what has happened with the sauger??

[DavidPT40]

As an amateur fisherman and semi-pro fish geek, I too would like to know some scientific explaination for this phenomenom. Even I had a hell of year last year! Where are the fish?!

Where the over harvested? Was there a major die off? Have the fish just not migrated up river? Where do they go during the summer? Personally I didnt know saugar were migratory fish, I just figured they bunkered down in deep water even though Ive caught some nice fish during the summer in small creeks in Oldham county....????

The first thing that came to my mind was overfishing. It'd be easy to figure out. Find out what size sauger most fisherman were catching last year. Then find the average growth rate of sauger in Kentucky. Divide the size of the sauger most fisherman were catching by the average growth rate. If it comes out to around 7, then we have some evidence for overfishing.

[kc]

I second that opinion. Last year with the drought the river was low and fishable all fall into the winter and fishing was great. I think the harvest was also great which cuts into the numbers we are seeing (or not seeing) this year. They do run in cycles so with this being a poor year for harvest maybe they will bounce back in a year or two..

kc

[colonelmeyer]

Interesting. If there is some time cycle the sauger population rises and falls on it wouldn't surprise me if it was related to prey availability/population density. Someone said the river was down longer, lower water means faster water and less slow water/grass for bait fish to recover/hide in. A.k.a. a field day for fast predators like our friend Mr. Sauger. I'm sure if you guys think they where over fished, that they certainly where. See ya there JD.

[onemorecast56]

I don`t think it was over fishing, I think some other factor is in there some where. I`ve seen this happen 3 or 4 times in my fishing the river heavy the last 30 plus yrs. But I`d love to know what it is....