Lake cumberland white bass?

[SSKY]

I know there has been some recent effort to restore the fishery.After several years of no white bass, What is the current theory as to why they are gone? Our state biologists that want to try to restock them " and that would be a good thing if it works" should have some ideal as to how a prolific species on the lake disappeared. Poor spawning effort is not a logical answer as they did it for 30 years and are now gone.Just curious as how that could happen there must be a reason.

[nightbasser]

Pretty sure i read a report that stated alewives could have played a lrge role in their demise! Anyways if someone has a contcat with doug stephens biologist for this region I would be interested to see what he has to say about the subject

[JoeB]

Doug retired this past year. John Williams is now the dist. biologist.

[sparkie_212]

I know I am a little off topic here, but you guys talking about them whities sure brings back some good memories of me and my best friend at the age of around 13-15. Those were my best years of fishing, you know, just before I bought my first car, got my drivers liscence and all I had on my mind was chasing girls from that point on. But before that, my buddie and I fished anytime we were not in school in southeast Indiana. The white bass would run up Laughery Creek, a main tributary of the Ohio river, about 35 miles down river of Cincinnati. His dad would say "When the dogwoods bloom" the white bass were running. We had the perfect spot about 10 miles up that creek where the water would run about a foot deep kind of a rapid run. The right time we would catch them by the dozens and the ocasional largemouth. We used beetle spins to catch them there. that too was the late 70's early 80's. Will try to contact someone to see if they are still abundant, but if my memory is right it seems like they had fallen off the numbers.

[SAM_KY]

For what it's worth, the same thing happened at Herrington several years prior to them disappearing from Cumberland.

I think it was sometime back in the 80's.

It all happened in about the span of a year. A few whites were found floating here and there, but it was assumed that the majority of the die-off sank rather than floated up.

At any rate, they basically vanished.

they made a bit of a rebound and there are still some whites in Herrington, but nothing, not even close, like they were before die off.

SAM

[kygorski]

Where are they at Dale Hollow also? I caught just one white bass there since I started fishing that lake in 1993.The cumberland river used to have some good white fishing also, that is gone, the past fall was the first time in over four yrs that I caught any whites at all, and they were all small.There is one other culprit that no one talks about, the long nosed gar population has increased greatly in dale and have seen a lot on cumberland also.

[JoeB]

There have always been plenty of gar in Cumberland, that's not the problem. Neither is it the stripers. (before anyone says it)

[apb]

Dale and Cumberland both have alewifes. Add those to a bad spawn and plenty of people taking limits and you might have an answer. Just a guess anyway.

Andrew

[mhall]

Hey SSKY, everything I've been told about the problem with the whites at the big C seems to point to the alewives, They will eventually hurt the bluegill population as well, IMHO.

[JoeB]

The erie strain walleye ate them!

[SSKY]

Joe B I cannot actually belive that you are serious.There has to be a real reason based in fact.

[JoeB]

Of course I'm not. I was just giving you another reason to complain about L. Cumberland walleye fishing. Truth is, I don't have a clue why the white bass have disappeared. The poor spawning years theory doesn't seem logical to me. I don't think even several bad spawns in a row would completely decimate a species. I used to think it was the alwives. It does seem plausable that a cloud of white bass larva flowing back into the lake from a feeder ck. could go through a school of alwives and be wiped out. But, there are several lakes in the southeast US where the same thing has happened at the same time, and these lakes do not contain alwives. So.....I'm clueless. Wish I knew, cause I sure miss em.