Shad Kill?

[TerryD]

Anybody seeing any sign of a shad kill yet?
TerryD

[bfish]

Originally Posted by TerryD

Anybody seeing any sign of a shad kill yet?
TerryD

Water temps need to get into the 40 (at the depth they are running). Too warm still.

[utncaa1]

Talked to some guys that fished Pickwick late last week and were seeing "floaters" dead and dying in Yellow Creek.

[bd-]

Sometimes there's a lag between a cold snap and the die off. A few years ago we had a late winter/early spring freeze, and the shad on Center Hill didn't die during the middle of it, but there were large numbers of them coming through the dam a week or so later when the temps were warming up.

[hogdawg]

As I was driving to work tonight, I was looking at all of the salt still on the roads and was wondering if that much salt when it makes it to the area waterways could be part of why we see some shad kill in relation to cold snaps. What do you think?

[tkwalker]

Originally Posted by hogdawg

As I was driving to work tonight, I was looking at all of the salt still on the roads and was wondering if that much salt when it makes it to the area waterways could be part of why we see some shad kill in relation to cold snaps. What do you think?

Salt is actually a fishes friend ... Most bait well additives are salt based ... Some Fish have to have it to survive but for most fresh water species it enhances their life ... I use to salt down my trout that I was using for bait after loading them in the boat before a trip ... All of you bait saver is salt based .... <'TK><

[bd-]

It depends on the fish. Some species are a lot more salt sensitive than others. It shouldn't impact threadfin shad though. In areas affected by the tides, they handle brackish water just fine, and that involves a much higher salinity level than you're ever going to see from road brine runoff into a big lake like Center Hill.

That doesn't mean salting the roads is okay for the environment. In particular, it's tough on some species in smaller streams, especially farther down the food chain. But the salt runoff doesn't impact the shad kills. They just get temperature stressed during cold snaps, and then they are more susceptible to disease and other problems that cause die-offs even among the shad that weren't killed by the cold itself.

[bfish]

Road salt is not usually NaCl (ie table salt).

[tkwalker]

Good clarification bd ... Thanks <'TK><

[hogdawg]

Thanks for the clarification. I had been wondering about its impact on our fisheries.