Stripers - Bull Shoals Fishery Meeting

[BrianS]

Striper lakes also get the bass to be even more open water oriented than they already are. On Norfork for instance, you will see bass swimming under stripers. I do not want more stripers in Bull Shoals. It will hurt the bass fishing, not by bass being eaten but by bass roaming open water more and more than they already do. Champ188 is correct also in that striper lakes have a smaller weigh in rate than non striper lakes. Want stripers? Go to Norfork or Beaver.

[rangerman]

You want bass go to Table Rock or Lake of the Ozarks.....Its not always about what the bass guys want. Thats what is bad about the area down there. Southern Missouri could and does in some lakes have PRIME fishing for numerous different species but Dayhem, don't upset the bass guys. So sad. So sad.

Thats the difference between other species anglers and BASS anglers. SOME and mean SOME Bass anglers are a WHOLE lot more egotistic (not in an insulting way), when it comes to the species. A majority of walleye guys will go out and catch good fish and release a few and keep a limit for eating. Bass guys go out and admire their catch and release it with a majority looking down on the guys that actually keep a limit of kentuckies which I openly admit I do for eating.

Needs to stop or at least ease up some......

[Jake Roberts]

Personally, I would love to see Stripers stocked in Bull Shoals. They are an amazing gamefish, and obviously do well in that impoundment. My advice, let the fish and game guys do their job. If they feel a small stocking of stripers is going to have minimal effect on other game fish, then let's do it. If the effect is more than advertised, then simply stop. Stripers will not be able to spawn effectively, and their numbers will quickly decrease once stocking subsides.

[Martin]

Seems to me that there are plenty of big stripers caught at Bull Shoals now, without Missouri getting into the act. I'd rather spend the money on a couple of commercial fishing companies to come in and remove the 5 kazillion gar that seem to be taking over BS upper AND lower lake. They set nets and, under supervision, are required to release evry fish except the fish named in their contract....

TOO MANY GAR !!

[Sam]

Striper lakes also get the bass to be even more open water oriented than they already are. On Norfork for instance, you will see bass swimming under stripers.

You'd have to convince me stripers would make any difference about that. Like everybody, I've caught some nice bass and catfish from under surfacing white bass on Bull Shoals. A school of white bass tears up the shad, and other species come to get into the feeding frenzy and help pick up the wounded and the pieces.

There are millions of white bass already feeding on shad in B.S. Why would you think there are some bass that don't follow white bass schools around but would follow stripers?

[Ham]

I love Bull Shoals just the way it is.

I'd be fine with limited annual stocking of say 2500 fish a year. You'd maintain the trophy striper fishery w/o rolling the dice on the rest of the fish.

Norfork fishes differently from BSL, but I'm not sure what part (if any) of those differences the Stripers cause. I think the comparative lack of cover in Norfork compared to BSL would be the biggest difference.

[Phil Lilley]

I'm going to the meeting tonight and then driving to below Powersite and do some fishing.

I lean to the side to not stock stripers. The lake is a good fishing lake now. Good crappie and whites are making a big comeback. Good bass and good walleye. Some stripers but not enough for anyone to make a special trip to fish for them. You have Norfork and Beaver is you want to go for stripers- but these lakes are not in Missouri.

Now, if MDC is going to put stripers in the lake, why not stock hybrids too? If you're going to do it, go for it all! Not saying I'm for it BUT if you're going to add the big, aggressive stripers, I would vote for adding hybrids too. I'm sure MDC knows if the lake can sustain additional fish populations, numbers. I'd be concerned they would overpopulate the lake and we'd lose some of what we have now to big fish populations.

[Sam]

I'd be concerned they would overpopulate the lake and we'd lose some of what we have now to big fish populations.

That's my concern too. I think any body of water always supports all the life it can. That is, a cubic acre of upper Bull Shoals water is capable of supporting a certain number of pounds of living things - whether they're gamefish, trash fish, mud turtles, shad, crayfish, whatever.

How much life a lake can support depends on a lot of factors including temperature, oxygen levels, and fertility. Bull Shoals and our other Ozarks lakes are low in fertility and they have a cold season, and that's why they're nowhere near as productive, per acre, as lakes on better soil and in warmer climates. Still, they always support all the life they're capable of supporting because if one species declines another one expands to take its place.

If stripers are introduced, something else will have to decline in the same amount to stay within the life-supporting capacity of the lake. I wish stripers could replace the garfish with all other species being left alone, but it won't work that way.

[Bill B.]

There's a chicken-and-egg question here. States usually stock stripers in lakes where there is an overabundance of big shad. In those lakes, the regular game fish such as largemouths are not doing a good job of holding down the shad population.

Except during their earliest years, Beaver and Norfork have never been known for producing numbers of bass, I don't think.

[rangerman]

Hybrids are a great fish as well, but with them both being such aggressive feeders, I couldn't see stocking both. Guess we'll see what happens? Phil could you give us a little update after the meeting?