ENJOYING THE OUTDOORS: DRY YEAR WOULD BRING GOOD AND BAD FISH NEWS

It's a given that into every life a little rain must fall. the quantity and timing of it, however, makes a lot of difference to fishermen.

Look at the basics: Where fish live and where anglers fish is water. And where that water comes from is precipitation. A shortage of rain means less water; a deluge of it means more.

There are the spinoff effects, too. Frequent or heavy rain means lakes and streams will be more turbid -- slightly murky to downright muddy -- as runoff carries in particulate matte. When dealing with streams and impoundments, more water usually means more current.

By the same token, scarcity of rain means low water elevations, plus the ripple effect of clearer water and less current.

All the stuff affects how fish live and do business, thus they are factors upon which fishermen ponder -- and about which they whine and moan when the impact is that they catch fewer fish.

A recent period of unusually dry spring weather may show impacts on area fisheries for some time to come. Anglers on the popular Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley have been antsy for water to reach normal levels for fishing convenience -- putting fish around shoreline cover. But beyond that, the lower, clearer waters already may have played in shaping future fish populations.

"We are anticipating a weak year class for crappie," said Paul Rister, a fisheries biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. "We've had low, clear water, which isn't the best condition for crappie to spawn in, and I'd have to say that the majority of crappie have spawned by now.

"When crappie can't get ideal conditions, some of the fish will re-absorb their eggs without ever spawning," Rister said. "With the water low and out of the shoreline cover on the lakes, the crappie that do spawn will tend to do so more in open water where the fry are more susceptible to predation. Shallow nests probably wouldn't have been very successful."

Biologists won't get a representative look at the spring crappie class of '95 until trap-netting studies in the fall. However, even assuming that this spring's crop is light, anglers likely wouldn't sense much of a letdown unless one or more following springs produce meager spawns.

"There's so many fish in the lakes right now, including a lot of mature fish and small crappie, people fishing probably won't notice the difference," Rister said. "We've had good spawns over the past few years, so they shouldn't be able to tell that there's a letdown."

With Kentucky-Barkley waters running as much as two feet lower than normal during recent weeks, a spate of rainfall in past days helped nudge elevations back to a level customary for this time of year. The lakes were just shy of summer pool elevation, putting water at least modestly into shoreline cover.

Rister said that elevation should allow more newly-hatched crappie to gain shelter in bushes and brush, increasing survival odds for those new fish. Meanwhile, the flooded cover around the banks comes at a time when it could have the most positive impacts for black bass.

Rister predicted that conditions would favor a generous bass spawn, particularly when combined with relatively clear water thus far this spring, a circumstance that contributes to an upswing in black bass populations.

Rister said early spring conditions have markedly increased the growth of aquatic vegetation such as Eurasian milfoil, the water weeds that bloomed in the droughty years of the late 1980s. Not coincidentally, black bass populations soared during that same period.

Milfoil last year declined when spring floods put a thick layer of murky water over weed beds. Limited light penetration resulted in many weed patches shrinking or disappearing.

This spring less and clearer water over the lake bottom has meant much more light penetration and, zap, new growth bursts from dormant weeds.

"The milfoil is off to a good start, and once it can get a good root hold, it will take off," Rister said.

With the correlation seen between black bass and vegetation growth, a continued trend of below-average rainfall could mean another sharp upswing in production of both largemouth and smallmouth bass. Other species, too, seem to ride to greater heights with plenty of weedy growth.

Redear sunfish (suncrackers), bluegill to some extent, and chain pickerel fare well in grassy years. While crappie overall may decline in such years, the contingent of weed-loving black crappie is likely to increase while the dominant white crappie lose ground.

Rister said sauger favor turbid conditions, but that species apparently had normal water conditions during its annual spawn, which takes place in late winter. Thus, a dry year that started in March logically might have little, if any impact on sauger.

TVA water managers presently say near-normal water elevations on the lower end of the Tennessee River chain are the result of recent heavy rains in the downstream section and light to moderate precipitation in the upper drainage.

On Kentucky Lake, "it's already in the range we like it to be, and it looks like it will hit summer pool (359 feet) within about 10 days with no more rain," said Janet Duffy of TVA Water Management. With additional rainfall, summer pool is quickly reachable, she said.

God alone knows what the rest of the year will bring -- drought, flooding or something more moderate in between. If the present trend continues, not a full-blown drought, but rather a year of just less than average rainfall, the results for fisheries probably will be mixed.

Thus far, we could be seeing the factors which play into a modest downturn for crappie, while black bass and a few other species get a shot in the arm.

Win some, lose some.

~Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor for The Paducah Sun.