to normal. Bad in the sense if the lake is accessible at the projected lower levels stocks on all the 12” + fish will be down considerably. How the spawn may be affected during this period remains to be seen.

Has anyone heard if the Game and Fish plan to suspend the fishing on the lake during this period?

No news heard of yet. It will become the dead sea once again.
Since the lake will be low for a few years it's our job to bring the flooded timbers to them. Building habitat on the flats won't help during this time. We'll have to sink brush and drive stakes from boats.

Canebraker has the right idea of adding structure at current levels to help the fishery over the long haul. With the extended lower levels there will be new growth of buckbrush and willows. Several years back I witnessed this at Tunica and Sardis. Could we see a die off of fish with levels remaining this low this summer? What are your thoughts? Should they continue to allow harvesting of fish going forward? What would be worse, over havesting or a possible die off?

At Butla a few years ago everytime the weather guy said we'd get rain the COE would open the gates. The rains would come, but not in the lake's water shed path. Grass grew thick and tall. After there was enough rain to raise the lake level it stunk and there was a die off.
The ramps are closed, doesn't mean you can't slide a flatbottom off the bank.
A friend of my son reported fishing Sunday, 2 1/2 hours from backing down the ramp until they had the boat on the trailer and headed home. The 3 of them caught 40 crappie.