Efforts to replenish Kentucky Lake begin to show results
This spring, Kentucky Lake will be stocked with small Florida bass for the fifth year in a row in a program that has begun to show results. In this photo from 2020, the first year of the stocking program, Shawn McNulty (center, in blue shirt), owner of American Sportfish Hatchery, oversees the transfer of thousands of small Florida bass into a release boat at Paris Landing State Park marina. Henry County High School fishing team member Tyler Forrest (right) is handed a net full of fish, while his Patriot teammate Logan Thompson (background) helps.
P-I FILE PHOTO
In fall of 2019, local fishing experts were concerned about the supply of fish available in the waters of Kentucky Lake. It reached the point where they decided to do something about it.
Henry Countian, Bob Cathey, and Humphreys Countian Charlie Ingram helped lead an effort to solve the issue of dwindling fish numbers in the lake.
“In the last five or six years, we’ve seen our lake go from hero to zero,” said Ingram. “I don’t see it doing anything but going downhill the next couple of years.”
That pessimistic outlook helped spur a move by Henry County to launch a fish stocking program, which launched in spring 2020.
American Sportfish Hatchery in Alabama reached a deal to place 500,000 fish a year into the waters of Kentucky Lake for a three-year period at a cost of $100,000 a year. The county chose to continue the program in 2023 and will do so again this year.
So, over the last four years, more than 1 million pure Florida bass fingerlings (about 2 1/2 inches long) have been placed in the waters of Kentucky Lake.
The young fish were transported to the rear sections of several creeks around the Henry, Benton and Humphreys county portions of the lake and released in deeper structures.
EARLY RESULTS LOOK POSITIVE
Monte Starks, a member of the Henry County Tourism Authority, has been closely involved in the program. Starks said Monday that results of a survey of the waters have started to come in, and the results look pretty positive.
Gathering a diverse sample of the fish population, the Alabama hatchery measured and weighed every fish being sampled. Those samples were sent to Auburn University, where Dr. Eric Peatman, a professor who is a leader in the field of bass genetics, analyzed them.
Those results included:
• Of the 50 samples collected, 27 were found to be pure Northern Bass, which are native fish to the area.
• Genetic testing revealed that 15 of the samples showed recent hybridization between Florida Bass and Northern Bass.
• Additionally, six of the samples were determined to be the result of historical crosses between Florida Bass and Northern Bass before the stocking.
• Two of the samples were identified as pure Florida Bass, indicating that they were likely introduced to the lake through recent stocking efforts.
• The four largest fish collected, with an average weight of 3.7 pounds, were identified as F1s. That category of fish have an approximate 50% genetic contribution from both Florida Bass and Northern Bass lineages.
• Overall, the percentage of Northern Bass in the 2023 sample was found to be 85.7%, slightly lower than the 86.4% reported in 2022. This indicates an ongoing incorporation of Florida Bass genetics into the lake, driven by both the survival of Florida Bass and their hybridization with native Northern Bass.
“It seems like the genetics are going the way it’s supposed to go,” Starks said.
The effort here was initially patterned somewhat after a similar program at Chickamauga Lake in the Chattanooga area.
“We’re right at the edge of the weather line as to whether something like this would work or not here,” Starks said. “But it seems to be working. Fishermen now are catching some good weights out there.”
One other factor in helping the program has been the slight reduction in Asian carp at the lake. Henry County Mayor John Penn Ridgeway said Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials have told him there has been a reduction in the number of those invasive Asian carp recently.
The Asian carp are now being caught and used by North American Caviar on Barnhill Lane in Paris. Many are also sent to the Northeast, where it is used for crab bait and lobster bait.