Striped Bass

[Mike Worley]

I think the slot limit thing has some merit. Gerry's Ferry has had a slot limit for some time now. It would have to be enactted in both Missouri & Arkansas which might be a problem. The slot limit on Gerry's Ferry is "Walleye from 20 inches to 28 inches long must be released immediately to the water. Walleye daily limit is six, only one of which may exceed 28 inches". This would take most of the pressure off the spawnning size females and put more males in the livewell. I think that due to the increased walleye fishing pressure and fairly high success rate of those fishermen targeting walleyes this may be something to consider. As for seeing enforcement on the lake I have been checked a few times in the past year. The officers were always carefull to check for safety equipment & fish in the livewell. But it seems that you really only see them on Holiday weekends and when spearfishing season opens in Arkansas.

[Feathers and Fins]

Enforcement is always an issue. I have many friends with both State and Federal agencies and all will say the same thing. " How many cops is there per town? Yet how many Wardens are there per state" Makes alot of since when you figure out how many square miles a Warden must cover and we will never have enough wardens to protect the resource as it should be. It is really up to Us the Sportsmen to report violation with as much detailed information and photos if possible as possible to them so they can nail these peoples balls to the wall.

But alas I have seen the penalties for violations and they really are not stiff enough to stop people from doing it IMO. Tougher Penalty and more enforcement is what is needed along with our help.

[taxidermist]

Many years ago like int he mid 1970's there were several stockings of Striped bass in Bull Shoals lake.

Yes there were a lot of large largemouth bass in the lake too. But tournements have destroied those chances of for the sunfish we call bass.

Someone at BPS released yellow perch, the very same DNA as yellow perch I buy from a grower in Indiana. so no big deal they are not hurting anything.

AGFC relases about 20,000 rainbow trout per year in BUll Shoals, they are currently in the Pot SHoals net pens.

There are still some bigbass in BS,

Do stripers hurt the bass? I dont think so I canpost a recent pic from a guide on Nrofork and they caugght some nice bassin the last few days on Norfork.

The deep water ofBS isnot conducive for growing large crappie, Most of the fish cover is gone, remember how old BS is?

Mo record striped bass 64 lbs from BS near Forsyth. Lots og huge striped bass by chance.

No look at the area those small towns around BS, these towns have died, is it the economy? No they were dying longbefore this depression we are in.

I was on the BSlake Wedand fished about 3 hours, caught some nice smallmouth bass all in the 3-4lbs range. these came off bluffs in the mainlake and you would think that stripers would be ther eating them. LOL NOT! I MARKED A LOT OF SHAD A LOT OF SHAD!

Now one body of water canonly support a certain amount of biomass. Shad the millions of shad eat a lot of the same stuff baby bass eat. Bull Shoals should be full of baby bass after the 2008 flood and last years flood. I saw thousandsand thousands of fry those years.

Remove the shad increse the biomass of productive fishable species.

[Feathers and Fins]

Bry, I have fished Dale Hollow and to be honest it looks so much like Beaver ,TR and BS that I swore they just transplanted it to Tenn to give them a taste of the Ozarks. I caught my first Musky on it and the Walls are some of the best ive eaten. Clarity ( fished it in June both times i went ) was very nice. I was impressed with the amount of shad balls i kept seeing on the graph.

Now i will point out a differance I saw that has been talked about here already. Both times i went Mr Green Jeans checked us. I had the chance to speak with him on one occasion a bit and found out he was not the only one on the lake and later that day we met his counterpart. They seem to have more enforcement then we do and that might well be the key to that lakes fish producing.

Dindt get the stripers i was after but ill take a musky any day as a conculation prize.

[Justin Spencer]

Trust your biologists, they know what they are doing, the better they do with their fisheries the more money comes to their region and the better they look in the eyes of the department.

Stripers are primarily open water feeders as most of us know feeding on shad. They sometimes follow bait into the shallows as they are blown in by wind and waves, but they aren't up there to feed on bass. The biologists are just trying to get as much recreational biomass out of a resource as possible and if we can turn shad biomass into striper flesh I say yippee!

[taxidermist]

Bry what political adds on here? You have to show me where I posted political crap.

Do you really think catching a bass from the bed, running 35 miles down lake and then it being released elsewhere is not hurting the bass population. Most bass is left alone seldom go more than one mile from where it was hatched.

How many bass have you seen in mid lake? Howmany bass have you caught in mid lake?

Bull Shoals in not Dale Hollow, may look a lot a like but they are not the same.

There are 12-14 lb walleye in Bull Shoals, I have seen them. So why the ????

Now lets look at the flooding, What was Bull Shoals built for? to control flooding!!! Seems over the years many people have forgotten that andmany have fudged the line onto COE owned lands.

You want to compare Bull Shoals to other lakes out of the highland res region of the Ozarks, sorry that bird does not fly.

[taxidermist]

I attached this pic,it is from last week on Norfork, where there are 20 times the stripers stocked than ever would be on Bull Shoals.

Recently they also caught a 12 lb waleye from Norfork. So apples to apples. looks like Norfork does fine with stripers.

[roy_eros]

Caught this guy on Norfork today. Was going to put it here to see if anyone could tell me if it was a striper or hybrid? I wasnt sure because the lines were broken a little but not much... fish was 33 inches long, didn't get a weight..

[Feathers and Fins]

Striper.

[Feathers and Fins]

Here is an ID chart