The Wildlife Dept. does Gillnet Surveys every February, to get a feel on how the Striper population is doing. The survey they did after the 2007 flood, actually showed more Stripers in the lake than the previous year's survey. I'm hoping this coming survey will show the same and this slow down is caused by the abnormal conditions in the lake, not the fact that there are fewer fish. Only time will tell. One thing seems certain though, we had a good spawn this Spring. A lot of baby Stripers, Sand Bass and Crappie being caught in throw nets. This is my unofficial test on how the spawn went and it is usually pretty accurate. Barring any more major issues, those babies Will grow up. The question guides are asking is "who can last till then?" The last 6 years has been some of the toughest on record and is weeding out all but the die hards. The "easy" years have been eluding us for a while now. Seems there is always something going on. Customers that are use to tons of quality fish being caught most of the year are adjusting their expectations. I'm ready for it to be "easy" again, when the hardest part of the job was getting up in the morning.