Stripers - Bull Shoals Fishery Meeting

[Phil Lilley]

They're not stocked below the dam- not that I know of. They are washed over the top into BS. People do fish for them down there- they'd be ticked but you're right- stripers would head to the dam certain times a year and they would put the hurt of the trout for sure.

[rangerman]

The stripers mainly target the large gizzard shad that nothing else really has the mouth or aggressiveness to eat. I know they do eat a few whites, crappies and even a few bass but 22,000 ever other year is really a drop in the ocean. And you have to figure what out of that 22,000 survives. What does everyone think a big black bass or big smallie for that matter targets. Absolutely anything including other bass it can get in its mouth. They make rainbow trout colored swimbaits for largemouths. There is a reason for it.

I am a walleye guy first and foremost, but there is absolutely nothing like having big stripers bust the surface in a cove and having them smack topwaters..The force and tenacity of these fish is awesome. I have had fish smoke my large trolled cranks while walleye fishing on BS and just go until I had no line left. Its pretty wild.

Its a dog eat dog world under water...Everything and I mean every thing eats everything else and I just think a few more stripers would be cool and I would be good with that. As long as they quit stealing my 800 series reef runners.

[Champ188]

A taxidermist in favor of stripers — imagine that!

[ozarkstripers.com]

Bull shoals has the potential to be a world class striper lake. I have cleaned hundreds if not thousands of stripers over the years and always check the contents. I have very rarely found anything besides shad, crawdads and trout in the stomach of the fish I have cleaned, and I have never found a bass, crappie or walleye. Not saying they dont chew on one from time to time but I have never found one even though the waters I fish are loaded with with them. Bring em

[illwalley]

BS is really begening to become a trophey class walleye lake. If anyone needs proof of that google where the next world record walleye may come from, they list 5 lakes with BS being 1 of the top 3. The lake is also starting to get a fair perch fishing,you crappie fisherman may want to taste a perch they just may make you a cold weather fisherman. If the State wants to do something to help the number of tourist to the lake help the local business owners to develope the area and not allow the boat ramps and camping areas to be flooded 3 months out of the year. BS is a good lake when you can fish it, when its not 50ft over or 10ft below. Hell throw afew of my illinois river flying asian carp in that sucker then you all can start "arial bow fishing" like we do here.

[Sam]

I'm not a purist, I'll gladly fish for any gamefish I can catch. There's no use limiting my chances by saying there's one or another species I won't fish for.

I doubt that increasing the number of stripers in B.S. would do me much good, because I'm generally fishing with tackle that's too light to hold one. It seems to me that you'd have to be fishing specifically for striped bass, with the right kind of gear, before you could catch some. At the low numbers they're in the lake now, that's not very practical - but if there get to be enough of 'em, I'll be glad to go after them.

You're right about yellow perch being good. I seldom catch them, but I cleaned a 12-incher out of B.S. last year, and they're as good as walleye filets. I wish the lake was full of them.

It seems to me that the number of garfish in Upper B.S. has been increasing for awhile now. I don't know what can be done about that and I don't know what causes it (low oxygen levels, maybe? pollution?). Whatever it is, it seems to me that the panfish are declining and the gar increasing. I wish we could be rid of the things somehow - I'm getting tired of pulling up to a crappie hole and seeing gar rolling all around it. Might as well move when that's going on.

[Wayne SW/MO]

They're already in the watershed in good numbers with some in TR and BS already. I would think that Norfork would be a good laboratory.

They didn't hurt the bass fishing in Texoma when they were introduced there and in fact some larger blacks joined them in going after shad.

It seems to me that the number of garfish in Upper B.S. has been increasing for awhile now. I don't know what can be done about that and I don't know what causes it (low oxygen levels, maybe? pollution?). Whatever it is, it seems to me that the panfish are declining and the gar increasing. I wish we could be rid of the things somehow - I'm getting tired of pulling up to a crappie hole and seeing gar rolling all around it. Might as well move when that's going on.

I'm no scientist Sam but they have to eat and shad are one of their favorites, so maybe stripers would starve some of them out, taking the fry with them and avoiding that conflict with other fry.

[minnowhooker]

I'm not a biologist but with the lake supposedly going to get clearer with the zebra mussel how will this effect the fish we have in there now?

I don't know enough about what stripers eat to have an informed opinion but I wish they would try and make the yellow perch population larger since the crappie fishing is hit and miss.

I also agree with the above when the lake goes up and down 20' with limited high water access this in the spring does little for Mo.

I also agree the gar have a adverse effect on the panfish population.

So I guess I'm for enhancing what we have now and let Ark. do their stocking.

[Sam]

Don't zebra mussels have to attach to rocks or something solid? Since so much of upper Bull Shoals has a mud bottom, maybe zebra mussels won't be able to colonize much of it? I don't know.

When seining minnows for walleyes out of the Finley, I've caught some gar minnows. They look exactly like a full-size gar, but 3" long and they're still soft. At that size their armor-scales haven't developed yet. Maybe stripers would feed on small garfish along with shad, and that would be a good thing.

[Champ188]

I'm no biologist either but I do know this to be a fact: Tournament weights are lighter and overall per-hour catch rates for LM, spotted and smallmouth bass are lower in lakes that have big populations of stripers. In my opinion, this is because shad are not as plentiful.

Again, it is a fact that north Arkansas' two primary striper lakes — Beaver and Norfork — consistently produce lighter winning tournament weights than Table Rock. Same goes for Bull Shoals, although not quite as noticeably, perhaps because the striper population isn't as dense as on Beaver and Norfork.