Chief Logan State Park Lake and Laurel Lake near Lenore in Mingo County have recently been stocked with catchable sized channel catfish. Per DNR, some 5,500 catfish of a pound or two each have been stocked into these and several other public fishing lakes.

According to DNR Director Frank Jezioro, “These stockings will provide good fishing, especially during the summer when folks are looking for family-oriented recreation close to home.” Though murky water conditions may be troublesome to anglers in the near term, the rains have got to diminish at some point or at least we can hope so.

Per Jezioro, DNR fisheries management staff has conducted tagging studies over the past three years to gauge the success of stocking catchable channel catfish into these small impoundments. The results indicate that stocked channel catfish are caught throughout the summer. What’s more, families and young anglers comprise a high percentage of successful anglers!

The studies will continue this year as well with the nearest water bodies receiving tagged catfish being Berwind Lake in McDowell County and Wallback Lake in Clay County.

Nearly all of the catfish planted lakes are also stocked with trout in the spring.

Per the stated high and murky water conditions, they should still be holding decent numbers of trout too, not to mention the bass, bluegills or other game fish that should be stirring. So as soon as you get dried off a bit, Go Fish!

In other news, the DNR Natural Resources Commission convenes today (May 17) at Flatwoods to finalize the hunting regulations package for the fall. We’ll keep you posted on their final decision on the most notable change proposal, the one to either add or scrap the newly proposed September archery and muzzleloading deer hunts.

Meanwhile, spring gobbler hunters have been thwarted by rain in the same fashion as the anglers.

Though doused by precipitation, turkey hunters are seeing good deer numbers, coyotes, bobcats, rabbits and in particular the squirrel and chipmunk populations are looking super.

These sensational numbers of squirrels and chipmunks should “buffer” the predation on other game birds the likes of rabbit, grouse and turkey. All we need now is some dry hatching weather as in the next couple of weeks and look out this fall!

The Kentucky turkey season closed out last Sunday May 10. What’s more, they made another important point by issuing a safety advisory the week prior to that closure per the sensational greening up of the forest there. The Mountain State version is ending at a late and lacking in interest May 23 of the Memorial Day holiday.