Eleven Point Anglers Discuss Fish And Wildlife!

[jdmidwest]

Interesting article. MDC discusses fishing, hogs, bears, and elk on the 11PT. They mention tagging fish strains but don't really go into detail if they released them into the river.

http://www.areawidenews.com/story/1907415.html

[MaxDrown]

How to you join that association? I see it mentioned, but without detail, on the bottom of that article.

[Brian Sloss]

Max

It is a local fishing club that meets twice a year. If you want to join, I'll hook you up when you are down for fly flingers.

[MaxDrown]

Ok. I would like to join. I'll see you next week.

[jdmidwest]

Brian, did they go into any details on the new strains of trout?

That one news article reveals more about the MDC and what they are doing specifically than anything that is reported on their website. It mentions trying new strains of trout. It details the wild hog control. It outlines the numbers of bears in the Ozarks. It mentions that they are stocking walleye in 11PT and the future of that. And of course there are the elk, which you can find all kinds of articles on.

That fishing club may be something I am interested in too. Surely I could make 2 meetings a year.

[Brian Sloss]

Basically the MDC biologist comes over and they have a fish fry and the MDC gives a river update and answers questions. I did not make the last meeting, but the four strains (trophy area) are Eagle Lake (TN), North Fork of the White/hatchery hybrid, and i think the other 2 are from Idaho. The EL strain has a pelvic fin clip and the other 3 have a little metal under the skin in different areas. Next year they will be using the different colored dots they talked about in the article. After a few years of data they will determine which strain does best and start using them to stock the blue ribbon area. My bet is on the NFOW hybrid. Last year they used 2/3 straight hatchery and 1/3 NFOW hybrid and last spring something like 2/3 of the fish recaptured were NFOW hybrids. Not sure of the exact numbers. They have worked on the walleye for a while now and have found that when they stock them, they tend to run downstream to Ar.

[jdmidwest]

They have worked on the walleye for a while now and have found that when they stock them, they tend to run downstream to Ar.

I think that is happening in all of our rivers. It has been a while since I have caught an accidental walleye in MO, but I usually pick up a few while fishing in Ark. The walleye decline has stumped the biologists for a while in that area.