Uncrowded on Nimrod Lake

[NIMROD]

I can understand why Nimrod Lake is uncrowded. Man the water is awful and few fish I been see'n brought in were small and thin as paper. Sure hope it does'nt turn over like last summer. Wonder if the fishing going down hill again or just a temporary thing with bad water? I know lots of trees and mud along with other things washed in with the historic flood a few weeks ago. They said lots of round bales hay and livestock washed away upriver. Water started foaming in the whitecaps in the wind yesterday.
Question for the biologists. Could the fish kill last summer and low quality water after the flood be the reason poor fishing and fish being in such poor shape?

[arkansasbowhunter]

Hate to hear that

[RCC]

I think something has happened to the local fish as well. I caught just a few after the spawn, and they were all excessively paper thin and not very many were caught at all. I hope things turn around soon.

[Billy E]

RCC - I notice the same thing on your lake. The crappie were thin. I see plenty of bait fish for them to eat and the water was good for spawn. You would think they would be eating everything in sight.

[arkansasbowhunter]

The piraña hole here too is very lean this year. The river is still producing nice fish at times though. Think the drought last year hurt the lakes.

[CrappiePro]

The lake is in what i call a recovery Phase. After a major event/flood. like that fish get disoriented and feeding habits get messed up. This will take a month or two for the fish to get over. They should get it together soon start feeding and get bitting the way you are ust to soon. It will be alright. Have patience with mother nature.

[NIMROD]

The lake is in what i call a recovery Phase. After a major event/flood. like that fish get disoriented and feeding habits get messed up. This will take a month or two for the fish to get over. They should get it together soon start feeding and get bitting the way you are ust to soon. It will be alright. Have patience with mother nature.

Normally they bite as soon as lake settles back near normal in my experience .

[D10]

Nimrod and CP, you are both right. It is probably a combinations of things. I am not familar with the fish kill last year on Nimrod, but if it were species specific (crappie) combined with the historic flood earlier this year, it definitely could have an impact on the condition of the remaining fish. We saw something similar on Brewer a couple of years ago. During a fall sample, nearly all of the bass looked really poor (skinny). That following spring, they looked fine again. Something to also keep in mind about crappie are that thier populations are highly cyclical because of their response to various environmental factors (swings in water temp, water clarity, available forage, etc...). Often the physical conditions in which they live in have a greater influence on the population dynamics, than human impacts (harvesting and stocking).

[NIMROD]

Thanks Matt, but fish are running small mostly and Black Crappie tend to be smaller on Nimrod but in better shape for some reason?

[jonesey]

Nimrod we fish fourche river at gravelly yesterday it was very clear the fish look good. They was no hay or livestock in the river that we seen. We fish the big hole at Redhill.