AGFC to stock stripers in TR?

[Quillback]

Interesting article today in the spots section of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.  According to the author there is a bit of a feud going on between the AGFC and the MDC.

MDC has been stocking stripers in Bull Shoals since 2012, and this is against the wishes of the AGFC.  The director of the AGFC, is now threatening to stock stripers in TR, which would is opposed by MDC.

A silly spat if you ask me, but yet there it is.

Interestingly, the reason both agencies give for not wanting stripers in Bull or TR (Mo not wanting them in TR, and AR not wanting them in Bull) is that they might disrupt the fishing for other species.  But yet, when you question AGFC about stocking stripers in Beaver, they always claim that stripers have no effect on other species.

Here's a link to the story:  http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2015/nov/08/bull-shoals-stripers-spark-feud-for-ark/?sports-outdoors

[denjac]

Looks like arkansas is taking the stance you pee in my pond, I will pee in yours! Hope everyone concerned backs down.

[dtrs5kprs]

Easy answer would be to stop stocking them in all lakes. If they can swim in from the ocean, and through the dams then good for them.

[bfishn]

7 hours ago, Quillback said:

...According to the author...

...an important consideration likely overlooked by the panic attack prone...

AG&FC has spent lots of time & money in the last 30 years removing displaced stripers from Table Rock to protect the Beaver tailwater trout fishery.  A 180 degree policy flip would take a pretty good stretch of the imagination. 

Then again, considering the takeover of the Know Nothing political class, maybe it's not such an imaginitive stretch after all... 

[Champ188]

3 hours ago, dtrs5kprs said:

Easy answer would be to stop stocking them in all lakes. If they can swim in from the ocean, and through the dams then good for them.

Amen, brother, preach it and pass the collection plate!

If God had wanted the things in fresh water, he'd have put them there.

 

[terryj1024]

If they want to stock something useful in Bull Shoals Lake they should stock red eared sunfish eat up all those zebra muscles

[terryj1024]

I know everyones concerned about the bass population the stripers will eat anything it can I personally am thinking about the crappy because the crappy numbers have fallen over the last so many years

[laker67]

And what happens when they come over TRD during  a flood gate event? We will be fly fishing for well fed, huge stripers, like at ten killer. Might be exciting until we run out of trout.

[mjk86]

Who cares.  If bull has stripers and good bass....but beaver has stripers and bad bass.  Can you draw too much of a conclusion?  I wouldn't worry too much.  Like the game of telephone when we were in grade school.  1 persons knee jerk reaction multiplied 50 times is meaningless.  Table rock will continue to be a good lake for black bass.

[Champ188]

1 hour ago, mjk86 said:

1 hour ago, mjk86 said:

Who cares.  If bull has stripers and good bass....but beaver has stripers and bad bass.  Can you draw too much of a conclusion?  I wouldn't worry too much.  Like the game of telephone when we were in grade school.  1 persons knee jerk reaction multiplied 50 times is meaningless.  Table rock will continue to be a good lake for black bass.

 

Bull Shoals has very very few stripers at this point because Arkansas stopped stocking them a long time ago and they died off. Fortunately, they aren't capable of reproducing in a freshwater reservoir environment. Only after quite a few years without a significant striper population did Bull's black bass fishery return to decent status.

I watched stripers take a huge bite (pun intended) out of the bass fisheries at Lake Ouachita near Hot Springs, AR, beginning in the 1970s. Same for nearby Lake Hamilton. I doubt any of us want that for Table Rock. I'm not claiming that stripers eat a significant amount of bass, but they will reduce the available forage to the point that bass numbers will decline. They are pelagic saltwater fish, meaning all they do is swim and eat.

As Quillback pointed out, the irony of it all is that state wildlife agencies have long defended the practice of stocking stripers into freshwater reservoirs, claiming they do no harm to other populations. And now, out of the blue, they are using them as weapons in a childish whizzing match. So the apparent truth is what many of us have contended all along ... they ARE harmful to other fish numbers.