No More Hybrid Stocking On Beaver.

[J-Doc]

2 hours ago, Notropis said:

Very interesting discussion!        

And a very informed response too!  As always!

[Stump bumper]

10 minutes ago, J-Doc said:

And a very informed response too!  As always!

And you thought this was going to be a green fish vs stripper fight......

[Ham]

On Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 5:14 PM, TrophyFishR said:

The preferred local bait for catching white bass during their annual spring run? live crawdads 

That is certainly the preferred bait in Louisiana and Texas.

[Stump bumper]

Just a thought but could it be that the crawfish are not being eaten but becoming mud bugs in the high water and not accessible to the walleye and not being eaten by the hybrids? I know the hybrids will go into the grass to get them, but because they are better at getting mudbugs in high water doesn't translate to they are getting at the forage that walleye would.

Just a thought since I have no idea how to estimate the crawfish population, I do know the walleye stay deep in the rocks all summer and the heat doesn't bother those crawfish, I have seen those big lobsters fishing from shore at night and I see their homes built away from shore when the water retreats.

I guess by having more crawfish in the brush will translate to more in the rocks when and if the water retreats, but will the amount the hybrids get to in the mean time have a measurable affect? How do you measure the population and affects on a population of a forage that can live in an inch of water or 100 feet?

I am confused. 

 

[J-Doc]

44 minutes ago, Stump bumper said:

And you thought this was going to be a green fish vs stripper fight......

Hush Cleatus.....just hush up!

 

[Notropis]

No, you're not confused Stump bumper, most of your points seem valid to me.  Getting reliable crayfish population estimates would be difficult because of the physical properties of the lake.  I suppose you could sample the lake with crayfish traps using randomly picked locations but it would take a huge and expensive effort over several years to get baseline information that would be required to detect changes in the population. If you could detect changes, it would be even more difficult to attribute it to any one species of fish in the lake since several of them forage on crayfish routinely. The effects of water level fluctuations on the crayfish population would also complicate the evaluation. 

It sounds like, from Bill's post, that crayfish were one of several points Jon was using to explain the decision to suspend hybrid stockings.  I think the main point is their ability to forage in shallow areas at a time of the year (warmer water temps) when other large, open water species (stripers and walleye) can't.

As I mentioned in my first post, I think a lot of this is an attempt by the Fisheries Biologists and staff, to promote better methods of justifying and evaluating fish stockings, not just doing it because "it's a routine stocking".    

 Cheers! 

I  

[hoglaw]

On 2/10/2016 at 5:16 PM, uofastudent said:

Ordered 60 today for that purpose to last me the spring

Interesting thread. 

 

This post takes me back though. My old roommate and I used to scoop the mud out of the ditch on the south side of the intramural fields. It would be loaded with inch long crawfish. 60 might get you through half of a good trip. Get a five gallon bucket, a shovel, or maybe a sturdy net and find a ditch with a bunch of those small ones in it. We weren't seeing them. We were scooping mud into the bucket and sort of panning them out of the mud if that makes sense. Once you get 100 or so, cover them with some mud andleaves and head to goshen. An old guy named vern taught us to do that. I always wonder what happened to him. 

[Stump bumper]

I you take a garden rake and place wire mesh along the width of the rake you can just rake them out of the muddy ditches. In my younger days that is how I got bait for drop lines on the St Francis River. We always had enough to boil some also.

A funny thing about fishing with mudbugs if you are trout fishing even the largest trout will swim right by a live crawfish but cut off the heads and use the tail and they go crazy for them. I have never figured that out, what in nature is eating crawfish heads and leaving the tails for trout? 

Another mystery is if walleye like crawfish so much, why do I not catch more on jigs? I catch them on drop shots and spoons but never on a jig. Maybe my jigs don't look as much like a crawfish as I thought? The catfish and drum seem to like them.......I could have one more than one bass tournament at night if they would have let me weigh in a flathead....one flathead and two drum equal about 30lbs do that with 3 green fish.

[Ham]

2 hours ago, Stump bumper said:

Another mystery is if walleye like crawfish so much, why do I not catch more on jigs?

The last three years, most of the walleye I catch come of jigs.  FB head jigs with Hula grubs, tube jigs, and Ned rigs. Money. I caught 7 one day on BSL. Every one of them over 17 inches and every one of them less than 18 inches.

[dtrs5kprs]

Eyes love that stupid little worm. I've caught a bunch on skirted jigs over the years too. 

Could be that the jigs are giving a perch profile too.

Whites will definitely eat craws. Catch them on the Ned, shakey heads, etc. Usually up on gravel flats with the brown fish.