LAKE OCONEE — Lakes Oconee and Sinclair suffered a significant winter kill of baitfish including the threadfin shad, which are very important in the diet of game fish like largemouth bass, striped bass, hybrid bass and crappie.

Baitfish in area lakes are comprised primarily of minnows, bluegill and shad, but threadfin shad make up a majority of the diet for game fish. The most important baitfish in both lakes Oconee and Sinclair are shad, and there are two distinctly different species of shad in the lakes. The two types are threadfin shad and gizzard shad. Some parts of the country call the threadfin shad yellowtails due to the yellow coloration found on their tails. Look closely, especially under lights, and the threadfin shad exhibits a number of colors.

Even though the threadfin shad can grow to six to nine inches in some waters, they are generally found to measure up to two to four inches in area lakes. Due to their small size, the threadfin shad is the perfect size baitfish for crappie, largemouth bass and striped/hybrid bass to feed on.

The threadfin shad likely provides upward of 80 percent or more of the game fish diet in area lakes. They are abundant in both Lakes Oconee and Sinclair, but greater numbers can be found in Lake Oconee. Lake Oconee was hit with a serious late winter shad kill, which was caused by a 10-day cold snap that plunged lake water temperatures. With Lake Oconee’s large shad population, hopefully the impact will not be significant.

One of the worst hit lakes in Georgia this winter was West Pointe Lake, which had a huge die off of shad during the unusually cold weather. Most state reservoirs north of Macon saw shad kills. The shad kill that occurred in Lake Oconee attracted birds from everywhere as they dined on the dead shad.

The largemouth bass also gourged themselves  on the dying shad based on the condition of fish being caught this spring. Most of the largemouth bass now being caught are fat and healthy.

The winter shad kills occur almost ever winter, but this year’s kill was one of the largest in a good number of years. I talked to Chris Nelson from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Nelson is a Fisheries Biologist and is responsible for the Lake Oconee fishery.

“The shad kill was significant in Lake Oconee this past winter but certainly a good number of shad survived and they will recover,” said Nelson. “Less numbers of shad actually will produce a good spawn of shad this year, and their numbers should recover fairly quickly.”

There may be some decline in the condition of largemouth bass and other game fish for a while, but I do not look for that to last very long,” Nelson said. “As I said earlier fewer numbers of shad actually result in a better hatch of shad fry.”

The shad spawn in the spring during the month of May along lake shorelines and during that spawn anglers target game fish that have moved to shoreline areas to feed on the shad.

Threadfin shad feed primarily on plankton but occasionally they will eat the larvae of other fish. This year’s shad spawn was spotty on both lakes Oconee and Sinclair this spring and I am sure that it was related to the fact that there were fewer numbers of shad due to the winter kill.

I also spoke to Steve Schleiger, who is the DNR Fisheries Biologist responsible for Lake Sinclair, and he basically had the same thoughts as did Chris Nelson. Lake Sinclair did not sustain as large a winter kill as Lake Oconee, but it was significant.

“Over the years, I have seen several winter kills of shad and a couple of those winter shad kills were as bad or worse than the one this year, and the shad recovered quickly and there was minimal impact on the overall fishery,” said Schleiger. “The overall condition of all fish that feed on the shad may decline somewhat but there are other sources of food like bream that were not impacted greatly by the cold weather.”

The DNR plans to continue stocking striped bass and hybrid bass in Lake Oconee and striped bass in Lake Sinclair this year and do not plan to alter the stocking levels due to the winter shad kill. DNR plans to stock 190,000 hybrid bass (they have already been stocked this year) and 190,000 striped bass (they will be stocked in the next couple of weeks) in Lake Oconee this spring. Lake Sinclair will get at least five striped bass per acre (around 75,000) and as many as 10 striped bass per acre (around 150,000) this spring.

Hopefully, the winter shad kill will have a minimum impact on fishing in the days ahead. Right now fishing for largemouth bass in Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair is excellent and the fish are healthy.

Good fishing and see you next week.

Outdoor Columnist Bobby Peoples can be contacted via e-mail at brpeoples@windstream.net.