Thread: Kentucky Lake

When does the Corps of Engineers begin the drawdown of Kentucky and Barkley Lakes?

We have known about Asian carp in our waters for many years, based on knowledge of commercial anglers catching them. From these early years the Department began to change commercial fishing regulations to help increase fishing for the carp. However, the low market price dictated the minimum effort commercial anglers put toward catching them. Behind the scene (when sport anglers say we were doing nothing) our Director, Mr. Ron Brooks was consistently meeting with legislatures leading all the way to the White House, about ways to stimulate the market for the carp and the need for money to fund programs to study and control the carp. Ron, myself and others with the Department were meeting with outside investors potentially wanting to open up fish processing plants for the carp. Investors that I personally met with traveled from China, Switzerland and Louisiana. However, getting someone to invest millions into a market is not that easy when they want to make a profit for a long time, and we want the carp gone as quick as possible. Hence, if they were able to fish the population down (what we want), then they would not have product and their market closes. Fast forward a few years and the Department has further change commercial regulations and funded an $0.05/pound incentive to get commercial anglers to focus their harvest on the lakes. Despite what a lot of sports anglers perceive; that you can just throw a gill net in the lake anywhere and catch 3,000 pound of Asian carp, is far from reality. They are a hard fish to catch. The commercial anglers put in a lot of effort, and some day only come back with 1,000 pounds. There are still many barriers for commercial anglers. The markets want the fish fresh. There is a need for a lot of ice. There is a need for cooled box trucks to transport fish from the lakes to the markets. There are times the markets have higher demand, but fishing is tough. And, there are time when market demands are low, but angler catch is high. Commercial anglers are a dying breed, meaning younger anglers are not picking up the trade. It is tough work, and long hours, which happen mostly at night. There is a lot of knowledge to commercial fishing. Again, you just don't go throw a net in the lake and catch the target species. There needs to be education and training for new anglers. We don't what them out there catching crappie and bass. And they want to be able to catch what will make them money with the least amount of effort and time. The equipment for commercial fishing is not cheap. So there is a lot of start up cost. So the Public, Private Partnership (3P's) program is hopefully going to help bridge some of the gaps.