hogwall

I live in northern Wisconsin and all the guys that have trouble catching walleye say the muskies are eating them but study after study and taxidermist say they don't.Plain and simple muskies as well as stripers have their prefered food source and thats what they eat 99% of the time.Up here poor walleye fishing is usually a result of a big perch hatch or fisherman that don't know how to fish and they use muskies to cover up their short comings.If Bass fiserman are worried about stripers hurting bass fishing,why don't they push to close bass season during the spawn to protect the spawning bass?or restrict the tournaments?Those two items would go a long way to help bass populations.How about a 1 over size limit like 1 bass over 18 inches per day?Stripers hurting bass fishing if stocked right is minor compared to the issues I brought up.By the way up here bass are catch and release till the 3rd saturday in june to protect the spawn and since that rule went into effect our bass fishing has gotten better many times over.Common sense guys, protect your spawning fish if you want better bass fishing.

OK I'm from Wisconsin and I bought a place on Lake Ouachita because of the great Stripers fishery they have there.I will say that the Stripers on Ouachita bring money to the area as there are plenty of guides and they seem busy.I do know one and talk to him every trip down there and he is always busy and very helpful to us.We do catch stripers without using live shad but not like the guides do.Ouachita also has a great Bass population and we do very good on them as well as some big white bass and crappie.Of note we only keep spotted bass to eat and release all largemouths.There are many Bass guys that hate the stripers.I feel a lake should be managed for what the habitat is best suited for and Ouachita has some of the best striper habitat of any inland lake with at least 1/2 the lake well suited for stripers during the hottest of summer.Norfork is very border line as the stripers must stack up at the dam.Bull Shoals is know to have better summer oxygen levels thus would be better suited for stripers than Norfork and the Bull would make a great trophy Striper lake if they stock at low levels to keep growth rates high.I agree many of these lakes have to many rough fish(gars,drum,ect)and they should be removed as a lake can only support so many fish per acre just like a farm field.Hybrid's are best suited to lakes that lack the deep cool oxygen water as they can handle warm water well.Not every lake needs all fish thus Table Rock should be left alone unless the people there really want a larger fish.I have fished all these lakes over the years and settled on Ouachita due to the striper fishery,further south so better winter weather,and its by far one of if not the prettiest lakes in the south.So my vote would be leave Beaver and Table Rock the way they are,turn the Bull into a trophy striper fishery and make Norfork more of a hybrid fishery if oxygen causes the stripers to stress and stack right at the dam.As far as walleyes go,they are great on the table and should have a place in any of the lakes where they can reproduce at good levels.Good Luck guys from snow and ice filled northern Wis.

What is the striper population in the Bull as I didn't think they stocked them there?Over the years I have heard of some big stripers caught but always thought they were flukes.I'm from Wisconsin and usually fish stripers on Lake Ouachita.Thanks TOM