Wow. I used to fish the paylakes for years. Mostly back then it was farm raised channels. At some point they started to put the "Jumbo" river cats in but back then it was only a few compared to the channels. It has been a while since I was a die hard paylake fisherman. But I recently went to back to one of the bigger ones in Lousville area. I noticed that there was a big draw to one of the lakes that was river cats only. With tournaments, big fish jackpots and everthing. At that time I did not even think about how these fish where harvested. I assumed they were taken by trot lines or bank poles not nets. I never even thought that the fish probably did not live very long in these pay lakes. How many years did it take to get a Blue to 50 pounds? That is sad if you think about how they are just being wasted. This could be a very big deal in the future. When you think about the Ohio river you think more about abundance of catfish that is self sustaining. Can it withstand that kind of pressure from commericail fisherman? We can probably look at history to answer that. But my real problem with this would be some of the lakes and smaller rivers that our tax money is going into to stock these big blue cats.
I may be way off base here but the last time I went to Taylorsville (which I don't fish often) was a night. There were so many jugs lines out that we had to be very careful running. Since blues have been stocked in Taylorsville. Is there a possibility that these guys were selling the fish they were catching on the jug lines?
In my opinion there should be limits on this kind of fishing.
Very good topic to discuss in my opinion. I will think twice before I go paylake fishing again.
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