Rock River Fish Kill

[Tarner]

It's a sad sight along the Rock River in Northern Illinois the past couple days. Fish are dieing by the thousands. We don't know what is killing the fish yet but, if I was a betting man I'd say it has something to do with the train derailment that happened up in Rockford about 60 miles up stream. Everything is dieing from carp, and catfish of all kinds to pan fish, and bass. The DNR says it's mainly the bottom feeders. But these big catfish, bass, and walleye don't feed off the bottom?

Here's what our local paper has on it.
Fish Kill Story

Here's example of some of the fish coming down stream.

37lbs Flathead 42 inches long.

 

[MudSkunk]

Re: Rock River Fish Kill

various DNR agencies seldom have a clue about anything. its like the DNR here in wisconsin they will prosecute a person to the greatest extent of the law for dropping a piece of concrete into a river but the city of milwaukee can dump nearly a billion gallons of raw sewage into lake michigan each year and they do nothing.

 

[Thad]

Re: Rock River Fish Kill

To top it off, over the weekend I saw numerous people fishing in the park.
Dead fish everywhere, no known or rather official reason, but there they were...fishing.

Even worse, the Rock River has had a very healthy poulation of many species of fish. I most likely won't be wetting a line for a couple years. This kill was tremendous and will take time for the system to recover.

 

[Tarner]

Re: Rock River Fish Kill

still no answer as to why this happened. I went out last night and only had a few small bites. There are still fish out there but definitely not like it was.

http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2009/06/26/r_lcvfxvmaroehnhboropxg/index.xml

 

[cribber]

Re: Rock River Fish Kill

In the article they mentioned ethanol from the derailment. That would kill off the bigger fish... bottom feeders or not. It will take a long time for that stretch of water to recover. Sad... very sad.