If you've visited some area lakes recently you might have sampled some ripe air and traced its source to the dead fish.

Robin Rybin noticed the problem at Wehrspann Lake.

He says, "It makes you not trust what you are catching out of here and if you're eating it, just kind of scares you a little bit."

But Greg Wagner, with the Nebraska Game and Parks Department says it's all perfectly normal.

He says, "We're talking about mostly pan fish that have been affected although an array of fish have been affected. Pan fish meaning bluegill and crappie primarily."

Wagner says that while this isn't unusual, it's happening earlier this year.

The fish are dying from a bacterial infection brought on by stress from rapidly rising water temperature, the spawning season and being caught and released.

Wagner says that while it looks bad, it's actually a minor kill.

"Minor is kind of in the eye of the beholder," he says. "If someone is walking or jogging around the lake and smelling the stench of several hundred dead fish, minor doesn't cut it. But as far as fish kill is concerned, this is a minor fish kill. It's a seasonal fish kill.

Game and Parks has received calls asking what's going to be done about it and the answer is nothing.

"A lot of people say, 'well those fish are going to go to waste.' No they won't," Wagner says. "They will be utilized by a number of animals on that body of water."

It's a field day for birds, turtles and raccoons.

The rest of us just need to put up with the smell until they're done at the lakeside buffet line.

Game and Parks says the problem will clear up in a few weeks.

Right now, the kill is confined to Wehrspann and Zorinsky Lakes but it could happen at others.

It's no surprise this is happening right after Memorial Day. That's the biggest fishing weekend of the year and catch-and-release really does stress fish.

Wagner says the fish kills don't pose any health threat to people or the animals that will feed off them.

It's not a great idea to go pick them up and you certainly shouldn't eat them but just being near them isn't going to hurt.