Broken Bow Lake Consumtion Ban

It seem Broken Bow always has something negitive going on up there.

Please don’t feed your kids the fish from up there. If there is a ban on a bigger fish, just don’t even eat the small ones.


http://www.deq.state.ok.us/CSDnew/fish/PDFs/

That lake always seems to have the cleanest, clearest water around, what gives?

Best I can figure it’s higher mercury content in the soil in that area....water can look clean while heavy metals are still present, best I can figure it’s common out east because several other east Texas lakes as well as SE Oklahoma lakes that are far away from any sort of industry also have consumption bans or advisories.

Ok, that makes some sense...but there is something that seems out of sorts here...

It somehow seems odd that there is a consumption advisory on white crappie but not black crappie...in essence, it more like they are just trying to limit a fisherman’s take of fish with lower population density, rather than a metals issue, which should treat both black/white crappie the same...

it likely has to do with the diet of each fish, white crappie are much heavier fish eaters while black crappie can have a tendency to eat more crawfish, bugs, etc....at least that’s my best guess, I do know the diet of white and black crappie does tend to vary quite a bit. And broken bow lake is full of white and black crappie, so it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense

Right answer McKinney, that's biomagnification at work. Each step up the food chain toxic substances accumulate so the keystone predators will have the highest concentrations of bad stuff in them.

I also concur that, black crappie tend to eat more insects which in theory would have less toxins than the minnows and other baitfish that make up most of a white crappie's diet.

Crappie, both kinds, eat mostly daphnia...While young....it is when they get larger that the white crappie eat more fish in their diet...but daphnia still make up a significant portion of their diet...but if I hear what you are saying, then the Shad in that lake have heavy metal problems? If so, there should be some research papers published on the subject, as the govt is usually very thorough on such matters.