Stripers..Belly Up

[demodan]

Yea...I bet ya Jim Strader would agree also! He tried to stand up for some improvments / changes...and they (KDFW leadership), threw him right under the bus big time. He was taking the whole lot of them to court...and for good reason. Im sure it is still in the mix...you know how our court system is. Oh well....another area that the KDFW needs to make some changes... is our duck and goose seasons...but don't get me started.

[FlyLie]

FYI, Contact information for Ninth District Commissioner (Lake Cumberland) given below. You can also go the KYDFWR home page for links to Commissioner meeting dates and location info.

http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/
See "Quick Links" on left side of page.


Ninth District

Laird Taylor Orr, Jr. 606/528-2963
118 Randall Hill
London, KY 40743
Counties: Bell, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Knox, Laurel, McCreary, Pulaski, Russell, Wayne, Whitley.

[mhall]

Good post Gary, we can't say it enough, some will never get it, but some are still learning to.

[Mean Morone]

Norris had a reputation as being a trophy striper lake. After the state shut down the striper stocking program for 5 yrs to study the impact of stripers on other species of fish, the state put on some serious limits. They are trying to get Norris's reputation back. I know that many guides advertise that L. Cumberland is a "trophy" striper lake, but I've never gotten that impression in the 16 yrs I've fished it. It's about numbers not size. It would be interesting to see what the fishing would be like if the state adopted some serious limits like they have on Norris. I have a friend that has fished LC since before it ever had stripers in it. The stories he has told about how the striper fishing used to be are amazing. If they are true, and I believe they are, then the issues that seems to be causing the lack of trophy sized stripers in Lake Cumberland are fishing pressure and possibly the introduction of Alewife shad. You can't eliminate either one.

[stripernut]

mean monroe, you should definitely believe your friend....i have a couple of photo albums of the "good 'ol days". the pics will show 4,5,6 fish between 35-45 lbs. yeah wish i had it to do over again but we all thought this was the ocean and there was an endless supply of these swimming fish fries. keep in mind most people considered these foul eating fish to be nothing more than drum that had alot of oily red meat in them! the discovery of red meat removal was in my opinion only a small part of the cumberland trophy fishery demise. face it alot of people have become very very good at doing something that was once considered a fine art mastered only by a handfull of guides.....in short, the pressure is overwhelming, a keeper doesnt stand a chance. and as boone put it he doesnt stand a chance whether he goes in the cooler or back in the lake. the KDFWR is not at this time willing to change a thing, just got off the phone with them a couple of weeks ago. so with that in mind lets see how many of us will protect our own resource...if ya start catching/killing short fish....QUIT! theres always later when the water is cooler, shoot go bass fishing, fish for whites, troll for walleye....anything that will reduce the pressure while the stripes are susceptible to high mortality. just my 2 cents

[Mean Morone]

I really don't see any way of making the fishery any better without having some serious restrictions on when you can fish for them and what size you can keep. That is never going to happen. LC is too much of a money maker for those kinds of limits to be put on. Another casualty has been the walleye. I was told by this same friend that it wasn't anything to bring in a string of big walleye. Not one 15 lber on a stringer, but two of them. A friend of his caught an 18 lber. When was the last time anyone caught a walleye even close to that. My personal best out of that lake is 9 lb in 16 yrs of fishing. But I digress. I put personal restrictions on myself. I would rather fish for stripers when I have an option to keep or release and there still aren't any guarantees the fish will live if released. I released a striper that was easily over 20 lb last Nov. that I caught out of some jumps. As far as I know that fish made it because the water temps were ideal for stripers survival. All I know is I know he would have been dead if I kept him or released him in the summer. On a good note, the white bass seem to have made a good come back.

[HURRICANEBOB]

Meanie,

Where you seeing the white bass at CL? Are they doing the jumps think in Junish-Julish?

I hope they do make a strong comeback, as that adds to the CL appeal to me. Night top water in Spring, then it would be the whites in Summer, then the linesides in Fall again.

[Chubminnow]

The KDFWR is not at this time willing to change a thing, just got off the phone with them a couple of weeks ago. So with that in mind lets see how many of us will protect our own resource.

I was wondering if anyone here had tried contacting KDFWR to voice their concerns about Lake Cumberland. I know I have in the past on other issues, whether I've emailed them, faxed them or left a voice message for someone they have always gotten back in touch with me.

Did you specifically enquire about the Stripers at Lake Cumberland? If so, what did they say? They always have something to say, lol...If you wasn't talking to them specifically about Stripers at Cumberland then I'll see if I can take some time out to contact them here in the near future.

[mhall]

Man, I was wishing to keep the whites on the down low, oh well, lol.

[stripernut]

yes talked to them twice in the last month or so....they have no intention of changing anything they feel fortunate that there wasnt a big die-off last summer with the water temps getting so high and the dissolved oxygen levels being so low in the cooler depths. they are satisfied with the current numbers of different age class fish. im not a biologist but my population model differs from theirs quite a bit....but like i said im not a biologist....

[Duayne]

KDFW has actually come on here and commented about considering seasonal regs but continue to decide against it. Maybe they want more of the smaller fish removed in the summer, even if they aren't being eaten and that is why they do not change it?

One thing you can do is fish with larger baits like med sized bluegill or larger gizzards. I haven't had a small striper hit a decent bluegill yet. You will get fewer bites (obviously) so you need to be secure in the areas you fish them. To be honest, I prefer the 24-30 inch fish for eating more than the larger ones anyway. But the best advise on this thread so far is to stop or move if you are getting hit by under sized fish.

As for a winter seasonal limit of 36, I think that would be a long term goal, but it would be best to start at 30. The guides do need to be able to bring fish in to clean for their clients. and I can't help but think that a 36" limit would mean they would have to throw back too many at the start. Bottom fishing is a key method at these times and deep hooking is always possible with decent fish. It could very well shift the needless release of doomed fish from summer to winter. Anyway, these were part of my considerations when offering a 30" winter limit. If there became an over abundance of 36 plus fish, they could work the size limit up as needed.

Cumberland was, at one time, a major trophy striper lake. The lake was younger and they stocked it with trout then. Largemouth were also huge then too. New lakes age and become less fertile. It's just how it is but I certainly feel strongly that the largest contributing factor in the size reduction was the discontinued stocking of trout. With the smaller baits they feed on and the engery needed, I do not think it would be possible to extend the seasonal grow rates much more than they are on alewives or threadfins. Gizzards are another possibility but I don't think Cumberland will ever become a huge gizzard shad lake and they do not populate enough of the lake to rely on them as a lake wide source. KDFW has increased stockings due to findings that stripers actually use more of the lake than they once thought. Following this theory, and considering that the larger fish will take larger baits, it might do someone some good to consider the areas where gizzards live for larger fish. I've seen the best guide on the lake (IMHO) go out with his wife and another couple and come in with two coolers full of fish, all 25#s or larger. This was in the heat of the summer in the middle of the day. The larger fish are there, they just aren't were most people think they are..

[Mean Morone]

HBob, I like the way you think. I don't know about jumps in the summer because I don't fish LC in the summer, but I do know that in the fall you can find them in the backs of creeks. Last fall my buddy and I got into some in the back of a creek that were busting small gizzards. We caught big whites and stripers in the same school. We were using Flitterbaits to "match the hatch" because those things look just like a small gizzard shad. We've caught them in the throw net trying to get shad also.

Mark, sorry.

Duayne, very intersting read. Makes alot of sense. I was told by a guy that has a 45 lber on his wall that the big gizzards stay in the main lake year round. There seem to be billions of gizzards in the creeks. I can't ever remember seeing that before. I think gizzards will put more weight on the stripers than either alewives or threadfins. Theory says that the stripes should start putting on some weight when these gizzards get big. Of course I would love to see trout stocked again.