Law enforcement officials have cited a series of pay lake operators, catfish anglers, and other suspects in a multi-state trafficking bust. The suspects were allegedly involved in harvesting catfish illegally and selling them to various pay lakes \u2014 sometimes transporting them across state lines to do so.<\/p>\n
A total of nine perpetrators were cited for 180 wildlife violations across Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife game warden Cody Fox tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. Throughout 2023, anglers from Kentucky and Alabama caught thousands of pounds of trophy catfish (both flatheads and blues) without the requisite permits, and then transported and sold those catfish to various pay lakes<\/a> (which are privately owned lakes that anglers must pay to access) throughout the three states.\u00a0<\/p>\n Non-commercial anglers in Kentucky can only harvest one trophy-sized catfish per day, and commercial anglers must have the proper permits to harvest more than one. Catfish 35 inches or larger are considered \u201ctrophy-sized.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n One lake in particular, Green Valley Pay Lake in Glasgow, Kentucky, was the focal point of KDFW\u2019s investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were going to Barren River Lake and catching over their limit of catfish and, in turn, taking these catfish and selling them to Green Valley Pay Lake,\u201d Fox says, explaining that non-permitted anglers charge less for trophy catfish than permitted, commercial anglers would charge in a legal transaction. \u201cThe pay lake is turning a profit. These people selling catfish to Green Valley were not legal commercial fishermen, and Barren River Lake is closed to any sort of commercial fishing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The illegal sales dated back to 2023, and KDFW\u2019s investigation began in 2024. Fox says he was originally tipped off by posts he saw in his social media feeds, which showed evidence of people harvesting over their legal limit of catfish at some nearby pay lakes. He points out that many of those operations have since deleted a lot of content from their Facebook pages. <\/p>\n Photo courtesy Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Search warrants and compliance checks revealed that the pay lake operators knowingly purchased catfish caught from restricted waterways like Barren River Lake. They did not keep any record of their purchases, and they did not have any information on file regarding the origins of the catfish in question.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pay lake owner is required by law to keep certain documents regarding where fish are coming from that enter their lake,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is to address safety concerns. People are catching and eating [these fish]. Well, they could be coming from waters with high mercury content, or other issues. The operators are required by law to document where they\u2019re buying the fish from, which they didn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout a series of compliance checks and search warrants, Fox and other investigators also caught wind of two Alabama catfish anglers who were catching over-limits and selling the fish to Green Valley, as well as other pay lakes in Tennessee. At this point, KDFW notified both the Alabama Game and Fish Division and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next:<\/strong> Poachers Caught with 71 Fish Stuffed in Their Backpacks, Including Trophy Bass<\/a><\/p>\n The two Alabama suspects ultimately caught and sold some 6,400 pounds of catfish to Green Valley before getting caught. Any live transport of catfish outside Alabama state lines is illegal, Fox points out, and as soon as those anglers crossed the state border, they also violated the Lacey Act<\/a>, which elevates any sort of interstate wildlife violation to a federal crime. This meant that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service got involved as well.<\/p>\n Many details behind the allegations remain under wraps as the case is still under investigation and in the early stages of the charging process. But local news outlet WBKO<\/a> filed a public information request with KDFW that revealed the identities and charge sheets for five of the nine suspects:<\/p>\n Pay lakes are popular among anglers in the Southeast, especially those with families or beginners, as they typically have healthy populations of large fish that are easy to catch. But Fox says these kinds of lakes have also become an issue for the agency because the small operations can easily fly under the radar.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cPay lakes in Kentucky have very few rules to follow,\u201d he says. \u201cFor them to be that negligent\u2026it\u2019s basically a black market. These catfish are all thirty to seventy pounds for the most part, and it can take twelve to thirty years for a catfish to reach that size. We have seventy or eighty pay lakes in Kentucky, and a lot of them are doing the exact same thing. This pay lake in particular brought in over 9,000 pounds of catfish in one year alone. Of course, not every pay lake is doing this, but a lot of them are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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