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Me and a friend have caught a few crappie in ky lake over the last few weeks and when you clean them the meat looks white , so white that they looked almost the same color as they do when cooked . First time I have ever seen this . Have only caught a few like this and wondered if anyone else has seen this ?
Most of the fish we been catching are very thin also , looks like they are starving !
IMO the crappie are in very poor condition due to a lack of food. I have cleaned several crappie in the last few weeks and very few have anything in their stomachs. I am also not seeing the baitballs and numbers of what appear to be bait on my electronics.
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mrdux Do you think this a result of the Carp?Quote:
Originally Posted by mrdux
cleaned a few myself this weekend with nothing in their stomach but the fish and the filets looked healthy
I’m no expert on the matter,Quote:
Originally Posted by Pan Fish
I find it very hard to believe it wouldn’t be related...
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They are extremely thin in the Big Sandy area of the lake also. almost looks like fish from a pond.
If they don't figure something out about these carp I feel like with in the next 5 -7 years we are gonna see a barren lake !
I can personally see a huge impact in just the last 3 years in the lake .
Attachment 296777
Seems like every major creek is packed with Asian carp. I don’t see nearly as many Shad as I did a few years ago! This pic was in leatherwood the entire creek looks just like that!
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I cleaned several crappie last week and they had small Asian carp in their stomachs. approx. 2 to 3 inches long
Fish and Wildlife Public meeting to talk about fish in KY lake.......
Thursday night 7:00 at Ky. dam Convention Center.......
We noticed the same thing in trapnets last fall. Overall the crappie in Kentucky lake had below average weights, but the worst were the largest white crappie. Same deal as you described, thin with very white filets. Strangely the largest black crappie didn’t look as bad.
The odd part is that a 10 inch white and a 14 inch white should be eating the same thing. Same with a 12 inch black. The only theory is that those largest whites were reaching the end of their life cycle (we aged them to be quite old). It’s not something we had seen before so it’s tough to be sure but it’s a theory. Bioenergetically speaking it would also be tougher for a larger fish to maintain body mass, so there may be something there too.
Generally speaking the low weights are due to the predator/prey ratio being unbalanced. The numbers of shad are definitely down, but we don’t have any hard data on their populations. Are carp impacting our shad populations? Certainly. Have we reached the point of no return? Not in my opinion.
This will of course be a major topic of discussion on Thursday evening. As always thanks for sharing your concerns.