Fayette Fish Kill

A lot of fish dead all over the lake. Local guide blames turn over. The water has a real odd color so maybe he's right. There is a heavy oil odor in several spots around the lake, but no oil on the water. I saw some really big bluegills dead.

Just great I guess we are over due...The last big "turnover" fish kill was mid October 2019. Last week when I went all was fine...Hoping to check it out next week...

I’ve heard of this before but it never occurred to me it could happen in a lake the size of Fayette. This is terrible.
If fish are dying, I hope it’s minimal.

Hopefully Fayette will bounce back! Bad news indeed.

There were a lot of dead fish at the Oak Thicket ramp when I launched, and dead fish all over the lake. Mostly tilapia, bluegill, carp, and small bass. When I came back in, there were a lot more dead fish at the ramp. And some trophy bluegill. The lake water temps were 89 as far as you can get from the discharge, 95 at the intake and 101 at the discharge.

I hear that TPWD personnel will be on Fayette today to do an investigation of the situation.

It seems like it happens annually, but typically with heavy rains in September. Some years are worse than others. I'm going to text the biologist to see what they have to say. Typically, bigger bass are not killed.

The biggest bass I saw was about 1-1/2 pounds. But there was a bunch of 1" to 6" bass dead.

I had plans on fishing Fayette. Guess I will wait till next year.

Going this week...will post good or bad...

I had to do more research, so maybe others are wondering as well.... i'm sure there are many variables involved, but heavy rains when water temps are high, which then get mixed in with large amounts of cooler rainfall, can trigger it.

What is rapid turnover

Thats what the lake’s TPWD fish biologist told me was the cause of the fish kill. .

I wonder if this means that we can still see a "normal" turnover when cooler weather arrives ?

I believe there will be a normal turnover when it cools. This turnover was most likely caused by the runoff from the rains. The temps around the lake were pretty normal for this time of year. I did not notice temp in the cove.

Low O2 level maybe.....

If we have any of the lakes we fish which are within 250 miles roll over, is usually in the later part of spring, early summer. More related to our first rain after a long time of no run-off water shed from rain or snow.

Like already mentioned it's murks up the lake and it will be from the upper end, more colored water body, to the more clear lower end. You will smell the lake as well, and with those two things from upper to lower ends is a dead give away, and of course the nasty smell.

We usually only see the scaled fish die, not the skinned. The bigger trophy fish show up later in the kill off as well. I just hate to see this. The really alarming part of this when I was a young boy, I lived on PK and had the lake out the back door, we would have the lake roll over like this, but didn't have the fish kill. Now the better fishing tanked for about a month.

Only my opinion here, it's the sediment run-off from the fields that have had the chemicals used on them. We did see the lake murky, big thing was a big run-off had to have happen and it was not just the upper end of the lake where the river enters the lake, it also was the lower end that usually won't happen with a small rain from an extended time of no run-off. Then of course the smell was the final key to ID the roll over. We just didn't see a fish kill off.
Bad things going on now as opposed to the 60's... Hate to hear that from your lakes experiencing the surface water colder than the deep warm water causing this whole thing.

How long will a fish kill like this effect things? I would assume if caused by turnover, surviving fish are lethargic and not feeding normally.

I was planning to go tomorrow and was trying now to decide whether to audible to Somerville... or Conroe... or stick to my original plans.

David

While they won't be jumping in the boat, fishing should be good. It's been a week already.

You can still catch some, one thing here is if your after certain species. Some are affected more than others. As I mentioned above, the fish that have skin aren't affected at all.

The other part of this will be the end of the lake you choose to fish. The upper end will start to recover sooner than the lower end. The end of the lake where the majority of the water comes into it would be the best choice this soon into the roll over. There are places you can catch fish though anywhere, just some places better than others, and if your going after certain fish that have scales...

The bait fish are what get all screwed up too if you can find the bait fish the scaled fish will be close by. This is a good time to watch for the flocks of seagulls hitting the water, now they will be a couple maybe on one fish that might be in the process of dying, that is not what your wanting, you find a flock of birds hitting the water there will be bait there as well as those that eat them. The flock all just sitting in the water all in one area, there is bait there too, just not shallow, they will usually be right on the bottom if 20' or less.

It's still fishing regardless of what your after lol, we don't call it catching till we actually find them and do just that. Just may want to try to tip the scale in your favor, and do things differently than you usually do. It won't be bad, unless you get tunnel vision and get all focused on the same way you do things when the lake is not doing this huge transition.

Next year should be back to good. Just my opinion.

Man soon as the Temps start coming down in the fall, the lake will just settle right in its normal groove. It will establish the first Thermocline which is about the 20' mark in lakes here in Texas.

That will get the lake well established and the cooler Temps will get the mercy parts in the water column to settle out and the fall pattern will be on. I have seen this roll overs many times and this is how it works still, the different stuff going these days is our fish kill. That is really terrible too.

There for a while we had this golden algae hitting certain lakes, it also was coming down certain rivers and washing into the lakes. It decimated the fish population, least the fish that again have scales. The one thing different it killed all the biggest fish we have released over and over to establish these true trophy fish.

The smaller fish delt with the golden algae way better than the bigger fish did. Even the bigger bait fish was being killed too. Then those of us that was in these lakes fishing and seeing all of It, we trailer up and go home. You didn't bleach out the bilge and livewells and bait tank, you being heartbroken over seeing all those truly trophy fish dead and dying, we go to a different lake. You could very easily start the golden algae in that lake if you had much water in them or maybe weeds on your trailer. It's some really bad stuff...

Least with the lake rolling over, your not going to contaminate a different lake with this dirty and nasty smelling water. I still spray bleach in all my bait tanks and/or live wells and the bilge. It's not expensive but is a pita, but I have seen some of this truly evil crud happen and I try to faithfully do my part anyway.

So you guys down there that fish this lake hang in there, it will settle down and you will get the fall bite and an even better winter bite

This is a small power plant lake with no true active creeks. It gets run off from the surrounding area, but not really from creeks like a typical TX lake. Fayette definitely has areas that are more impacted by a turnover than other areas. There was a definitive green color delineation during the turnover the last few years and the fishing was always better in the cleaner water. Historically, the turnover is early October, but Fayette seems to catch significant rain from time to time and will have this impact. 2019 was a brutal year for fishing after the turnover. Our numbers went way day. Pete documents it well: https://www.fayettecountyguidefishing.com/lake-fayette/