KDFWR info on LC FISH KILL

[FlyLie]

Thanks to Jeff Ross at KDFWR for the update on LC.

Here's Jeff's response to my email:
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RE: Lake Cumberland Striper and Walleye Die-Off, Sept 2010
Reply |Ross, Jeff (FW) to me on September 8

We are still in the midst of assessing the striper and walleye kill. It will be hard to provide you the magnitude and significance until we see how it progresses over time. It is a significant striper kill with well over 1000 fish dead so far. Most of the fish have been in the 22”-28” size range. We haven’t seen many small or really big fish. Since the lake conditions remain poor, we expect to see more fish over time. We saw dead walleye several days after the stripers appeared. Over the weekend we also saw, a good number of stripers and some walleye in the tailwater below the dam. They had passed from the lake to the tailwater through the open turbine in the dam. We are hoping the closing of the turbine today will take care of that. However, we expect to keep seeing fish in the lake.

There are still stripers holding in a very poor pocket of water 70-90 feet deep down by the dam. The water conditions are deteriorating in that zone, and the stripers would have to travel up to about 25-30 feet of water to get back to livable oxygen levels. Unfortunately the water near the surface is still warm, so they may still have trouble with stress. The smaller fish seem to be handling the warmer water near the surface since guides have been seeing large groups of small fish in jumps on the surface. We received another good bit of information today. A guide had caught a limit of stripers mid-lake in 25-40 feet of water. Fish were up to 30 inches. He also marked good schools of fish at this depth. It is the fish down by the dam that we are worried about.

It looks like we won’t have a complete kill based on better water quality up-lake, but the kill will be significant. Like I said, we can’t make a full assessment until we see the end of the kill. Hopefully the surface will cool soon and allow for stripers to move up if they are able or survive long enough. We know there are age-1 and age-2 stripers that are handling the conditions and this will jump start any recovery we might need. We also stock stripers in the lake each year, so no matter what the end result is, we can restore the lake. It will just take time based on how bad the overall kill is.

I’m expecting the Department to put out a news release once everything is has settled down which will address the significance and the recovery steps. If you haven’t seen anything by the end of October, email me back and I can give you the latest update. I expect conditions to improve earlier than that, but it will take a little time to address the situation.


Hope this helps,

Jeff

Jeff Ross
Assistant Director - Fisheries Division
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources
#1 Sportsman's Lane
Frankfort, Ky 40601
Phone: (502) 564-7109 ext. 4455
Cell: (502) 330-4380
Fax: (502) 564-3178

[stripernut]

thanks boone....here's hopin

[mhall]

Thanks Gary, good stuff and really echo's alot of what we have been hearing and saying on here. I really am saddened by all this.

[Duayne]

The best news at this point is that this remains an isolated depth/area and they seem certain to continue the stockings, which also makes sense to me.