Green River Lake forecast ...a FYI/PSA

Per the COE on FB, in answer to a question about how fast they can draw the lake down :

Green River Lake - US Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District"......, we began releasing water on Monday and have dropped almost 2.5 ft so far. The predictions are that we wont be back to summer pool until possibly June."




I'm assuming, by that statement, that they don't expect to be able to keep pulling the lake down as fast (on average) as they have in the last week ... 5ft down in 7 days, according to the Lake Levels chart. That's understandable given the normal rain & storms expected during April/May.

Lake level as of today is 696 .... 21' above Summer Pool.

Last time we had flood conditions "almost" as bad as this year was back in 2020. Except in 2020 we were back to Summer Pool already. In 2020 the high water level (699) happened in Jan, Feb, & again in March, with each high water event taking about a month to come back down ... just in time to go right back up to the flood levels.

That said ... it looks like the COE estimate of around June before the lake is back to Summer Pool could be true.

Hopefully the spawn isn't screwed.

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Originally Posted by Les Young

Hopefully the spawn isn't screwed.

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I'm gonna say it probably is ... if they weren't messed up with the quick rise during their usual pre-spawn times, I doubt they've had enough time to adjust while the lake was peaking at the 700-703 level. Now the lake is being jerked back down at ~1ft/day avg. (though there is a slight rise from the rains over the last few days).

Current lake temp is 67* ... which is just above the normal spawning temp range.

You might want to talk to t.slabseeker as to whether he's catching fish on the banks or out in open water. That'd give you a good idea whether the spawn is going on or not. Plus, he'd know the state of things by what the eggs look like in the fish he cleans.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Les Young

Hopefully the spawn isn't screwed.

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Heard from a reliable source that Crappie are being caught, up in the flooded trees, and they are "post spawn" .... so, hopefully, some did get off a spawn before the lake dropped below their nests (if it has, yet).

Sounds similar to a situation I ran into at KY/Barkley. Water was up into the live trees & dirty/dingy, and the only ones of us that caught fish were dropping our baits right next to the trunks of those trees with a couple of feet of water up on them. We used float/minner rigs back in those days, and at that time you couldn't drop your minner more than a few inches away from the tree trunk. We surmised, at the time, that the fish were nosed up to the trees & wouldn't turn away. In any event, that was the only method working under those conditions.

Based on the number of small fish in Green River, perhaps the failure to spawn might result in bigger fish being available to catch in the fall and next spring.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quailtail

Based on the number of small fish in Green River, perhaps the failure to spawn might result in bigger fish being available to catch in the fall and next spring.

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I don't know, QT .... I'm not sure the absorption of eggs would add much in weight to any female that didn't spawn, if that's what you're thinking.
Now, there may be MORE fish available to be caught, seeing as how it's been unlikely that as many people are/have been fishing & catching fish as there would have been under normal spawn conditions. And they'll be bigger by this Fall & upcoming Spring '26 for sure (provided they don't get caught before then).

The weak spawn of this year (if that's what happened) won't really show up results for the next couple of years. And a lot of last years dinks will be this years keepers. If they get the lake back down & under control, and the Shad have a good spawn, I see fishing at Green this Summer being normal to slightly better than normal. (just my opinion)

I know one thing ... when the lake gets down to where we can launch boats on the ramps, rather than on the roads to those ramps, it's gonna get REALLY CROWDED out there !!