I’m surprised there has been no discussion about all the dead floating stripers and the tower#5 situation.
noticed a lot of floaters this am too… we counted about 15… mostly looked like legal fish… hope someone wasn’t getting gready and threw back some smaller fish or didn’t stop at their 5 limit… what’s wrong with #5 tower… we stayed in old river bed channel near the islands… did take home one 24 incher and had a few pull downs and a couple og “Lake Murray” bill fish… still was a nice morning…
21ft Carolina Skiff w/115 Yamaha 4 stroke !!
There have been hundreds of dead stripers floating many of them large fish these are not released fish. Tower#5 draws water at the 70 ft. level,this is where the oxygen level/thermocline is at this time of the summer. The other towers take water from a deeper level.Many people say that #5 is depleting the oxygen from the water where the fish are.
I was told this morning that Lake Murray and Lake Wateree had floating stripers and that it was due to the lake “turning over”. I thought that happened in the fall when the surface layer cooled.
Whiteduck
Spoke witht a DNR bilogist last week on the lake. He said it was the worst fish kill he had seen on Lake Murray since 1991. He said it was due to SCE&G drawing the good water off the lake and stressing the fish. In addition, he said that once the cooler water/thermocline settles past 30 feet the oxygen level is nearly non existant and fish have a difficult time surviving.
“C” Bully
Class '87
Triton 2895 CC
This letter sent to SCE&G from the National Striped Bass Association explains the concerns on this matter:
NSBA Letter to SCE&G on fish kill
Posted by Warren Turner on 8/15/2005, 12:56 pm
Dear Mary Green Brush,
Please provide us more details to the answer you gave Mr. Keith and to the actual running times for unit #5. While we agree that poor water quality probably killed the fish, what was the cause of the poor water quality? Some people might want to answer with a simple statement of hot weather, but we have experienced many days of sustained hot weather since 1991. Some people might want to stop with the simple answer of heavier than normal rainfall. But we have experienced many other years with heavier rainfall than we have had both in 1991 as well as this year. While both of these conditions do cause poor water quality, let me explain to you why we do not believe and accept a simple answer that they alone were the cause of the recent fish kill.
We are very informed members of the general public and have a better than 20-year history of Lake Murray, a better than average knowledge of striped bass, and a general understanding of water quality. As we learned that Lake Murray was going to be drawn down for 3-years to have the dam strengthened, we became very concerned with Lake Murray experiencing a major fish kill. Warren Turner, current President of the National Striped Bass Association, past 3-term President of the Greenville Striper Kings, and member of the Midland Striper Club in Columbia, even spoke to Gene Hayes (SCDNR biologist) 4-years ago about the likelihood of the thermal squeeze killing the striped bass since the lake would be 14-feet lower. The answer was that yes the lake could be more vulnerable under extreme conditions. While the lake level was down the drought conditions we have experienced for several years ended and the summer temperature was high and still no major fish kill. The water level returned to its normal level and our fears began to dissolve; that is, until 3-weeks ago