Thread: KY Lake Fall Shindig. helping with KDFWR data collection

Adam,
This is great information and is alot to take in. The first thing that jumped out to me was the incorporation of the current size limit and creel on the twin lakes. When did this happen? Reason I ask is because the health data appeared to spike in the early 2000's, then began to drop again below the 95 minimum. Is there a direct correlation to the increase in health due to the regulation change? And is there another correlation to the decrease when we began to see the Asian carp in these lakes?

I would like to see why these lakes long term average for the health metrics are at or below the minimum. Prior to the Asian carp, we have always had plenty of shad, which has been a major concern over the past couple of years with more panic developing everyday.

Your and the entire staffs efforts are greatly appreciated. Thank you for what you guys and gals do!

Brian

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Originally Posted by bandchaser

Adam,
This is great information and is alot to take in. The first thing that jumped out to me was the incorporation of the current size limit and creel on the twin lakes. When did this happen? Reason I ask is because the health data appeared to spike in the early 2000's, then began to drop again below the 95 minimum. Is there a direct correlation to the increase in health due to the regulation change? And is there another correlation to the decrease when we began to see the Asian carp in these lakes?

I would like to see why these lakes long term average for the health metrics are at or below the minimum. Prior to the Asian carp, we have always had plenty of shad, which has been a major concern over the past couple of years with more panic developing everyday.

Your and the entire staffs efforts are greatly appreciated. Thank you for what you guys and gals do!

Brian

Sent from my SM-G900V using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Brian,

The 10 inch size limit was enacted in 1989. The creel limit was lowered from 30 to 20 in 2008. In the past I had only compared these with recruitment trends to see if they had an effect (they did not).
So lets take a look at whether they or Asian carp correlate with declines in relative weight.

I'm going to use black crappie as the example since I would expect them to show a negative trend sooner than white crappie, (black crappie typically rely on zooplankton as a food source a little bit longer than white crappie so they might be affected by carp sooner). And lets say that 1985-1999 is pre carp; 2000-2017 is post carp.
ky lake 1985-1999 average black crappie relative weight = 89.13
ky lake 2000-2017 average black crappie relative weight = 94.64
So its certainly hard to say that carp have had a negative effect on crappie relative weight. Just last year the relative weights were 98.5 which is virtually perfect.

This year the relative weights are generally down. This is very likely due to low numbers of shad this fall. Could shad numbers be down because of carp? Quite possibly. But the effects of environmental conditions on the shad spawn are likely much stronger than the effects of competition with Asian carp. There have been years with low shad numbers before, and there will be years with low shad numbers in the future. Just like there will be years with high shad abundance (we hope).
Asian carp are a huge problem and we expect to see negative effects. The number one goal is to decrease their numbers to keep this from happening.

Originally Posted by Amartinbio

Brian,

The 10 inch size limit was enacted in 1989. The creel limit was lowered from 30 to 20 in 2008. In the past I had only compared these with recruitment trends to see if they had an effect (they did not).
So lets take a look at whether they or Asian carp correlate with declines in relative weight.

I'm going to use black crappie as the example since I would expect them to show a negative trend sooner than white crappie, (black crappie typically rely on zooplankton as a food source a little bit longer than white crappie so they might be affected by carp sooner). And lets say that 1985-1999 is pre carp; 2000-2017 is post carp.
ky lake 1985-1999 average black crappie relative weight = 89.13
ky lake 2000-2017 average black crappie relative weight = 94.64
So its certainly hard to say that carp have had a negative effect on crappie relative weight. Just last year the relative weights were 98.5 which is virtually perfect.

This year the relative weights are generally down. This is very likely due to low numbers of shad this fall. Could shad numbers be down because of carp? Quite possibly. But the effects of environmental conditions on the shad spawn are likely much stronger than the effects of competition with Asian carp. There have been years with low shad numbers before, and there will be years with low shad numbers in the future. Just like there will be years with high shad abundance (we hope).
Asian carp are a huge problem and we expect to see negative effects. The number one goal is to decrease their numbers to keep this from happening.

Do shad and asian carp eat the same thing? I'm guessing that they do. PLANKTON

Originally Posted by Northforker

Do shad and asian carp eat the same thing? I'm guessing that they do. PLANKTON

Yes, they do .... and unfortunately so do the fry of many sport fish.

Great stuff. I believe our TN marine biologist spend more time on the golf course than the do on the river course. One of them checks the Paris Landing course quite often.

Originally Posted by Cane Pole

Great stuff. I believe our TN marine biologist spend more time on the golf course than the do on the river course. One of them checks the Paris Landing course quite often.

Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

Originally Posted by "D"

Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

Looking for migrating "eagles"....

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Originally Posted by "D"

Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

NAW, he's doing a fish count in the water hazard