Actually, it would not help out Cumberland. Probably have the reverse affect. Stripers diet is 99.99999% shad and alewifes. They use portions of the lake not used by other species (bass, bluegill, crappie, etc.). Alewifes and shad spend a lot of their lives over open water, so cannot be used by many other species for large portions of the year. If you let alewifes and shad take over the lake they'll compete directly with the fry of bass, bluegill and other species. Stripers keep the alewife/shad populations down and also limit the size of gizzard shad (they get over 18 inches).Originally Posted by Bass_King2007
KR, the lake levels is an Army Corp deal. Fish and wildlife have no control over that. They have been working with the bass at Cumberland (and other lakes). For example, the smallmouth limits were increased several years back and has improved the smallie sizes in the lake. I think you'll find that different species on different lakes will get different amounts of fish and wildlife time/funding. Musky are the big thing at Cave Run, Striper at Cumberland, Smallmouth at Dale Hollow, for example. There is only so much time/money that they have, so they cannot manage all fish at all lakes the same.
Andrew
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