COLUMN
NEWELL’S NOTES
ROB
NEWELL
C
12
“Carp”-e Diem
arp. It’s the word of the day up and down the Tennessee
River.
Locals around Kentucky Lake have been screaming carp
for several years now, claiming that the Asian varieties of sil-
ver and bighead carp have entered Kentucky and Barkley
lakes en masse through the locks.
This year, the rest of the fishing world got to see exactly
why Kentucky Lake regulars have been sounding the carp
alarm. As national tournament circuits made their annual
migration to Kentucky Lake this season, they found carp – by
the thousands – just about anywhere they stopped a boat.
It’s indeed a different Kentucky Lake. Score sheets from
major tournaments are looking a little different, too. While
big limits at the very top of the tournament results still reach
into the mid-20-pound range, it’s what’s going on down
below that has many concerned. At the recent FLW Tour
event, for instance, more than 30 anglers were able to cash
checks without catching a limit each day. Tour anglers used
to weeding through dozens and dozens of 1 1/2- to 3-pound
bass to cull up were scratching and clawing just to get bites
and fill limits.
Obviously, most professional anglers are not biologists,
but collectively they do possess hundreds of thousands of
hours of fishing experience across the country. With that,
pros are pretty dialed in to the pulse of the underwater
world. After several weeks of needling Kentucky Lake with a
fishing rod, pros had a few common observations that were
a bit unnerving.
1. A year-class, those 1 1/2- to 2 1/2-pound bass, seems
to be missing.
2. There are far fewer threadfin shad.
3. The sheer biomass of the carp looks like something out
of a science fiction movie, resulting in blacked-out depth find-
ers and jumping carp raining down in the shallows.
Since these carp are filter feeders, the theory goes that
such a biomass suckling plankton from the water 24/7 will
eventually crash the food chain, severely impacting game fish
up top.
Are carp solely to blame for the lower catch rates at
Kentucky Lake? Who knows?
As Asian carp continue their migration into new waters, it
creates a lot of uncharted territory for fishery and wildlife
managers at all levels. They are working toward possible solu-
tions such as sonic sound barriers at dams and potential
strains of carp viruses that might render them sterile.
These fish are just now reaching massive deep-water
impoundments, and given the huge numbers of carp of vari-
ous sizes and year classes in Kentucky and Barkley, their
reproduction in lakes appears to pose no problem for them.
Making matters worse, Kentucky Lake is the gateway to
the fertile and ecologically diverse Tennessee River system of
reservoirs – the nation’s superhighway for recreational bass
fishing.
The whole situation sounds pretty daunting. Talk to any-
one about the subject matter of carp and the conversation
takes on an apocalyptic tone.
FLWFISHING.COM I FALL 2018