KY Lake Fall Shindig. helping with KDFWR data collection

Hello everyone,

As you all know the fall shindig is on November 10th and will include a fruit jar tournament and a fish fry. KDFWR would like your help to collect a little bit of information from the fish caught during that tournament. For the three weeks prior to that event KDFWR will be conducting our annual crappie trap net sampling on Kentucky and Barkley lake. We will collect thousands of crappie from each lake and then take a subsample of those fish to analyze for age and growth rates. We age crappie using otoliths which are tiny bones inside the fish's head that lay down annual growth rings similar to tree rings.

Trapnetting is very effective at capturing juvenile and young adult fish, but tends to be biased against trophy size fish. So although trapnetting gives us the best possible estimate of year class strength using small fish, we would love to get more information about growth rates of trophy size fish. Because our sample and your tournament are happening so close together, we would like to stop by and collect otoliths as they are being weighed and dressed.

If you're fishing in the tournament and wish to participate, we would need you to record the locations (embayment is better, but which lake at a minimum) of the fish you catch. The bigger the fish the better because age can be highly variable when dealing with trophy size fish. A 7 inch fish is almost always a 1 year old, but a 12 inch fish could be 3 - 8 years old. Not every fish will require aging, but we will try to post the ages of your fish here on crappie.com once we've looked at them under a microscope. We do not need the filets, but we are not opposed to taste tests once they've been dressed up in their cornbread tuxedos.

By the time of the tournament we should have a good idea of how the 2016 spawn turned out, and an early indication of the 2017 spawn. Obviously we would be happy to answer any questions or listen to any criticism you might have regarding the fisheries in kentucky's western district.

Thanks in advance for helping us out with this,

- Adam Martin, Fisheries Biologist III KDFWR

It was great talking to you Adam. I think you will find a group very willing to assist in this program. We also would love to have you and Paul (or any other F&W types) attend our event.

Pappy, can this be placed as a sticky?

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Originally Posted by mrdux

It was great talking to you Adam. I think you will find a group very willing to assist in this program. We also would love to have you and Paul (or any other F&W types) attend our event.

Pappy, can this be placed as a sticky?

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No prob ... Doug !!

And thank you, Adam .... for your cooperation with this site and its members !!

Going to be up there a few days and will keep a record of where we catch fish if we catch any.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to actively participate in your research.

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Originally Posted by Dutch552

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to actively participate in your research.

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Thank you guys. It saves us time and provides better growth and mortality estimates than we could get on our own.

This is really pretty Awsome. If only more branches and departments took time to interact with "the real people" a lot more useful information would be received on both ends. I always check to see what Paul and Amartinbio have to say.
Man Crappie.com is awsome

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Originally Posted by sinkermaker

Going to be up there a few days and will keep a record of where we catch fish if we catch any.

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Don we're gonna get at least one!!��

Paul Rister (fisheries biologist) will be there Saturday and will speak and answer questions.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Thanks again for allowing us to collect some data on the fish. I will post the ages and sizes of the fish collected once we take a look at them under the microscope.

Anytime. We need to work together more in the future to keep Kentucky Lake headed in the right direction. We appreciate all that you guys do! [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com

Majority of the time the mentality of the sportsman and the state is a them vs us! We have to tear down that stereotype together, educate the masses, and each side understand the challenges that frustrates the other.
Thank you for what you guys and gals do, its a thankless job most of the time. You never hear the positive but always hear tell negative. If you need anything, please let us know!

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

Hey guys, We have finished our initial analysis of the fall crappie data from ky lake and lake barkley. Some general take aways: the fishery continues to be supported by the strong 2014 year class, as well as the average 2015 year class. 2016 was a very poor spawn. We won't know about the success of the 2017 spawn until next fall, but early indications suggest that it was only average.

Although we catch thousands of crappie in our nets, our numbers of big fish are typically pretty low due to a bias of the fishing gear towards smaller fish. Because of your help during the tournament we were able to increase that sample size by 86 fish in ky lake and 25 fish in lake barkley.

Most of your largest fish were age 7. (a result of a strong 2010 year class)
Below you will see a column for length, weight, species (bc=193 wc=192) and age.
length weight age

10.8	0.66	192	1
10.9	0.69	193	1
11.3	0.79	192	1
10.0	0.45	192	1
10.4	0.62	192	1
10.5	0.60	193	1
11.2	0.72	192	1
10.9	0.69	192	2
10.4	0.61	193	2
11.3	0.72	192	2
11.2	0.64	192	2
11.2	0.63	192	2
11.9	0.82	192	2
10.0	0.51	192	2
10.6	0.54	192	2
11.8	0.80	192	2
10.9	0.68	192	2
11.2	0.70	192	2
11.4	0.82	193	2
10.5	0.65	193	2
10.8	0.63	192	2
10.9	0.73	193	2
10.8	0.66	192	3
12.1	1.04	192	3
11.5	0.90	193	3
11.1	0.66	192	3
12.0	0.78	192	3
11.6	0.78	192	3
11.1	0.72	193	3
11.8	0.91	193	3
12.1	0.85	192	3
11.8	0.82	192	3
12.7	1.02	192	3
12.4	1.06	193	3
11.3	0.85	193	3
10.5	0.60	192	3
10.3	0.52	192	3
10.3	0.50	192	3
10.1	0.47	192	3
11.6	0.75	192	3
10.3	0.53	192	3
11.4	0.64	192	3
10.5	0.57	192	3
10.5	0.55	192	3
10.2	0.48	192	3
10.5	0.56	192	3
11.1	0.66	192	3
11.4	0.78	192	3
10.4	0.62	192	3
10.2	0.49	192	3
10.5	0.56	192	3
10.3	0.53	192	3
11.8	0.82	192	3
11.9	0.89	192	3
10.2	0.49	192	3
10.3	0.58	192	3
10.5	0.57	192	3
10.2	0.53	192	3
10.2	0.52	192	3
10.5		192	3
10.5	0.53	192	3
11.8	0.92	193	3
10.2	0.62	193	3
11.1	0.66	192	3
11.5	0.78	192	3
12.1	0.93	192	3
11.5	0.84	192	3
11.7	0.71	192	3
11.8	0.82	192	3
11.6	0.75	192	3
10.7	0.72	193	3
14.0	1.49	193	4
12.4	1.10	193	4
11.5	0.90	193	4
13.3	1.25	193	4
10.0	0.44	192	4
12.9	1.10	192	4
10.1	0.54	193	4
10.2	0.56	193	4
10.9	0.72	193	4
11.0	0.67	193	4
11.9	0.93	193	4
14.0	1.28	193	7
13.2	0.99	193	7
15.0	1.50	192	7
14.0	1.07	192	7

growth patterns observed in ky lake and lake barkley were very similar to growth patterns observed in previous years.
We also evaluated the condition of crappie in the lake. We do this by measuring its length and its weight and putting it into an equation that lets us know how it compares to fish from hundreds of other populations (This is know as relative weight, and each lake in the country uses the same equation) a score between 105 and 95 is considered healthy.
Lets start with ky lake. Our net collected black crappie scored an 87. This is below our long term average of 92, but lower values have been seen before.
Black crappie collected in the tournament actually scored higher at 91.6.

This value is dependent on how much food is available for these fish. It is influenced by the strength of the shad spawn, the strength of the crappie spawn, and also the numbers of other predators such as black bass, white bass, sauger, catfish, gar, cormorants, pelicans, etc.

The table below lists the relative weight values of ky lake black crappie since 1985. As you can see, this years values are low, but not at all unheard of even in the pre asian carp days.

YEAR	BC Wr
1985	87.25
1986	93.40
1987	86.49
1988	96.31
1989	82.06
1990	91.51
1991	92.64
1992	86.28
1993	88.76
1994	86.90
1995	88.59
1996	88.40
1997	81.21
1998	93.35
1999	93.85
2000	92.55
2001	93.90
2002	104.16
2003	96.31
2004	91.49
2005	93.46
2006	91.33
2007	99.98
2008	100.33
2009	103.63
2010	90.01
2011	99.50
2012	89.77
2013	93.09
2014	86.19
2015	92.30
2016	98.52
2017	87.00

Kentucky lake white crappie relative weights were very near the long term average of 90.93. Our 2017 net collected fish scored 89.15. Fish from your tournament scored 91.61.

See below for the long term relative weight data for ky lake white crappie.

YEAR	WC Wr
1985	84.47
1986	91.19
1987	90.67
1988	95.51
1989	81.20
1990	84.51
1991	85.24
1992	83.56
1993	84.27
1994	85.90
1995	84.54
1996	83.85
1997	79.90
1998	91.32
1999	90.34
2000	94.28
2001	87.37
2002	107.57
2003	90.43
2004	89.86
2005	94.82
2006	96.33
2007	101.77
2008	101.18
2009	103.05
2010	90.49
2011	99.38
2012	91.21
2013	93.12
2014	84.94
2015	90.57
2016	98.71
2017	89.15

And now Lake Barkley relative weights. Our net collected black crappie in 2017 scored 94.60. The tournament collected black crappie scored 94.90. The long term average is 93.5. See below for the long term data since 1985.

YEAR BC Wr +/- 95% CI BC (5-7.9in.) Wr S.E. BC (8-9.9in.) Wr S.E. BC (>10in.) Wr S.E. 1985 70.46 4.06 62.92 3.62 83.77 12.05 92.95 7.54 1986 86.97 3.31 81.27 2.62 95.64 9.47 98.96 2.17 1987 101.92 1.18 93.59 5.36 103.56 1.34 101.42 1.76 1988 97.47 2.25 85.53 1.91 101.55 2.97 101.35 2.23 1989 78.74 4.00 82.03 3.92 72.15 0 1990 96.43 1.99 91.2 4.54 98.64 2.08 98.24 0 1991 85.60 0.90 84.39 0.93 95.82 2.03 95.99 4.56 1992 91.28 0.46 86.26 1.77 90.86 0.47 96.39 1.05 1993 101.74 0.95 96.04 2.05 104.93 1.19 102.25 1.34 1994 86.95 0.46 85.47 0.47 86.77 2.66 91.56 0.93 1995 87.44 0.87 82.71 1.13 91.28 1.1 98.79 0.87 1996 88.45 0.49 88.25 0.57 86.63 0.92 97.28 1.66 1997 91.90 1.08 90.85 1.01 92.86 2.78 97.27 3.15 1998 84.98 0.43 85.36 0.51 83.48 0.72 82.64 1.07 1999 90.77 0.99 84.87 2.19 93.47 0.77 98.36 3.47 2000 96.92 0.46 95.03 0.61 100.39 0.78 96.17 0.99 2001 89.72 0.70 82.35 0.97 89.26 1.49 95.08 0.73 2002 101.58 0.62 91.58 1.4 103.74 0.71 101.32 1.21 2003 90.64 0.48 89.95 0.66 91.79 1.35 91.91 0.65 2004 98.04 0.68 92.28 1.53 101.51 0.68 100.06 0.82 2005 103.10 1.01 99.5 2.1 104.9 1.5 105.9 0.9 2006 90.09 0.93 85.85 1.14 93.27 1.47 98.64 1.5 2007 114.26 8.50 105.75 5.64 106.27 0.8 130.27 25.48 2008 109.77 0.79 104.85 3.53 111.83 0.74 106.51 1.16 2009 99.10 1.45 90.18 2.68 103.23 1.09 97.86 3.78 2010 96.32 0.93 86.95 1.11 102.18 1.39 101.42 1.22 2011 87.93 0.70 86.61 0.79 93.52 1.66 92.53 1.29 2012 98.04 0.44 96.73 1.74 97.65 0.52 99.2 0.71 2013 93.06 0.78 93.83 3.33 93.36 2.55 92.93 0.82 2014 94.80 0.62 92.17 0.64 97.06 0.81 99.91 2.41 2015 95.36 0.54 93.64 0.96 93.45 0.86 99.94 0.74 2016 92.55 0.52 90.78 0.65 96.19 1.03 94.5 0.96 2017 94.60 0.79 95.36 1.17 94.23 1.35 93.83 1.66

Lake Barkley white crappie actually scored above their long term average. 2017 net collected fish scored 96.37. Tournament collected fish scored 102.58. Once again a value between 95 and 105 is considered healthy. See below for the long term average since 1985.

YEAR	WC Wr	+/- 95% CI	WC (5-7.9in.) Wr	S.E.	WC (8-9.9in.) Wr	S.E.	WC (>10in.) Wr	S.E.
1985	79.64	1.10	71.60	1.15	89.22	1.8	98.2	1.38
1986	101.18	0.91	88.43	1.44	106.73	1.08	107.91	1.04
1987	98.17	0.95	94.87	0.97	102.16	2.57	100.72	1.83
1988	102.85	0.88	94.82	6.38	104.09	1.3	102.67	0.66
1989	87.87	1.07	84.28	1.44	92.17	1.26	89.01	2
1990	99.13	1.03	91.61	2.44	103.83	0.65	104.14	0.82
1991	92.71	0.56	88.84	0.91	94.69	0.79	96.57	1.14
1992	96.88	0.71	88.83	1.93	97.85	1	100.01	0.9
1993	102.46	0.82	93.48	1.13	107.94	0.86	107.64	1.32
1994	88.41	0.45	82.72	0.47	95.36	0.6	100.55	0.95
1995	89.64	0.38	83.44	0.39	95.96	0.5	103.15	0.98
1996	92.16	0.44	81.41	0.64	91.91	0.61	99.74	0.44
1997	90.22	0.37	88.31	0.43	92.59	0.78	98.61	0.81
1998	83.34	0.37	84.90	0.54	80.24	0.59	85.49	0.74
1999	97.46	0.66	91.01	1.26	98.44	1.44	100.73	0.72
2000	99.33	0.50	97.31	0.92	101.84	0.64	96.92	1.02
2001	87.20	0.85	79.82	0.69	93.52	2.39	101.12	1
2002	103.52	0.73	86.17	2.16	104.37	0.85	106.73	0.99
2003	92.42	0.57	87.53	0.68	98.34	1.09	98.91	0.97
2004	102.30	0.77	95.41	3.08	103.86	0.48	105.86	0.93
2005	102.79	0.72	86.7	1.4	106.9	1.4	108.5	0.6
2006	99.13	5.22	82.68	0.91	110.1	11.2	121.25	18.2
2007	105.73	1.03	104.16	2.96	109.15	1.37	105.24	1.26
2008	110.40	3.53	106.78	0.78	111.55	1.29	122.46	18.15
2009	93.87	0.96	79.91	1.32	100.85	1.17	99.55	0.85
2010	92.87	0.70	81.68	0.76	104.11	0.7	106.43	0.69
2011	85.20	0.38	81.41	0.39	94.56	0.61	98.13	0.92
2012	101.61	0.38	89.14	2.97	101.03	0.59	102.74	0.39
2013	96.68	0.71	83.75	2.02	96.26	1.03	99.07	0.7
2014	93.33	0.94	83.4	1.62	95.58	0.88	99.14	0.91
2015	89.38	0.31	87.16	0.31	93.1	0.72	99.86	1.12
2016	91.30	0.35	87.45	0.47	92.96	0.52	96.7	0.67
2017	96.37	0.79	91.17	2.88	94.41	1.48	98.32	0.9

I realize that I've thrown a lot of data up here, so feel free to ask questions about any of this information. One thing I would like to mention is the importance of perspective. These are long term averages based on large sample sizes of thousands of fish. The large sample sizes make it very accurate and reflective of the overall population. However, your own individual fishing experience might be different. Some of you may catch plump healthy crappie, others of you might catch skinny crappie. Without the perspective of thousands of fish, it is very easy to jump to conclusions.

Are Asian carp having an effect on growth and relative weight??? Maybe. Its impossible to say what growth and relative weight might have looked like without any Asian carp. But I can say that the growth and relative weights are not significantly different than their long term averages or the years before carp. This may change in the future, but we certainly hope not.

Spawn success continues to be controlled largely by environmental conditions during the spawning season. Generally speaking, a high flow, high water event around late april seems to positively affect the spawn. A no flood year like 2016 usually produces a poor spawn. We have an active research project in jonathan creek seeking a better understanding of these environmental factors but it will be several years before we are confident about our results.
Have Asian carp affected the spawn success? Maybe. But the year classes post carp are not significantly different than the year classes before carp. We have plans to evaluate the potential interaction between carp and larval and juvenile crappie, but at this point we don't know for sure whether they are competing for the same food resources.

Thanks for the data and for all each of you and the agency does.

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amartinbio

I realize that I've thrown a lot of data up here, so feel free to ask questions about any of this information. One thing I would like to mention is the importance of perspective. These are long term averages based on large sample sizes of thousands of fish. The large sample sizes make it very accurate and reflective of the overall population. However, your own individual fishing experience might be different. Some of you may catch plump healthy crappie, others of you might catch skinny crappie. Without the perspective of thousands of fish, it is very easy to jump to conclusions.

Are Asian carp having an effect on growth and relative weight??? Maybe. Its impossible to say what growth and relative weight might have looked like without any Asian carp. But I can say that the growth and relative weights are not significantly different than their long term averages or the years before carp. This may change in the future, but we certainly hope not.

Spawn success continues to be controlled largely by environmental conditions during the spawning season. Generally speaking, a high flow, high water event around late april seems to positively affect the spawn. A no flood year like 2016 usually produces a poor spawn. We have an active research project in jonathan creek seeking a better understanding of these environmental factors but it will be several years before we are confident about our results.
Have Asian carp affected the spawn success? Maybe. But the year classes post carp are not significantly different than the year classes before carp. We have plans to evaluate the potential interaction between carp and larval and juvenile crappie, but at this point we don't know for sure whether they are competing for the same food resources.

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Thanks for all the information and the work you guys do. Your post appears to be a very solid take on the data as I see it although I fear many probably won't see it that way and continue to panic or look at the data through a little less objective lens.

Quote:

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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

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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.

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.

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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.

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Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

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Originally Posted by "D"

Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

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Looking for migrating "eagles"....

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by "D"

Maybe he is a birdie specialist.

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

Quote:

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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.

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

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Originally Posted by Northforker

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

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