Taxidermist

[Skeeter ZX190]

Natures Image Taxidermy on Kearney Street in Springfield. I believe it is owned by Kevin Bowlin. He did a smallmouth for me in 2002. Very good looking mount.

[Champ188]

Absolutely! Though I'll miss the line bouncing strikes after not getting a bite for two hours. It's exciting, then you realize its a drum. I actually deduct a fish for every drum I catch.

Those things will knock the urine out of jerk bait at Grand, especially in February-March. Donna and I have had days when we caught 20 or more. Of course, the bass are in the same areas and usually biting, too, on the days the drum are biting.

[5bites]

Wow a 20 drum day! That would put me in the negative on most days.

I assume you just have to replace your carpet after a day like this?

[Bill Babler]

Bird Watcher please correct me If I'm wrong, but I can find only 3 landlocked populations of freshwater stripers that spawn in the world. 1st. is the Coosa River in Alabama and Georgia, second is Lake Mead on the Arizona Border and the last is Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma Texas border. They were however stocked in all three of these locations.

They are andromidus in the fact that they prefer to live in salt and spawn in fresh water. They are an Atlantic sea fish and inhabit the Atlantic shoreline to the greatest extent.

When inhabiting fresh water their preferred forages is gizzard and treadfin shad. They will however forage on any prey species they can catch. At times they feed almost exclusive on fresh water crayfish and muscles. This is research from Alabama.

They are not naturally occurring in fresh water impoundments.

[abkeenan]

Well, there's always that. When the researched and published facts don't suit your personal interest, go with your subjective opinion! My wife does it all the time!

My wife is right most of the time 100% of the time.

[Chris Musick]

Bird Watcher please correct me If I'm wrong, but I can find only 3 landlocked populations of freshwater stripers that spawn in the world. 1st. is the Coosa River in Alabama and Georgia, second is Lake Mead on the Arizona Border and the last is Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma Texas border. They were however stocked in all three of these locations.

They are andromidus in the fact that they prefer to live in salt and spawn in fresh water. They are an Atlantic sea fish and inhabit the Atlantic shoreline to the greatest extent.

When inhabiting fresh water their preferred forages is gizzard and treadfin shad. They will however forage on any prey species they can catch. At times they feed almost exclusive on fresh water crayfish and muscles. This is research from Alabama.

They are not naturally occurring in fresh water impoundments.

As Bill drops the Mic and walks away. Lol

Nicely done.

[Bill Babler]

Those things will knock the urine out of jerk bait at Grand, especially in February-March. Donna and I have had days when we caught 20 or more. Of course, the bass are in the same areas and usually biting, too, on the days the drum are biting.

Tim Sainato and I were fishing a derby on lake O a few years back. We were pitching a little hand made brown purple jig with a chompers trailer in pbj. Little bitty bug bait just 5/16th. We caught a pretty good limit pretty quick and thought we were all that and had a two day pattern. We were in first after the 1st. day.

Second day started the same. Nice 5 pounds right off the bat and then we spent the entire rest of the day catching drum. Thump after thump and line run after line run. I believe we still came in 3rd. in a Heartland, but we caught at least 30 drum. I will challenge anyone to be able to tell the difference when they pound a jig.

[Bird Watcher]

As Bill drops the Mic and walks away. Lol

Nicely done.

Not so fast sport.

Bird Watcher please correct me If I'm wrong, but I can find only 3 landlocked populations of freshwater stripers that spawn in the world. 1st. is the Coosa River in Alabama and Georgia, second is Lake Mead on the Arizona Border and the last is Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma Texas border. They were however stocked in all three of these locations.

They are andromidus in the fact that they prefer to live in salt and spawn in fresh water. They are an Atlantic sea fish and inhabit the Atlantic shoreline to the greatest extent.

When inhabiting fresh water their preferred forages is gizzard and treadfin shad. They will however forage on any prey species they can catch. At times they feed almost exclusive on fresh water crayfish and muscles. This is research from Alabama.

They are not naturally occurring in fresh water impoundments.

Here you go Bill:

In South Carolina, the striped bass tend to spend the greater part of its life in freshwater streams. Once it was believed that the Santee-Cooper population of Striped Bass had become landlocked because of the construction of two dams that impounded Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion. More recently, fish biologists have come to believe that the Striped Bass in South Carolina were "functionally" landlocked or "riverene" long before the dams were built. This means that they have become residents of the river naturally. This is supported by the current research. Therefore, the Santee-Cooper Striped Bass population is entirely a freshwater population

Arkansas River,

Coosa River

Lake Mead

South Carolina

texoma

Those are the ones I'm aware of. Feathers and Fins provided a few more I wasn't aware of the other day in the Beaver forum.

Takes a considerable CFS, moderate salinity and 30+\- miles of unobstructed flow. The eggs have to stay suspended for a few days to hatch.

[Quillback]

But the stripers in this neck of the woods are introduced right? They can reproduce in some of the local rivers, but their forefathers were stocked.

Of course, all of our impoundments are man-made also and contain species that aren't native besides the stripers.

I'm trying to think of a lake that has stripers and is considered to be a good LMB lake also. Might help the stripers are good argument to point out some lakes that have stripers and thriving black bass populations.

Grand is an interesting one to think about, it does not have stripers, but has a kazillion white bass and some hybrids, which consume shad, but the black bass do quite well in that lake. But then again, Grand is much more fertile, than say, Beaver, so that's another thing to consider.

[Bird Watcher]

But the stripers in this neck of the woods are introduced right? They can reproduce in some of the local rivers, but their forefathers were stocked.

Of course, all of our impoundments are man-made also and contain species that aren't native besides the stripers.

I'm trying to think of a lake that has stripers and is considered to be a good LMB lake also. Might help the stripers are good argument to point out some lakes that have stripers and thriving black bass populations.

Grand is an interesting one to think about, it does not have stripers, but has a kazillion white bass and some hybrids, which consume shad, but the black bass do quite well in that lake. But then again, Grand is much more fertile, than say, Beaver, so that's another thing to consider.

Quill, I don't really follow the quality of Black Bass fishing, but I guarantee you if you take the BASS top 100 lakes and do a google search you'll find more than one of them that has a good population of stripers. I know Texoma was said to have rebounded as of late in reagard to the quality of Black Bass fishing but I don't know what that equates to. I'm sure a search of winning tournament weights this spring would give an indication. That lake has more Stripers in it than any of them around here. Chickamauga last weekend one of the Elites had a picture of a 20# class Striper that he caught during that tourney. Judging by all the 25# sacks, I'd say that lake's LM are in good shape.

Other than that, the information is out there if someone wants to learn about it. There's a lot of guys, as evidenced by this thread and many others on this site previously, that will refuse to accept it. That's fine. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. My only point to those that voice their opposition, don't present you opinion as fact. The facts are there in black and white via studies done by fisheries professionals and none of them have proven that there is any negative impact on LM fisheries by the introduction of stripers-That is a sentitmental feeling by old school black bass fisherman.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the biggest impact on LM populations is a healthy population of walleye. I may be wrong about that because I haven't spent much time reading about it.