During the conversation with the actual person whom I talked to from KDFW I could tell by the things he said that he did in fact agree with me 100%. However as a KDFW employee he was not going to come out and point blank say yes this was done to generate money for the local economy but you can just tell when someone agrees but they can't say so. Our conversation was very in depth about various different things. In fact we were on the phone for about 1 hour. He was very nice and answered all the questions I had as best as he could. We spoke indepth about alwives,LM,SM,Spots,white bass, spawning bass,Green River Lake,Lake Cumberland and Barren River Lake along with many things associated with fishing.

The prime example I gave him about fish mortality was the Trition owners tournament at KY Lake about 3 or so years ago. This would have been a perfect time to do a delayed mortality study. If my memory is correct it was early or mid June. Bass were pretty much done with the spawn and were at the peak of their highest stress (post spawn). I think the water temps was in the 70's and possibly rose to 80 because the weather was abnormally more warm than usual. Anyways there was several boats in the tournament. I don't recall the exact number but I think 200 would be a safe estimate. Several and when I say several I remember seeing pictures on facebook of like 100 or more dead bass floating at the ramp from which they had the weigh in. Most of the fish were 3-5 lb fish. There were a few smaller ones but the majority were decent size. I am almost positive people released them thinking when they swam off it would be okay but for a couple days after the tournament floaters started popping up everywhere. The instance I am talking about is not what you typically see because it was a "perfect storm" for bad things to happen. The water had jumped several degrees in a short period, the dissolved O2 level was low and the fish were stressed from post spawn, hence the perfect storm for dead bass. Now I understand KDFW can not look at the weather and make an instant snap decision to show up and say we want to study the bass for delayed mortality but surely they are smart enough to realize that water with temps below 60*is not prime conditions to have a large die off.

He agreed 100% with me that the Trition owners tournament I am talking about would have been an excellent time to conduct a delayed mortality study. If your going to do a study then do it when the condition reflects the most impact so you can see what the worst case scenario is. I still have his phone number and he also emailed me so I have his email address. I think I will give it a few weeks and contact him and see if he can release the information from the study that was done...and when I say study I am talking mortality not economic. LOL