The Elephant in the room

[jcb]

I'm hoping and praying that the commercial fishermen who are finally getting very serious about pursuing asian carp, will provide light at the end of the tunnel. If you do the math, just one seasoned commercial boat crew can catch an absolutely staggering amount of AC in one week. Apparently they've been fished out in parts of Asia, so that's a good footnote.

I'm sure by the end of May, I'll have a stronger opinion one way or the other. I have seen very thick and girthy crappie and redear so far this spring. I've always been a strong believer in girthy fish ='s a healthy fishery. Of course as a local property owner, I'm of course biased.

Redear, any idea how property values have been affected if at all by this? I have heard rumors...

[peter]

They seem to be doing better on getting people around here to eat them. They say they are really good. A few years ago I was in a restaurant in a different state and had fish dish with an oriental name. It was very good so I asked what kind of fish it was as and they said Silver Carp.

https://www.leoweekly.com/2019/04/ca...ck-knife-fork/

[redearhoosier]

Redear, any idea how property values have been affected if at all by this? I have heard rumors...

JCB, I was convinced around this same time last year that things were headed south on property values but I personally haven't seen that play out.

With my little place they've actually gone up a bit. We paid around 43k for our place in 2014 and comparables are going for 60-65k. That's not to say it hasn't hurt some properties, I'm sure it has but I'm not directly aware of that happening.

[Technonorb]

Thanks Peter... hope they are good top eat. Saw a Duck Dinasty episode where they served them and people liked them but thought it was bogus.

[bigwormy]

We used to go to Barkley every year the first week of May starting in 2000. The fishing was unbelievable. Sad what has happened. We finally switched our spring trip to lake st Claire three years ago. The fishing is unbelievable at st Claire, but I still desire to fish Barkley. There is nothing like throwing a buzzbait through the flowers or around the bushes and catching fish. You could call your strikes at times and knew when to hang on after making a cast. I know every groove of demumbers bay, willow bay. Nickel, clay, mammouth and so on. I too dreamed of getting a place on Barkley for weekend trips and more. However, all has changed do to the carp invasion. It’s so disheartening! As I may catch a ton of fish at st Claire, it’s still not as fun as the type of fishing we used to do at Barkley.

[kc]

We used to go to Barkley every year the first week of May starting in 2000. The fishing was unbelievable. Sad what has happened. We finally switched our spring trip to lake st Claire three years ago. The fishing is unbelievable at st Claire, but I still desire to fish Barkley. There is nothing like throwing a buzzbait through the flowers or around the bushes and catching fish. You could call your strikes at times and knew when to hang on after making a cast. I know every groove of demumbers bay, willow bay. Nickel, clay, mammouth and so on. I too dreamed of getting a place on Barkley for weekend trips and more. However, all has changed do to the carp invasion. It’s so disheartening! As I may catch a ton of fish at st Claire, it’s still not as fun as the type of fishing we used to do at Barkley.

I saw this post last week just before I went down for a solo weekend trip. I have hesitated to complain or totally blame the asian carp as fishery issues are probably not due to one factor but is more likely more complex than that. But the asian carp can't be helping. The excessive rains of last year and this haven't helped either but I am shocked at how bad Barkley fishes for bass these days. I have property on the lake and have fished it regularly since the mid-80s as my home lake and fishing on any lake has its ups and downs through the years but Barkley is fishing worst than I can remember. What puzzles me is F&W still rates bass fishing as good - down from excellent but I am sure not seeing it. I have fished Barkley 3 days this year - late March, late April, and Sunday and I have caught 3 bass - 14" being the best. The last few years it has fished really tough. Starting mid-April through mid-May -- give or take -- you could fish shallow around the flowers, bushes, or wood on most days and always catch fish and the average size was usually impressive. I can't count the number of 4 to 8 lb fish I have caught there through the years and now I struggle to put a bass in the boat in the prime of spring. I see plenty of carp activity in the shallows but very few bait fish, bluegills, nor bass. There used to be massive schools of shad on the big lakes but I rarely see schools of shad on Barkley these days.

The other puzzling thing to me is I see a lot of asians on Barkley but I don't see the massive schools like I see on KY but KY is still fishing pretty good. I find myself after a demoralizing day on Barkley I head to KY where I can still catch fish. I have been thinking a lot of my issue on Barkley was me -- fishing from years of memories rather than slicing up the lake to find fish. But after all the similar posts on here I am seeing it is beyond me and I just hope it turns around at some point...

kc

[redearhoosier]

There's not much I can add to what KC said, but I wonder how much the state killing the grass off in the lakes hurt fishing? Outside of a lillypad field in the back of Kuttawa Harbor, there's not much cover in Barkley that I'm aware of, unless you include docks in the cover definition. Didn't the lake used to have grass that they killed?

I know the redear fishing has gotten tougher since 2013. That's the first year I fished down here and it has gotten tougher to locate the big redear. I have caught some juveniles this year on North Barkley, that's encouraging. I must report that the crappie I caught last month were very healthy looking fish. The bluegill have never impressed me on Barkley...that's odd. The redear are very thick and usually weigh pretty darn well.

All of that said, there's many examples of lakes that have undergone adverse events and come out of it stronger than ever. I'm hoping the commercial fishermen will take care of these undesirable fish.

[buickfan70]

It is definitely harder fishing than in the past but I've had some good trips to Barkley lately. Ended up at the Lake at my lunch time the other day and caught 5 ea LM Bass 14"-16" in a hour from the bank. This past Sunday afternoon I caught a 1lb 2oz Shellcracker and went back yesterday after work and caught another that weigh 1lb even.

[GeoFisher]

There's not much I can add to what KC said, but I wonder how much the state killing the grass off in the lakes hurt fishing? Outside of a lillypad field in the back of Kuttawa Harbor, there's not much cover in Barkley that I'm aware of, unless you include docks in the cover definition. Didn't the lake used to have grass that they killed?

I know the redear fishing has gotten tougher since 2013. That's the first year I fished down here and it has gotten tougher to locate the big redear. I have caught some juveniles this year on North Barkley, that's encouraging. I must report that the crappie I caught last month were very healthy looking fish. The bluegill have never impressed me on Barkley...that's odd. The redear are very thick and usually weigh pretty darn well.

All of that said, there's many examples of lakes that have undergone adverse events and come out of it stronger than ever. I'm hoping the commercial fishermen will take care of these undesirable fish.

the high water killed the grass.......I don't believe tthey sprayed it? Do you have definitive information they did, as I have often wondered.

later,

Geo

[kc]

the high water killed the grass.......I don't believe tthey sprayed it? Do you have definitive information they did, as I have often wondered.

later,

Geo

Geo is spot on with the grass and high water. Fishing down there regularly since the 80s the grass comes on during years of low flow - drought years - especially when we have dry springs. When the bass fishing went nuts in the mid-to-late 80s is when we had some years of dry conditions and there were even grass beds on Barkley - especially south of the bridge. But these last few years and all the rain the grass hasn't had a chance to get started.

I remember when the dry spell of the 80s waned and the grass started thinning out on the lakes it was rumored then that they were spraying but I don't believe they did. I heard confirm of some spraying around marinas and docks and such but not widespread on the open lake.

Man those were the days when there were vast, vast weed beds on KY. The fishery exploded and they didn't jump in the boat when you ran by...

kc

[jcb]

Man those were the days when there were vast, vast weed beds on KY.

kc

In those days you couldn't find a grass frog anywhere west of Uncle Lee's!