Stripers - Bull Shoals Fishery Meeting

[taxidermist]

CHamp look at he Norfork lake and tell us that! Lots of stpriers stocked there and there are lots of huge fish bass wise caught. See the pics, how many years ago was that one taken? I cant remember but is old I live on Rogers Ave in Harrison and I moved from there in 1988. Your remark about taxidermist wanting stripers is a slure that holds not fact. I am a fisherman first and for most and they problem with large tournaments is they kill bass. They pull hundreds of spawning females from the nest and guarding males and the tiny sunfish run in and eat the bass fry!

Oh crap imagine a taxidermist who hates bass tournaments!!!!

The highland res. are not good for panfish production. I have never seen anyone catcha real and true one lb bluegill from any of them!

[Sam]

The highland res. are not good for panfish production. I have never seen anyone catcha real and true one lb bluegill from any of them!

I haven't either, taxidermist. My guess is that bluegills run small in these lakes because they feed primarily on worms and insects. Lakes built on poor soil and without water weeds don't provide the bugs to grow many 1 lb. bluegills.

I disagree that our lakes aren't good for "panfish" production, though. Crappie feed mostly on minnows, and my best-ever crappie out of Bull Shoals is (so far) 18 3/4". I think a lake that produces crappie of that size compares real, real well with any crappie water, anywhere.

[taxidermist]

Many years back some people Iknow put a lot of brush piles in BUll and they crappie did well then. But once you get down below mincy the lake gets deeper and while there are a few good crappie there are not large numbers of large crappie.

Take Nimord lake lots of shallow water and lots of nice crappie. Same goes for the shallow lakes of central Arkansas.

But in general Bull shoals does not produce numbers of large crappie. I have fished Bull from The MO line at Bear Creek to to 125 Hwy most of my life and crappie just dont happen in large size or large numbers often.

I did a dive with some buddies a few years back three days after a large bass tourny and we picked up alot of nice bass that had dies. over a two year period we had 33 bass between 5-8 lbs that had died shortly after a series of tourneys.. Coincidence? maybe maybe not.

I do know there use to be a lot of large bass in Bull shoalsand it had the huge stripers pictured and a lot more back in the 1980s.

Around Forsyth back then there were a number of large stripers caught!!! Walleye numbers may be up right now but size is down.

And nothing caught under the lights on Longbottom in years!

[Sam]

I have fished Bull from The MO line at Bear Creek to to 125 Hwy most of my life and crappie just dont happen in large size or large numbers often.

As you say, it's deep water down that way. My trips below Bear Creek are always for bass, white bass, or walleyes - that's not crappie country for me.

But I'm nearly always somewhere between Bear Creek and Beaver, and I've took a lot of crappie limits out of there over the years. Not saying that I can always catch them or that many of them are real big - but there's a fair chance of a limit of keepers from that area of the lake.

[BrianS]

Many years back some people Iknow put a lot of brush piles in BUll and they crappie did well then. But once you get down below mincy the lake gets deeper and while there are a few good crappie there are not large numbers of large crappie.

They are there, believe me.

[Ham]

Ditto what Brian said.

[taxidermist]

Hundreds of under 10 inch crappie, still not prime striper food! No if it was musky or pike then I could agree with crappie being the food.

[BrianS]

Crappie are not prime striper food even the smallest of the small, not sure how this is coming up as part of the conversation. But I'm telling you, there are alot of over 10" crappie in that lake. I have an uncle that can prove it to you. He could go to your toilet bowl and catch a crappie the size of a pie pan. I dont know how he does it as I'm not a crappie fisherman but I promise you he does.

[Sam]

taxidermist - I think there are a lot more large crappie near deep water in B.S. than you believe. In my experience, they're not so much associated with brushpiles. Post-spawn and through the summer, they're more likely to be suspended in 15-25 feet of water along bluff banks, sometimes near flooded trees, sometimes not.

That steep bank across from Bear Creek with about a half mile of stick-ups is a prime example - it's 60 feet deep just a long cast from the bank. We don't fish that by sitting in one spot drowning minnows. We go parallel to the bank in 15-25 feet of water and slow-troll it with swimming minnows on 1/8 oz. jigheads. We've caught slab crappie from one end to the other of that - and that's just one spot. We seldom catch one that's less than 10", but a lot are 11"-13" with bigger ones once in awhile.

I don't think stripers would eat crappie of that size, but I often see crappie just 2"-3" long hanging around the tops of stick-ups in deep water. Baby crappie are slow, fat little guys - and they look like prime striper food to me. That's why I'm a little concerned about what an increased number of stripers in Bull Shoals might do to our crappie fishing.

[Wayne SW/MO]

If you catch a lot of crappie in open water, schooled in the middle of nowhere, you might have something to worry about. The one thing and only thing that makes stocking feasible in freshwater is gizzard shad. They wander around in open water to big to be a food source for most native fish.

Crappie and stripers simply don't inhabit the same areas.