Unspawned stripers

[Quillback]

Talked to my buddy Ken today, he kept some of the stripers we caught yesterday and cleaned them.  What was interesting is that he said they appeared to have not spawned, females had egg sacks and the males had sperm sacks.  I thought that was interesting that these fish would still not have spawned by now and that they are still down by the dam.  

[bfishn]

Like a lot of fish, if they don't get the right conditions (and stripers never do on Beaver) they never release their eggs. Not too uncommon for walleye either.

[bfishn]

... didn't have time to address the 'still down by the dam' thing...

The ones that run the rivers already did that and are falling back, some likely at the dam already, with the flows we've had. The ones that run the big, lower-end arms (like Indian) never really left. 😉

[Bill Babler]

The White bass on TR are notorious for not spawning.  In my uneducated opinion it seems a cool Spring and water levels going up and down hold a certain percentage of them off.  From now thru July if you catch them schooling they are simply full of eggs and shad that they spew all over when caught and handled.

Fun but a huge mess.  I had a client a few years ago that wanted to keep some and they totally wasted my livewell, with blood, eggs and excrement.  When I filleted them they were a total mess of red and soft white meat.  This was a 4th.of July weekend.

Mike said when he fried them his family left the cabin and did not come back till it was totally aired out.

They are a total blast to catch on topwater but I try and keep them outside the boat when I release them.

[Quillback]

22 minutes ago, Bill Babler said:

The White bass on TR are notorious for not spawning.  In my uneducated opinion it seems a cool Spring and water levels going up and down hold a certain percentage of them off.  From now thru July if you catch them schooling they are simply full of eggs and shad that they spew all over when caught and handled.

Fun but a huge mess.  I had a client a few years ago that wanted to keep some and they totally wasted my livewell, with blood, eggs and excrement.  When I filleted them they were a total mess of red and soft white meat.  This was a 4th.of July weekend.

Mike said when he fried them his family left the cabin and did not come back till it was totally aired out.

They are a total blast to catch on topwater but I try and keep them outside the boat when I release them.

Not to mention they'll stick you and they'll bounce around in the boat waving those treble hooks.  When they are on top, I 'll catch a few as it is fun, but after about 6 of them I'm ready to go back to trying to catch black bass.  

[Bill Babler]

I agree totally Jeff.  On the Rock if you put them in the livewell this time of the year they have a very, very oily film they also release.  I am presuming it is the oil from the shad they excrete into the livewell.  It takes a hard scrubbing and some snow bol to get it out of the well.

They are extremely dangerous on treble hooks as they continue to wiggle and as you said they are very spikey.  If you can catch them on a swimbait its a much better deal.  Not as exciting as seeing them bust that topwater, but they pull just as hard and are much safer to handle.

Really fun fish to catch but keep on the outside of the boat, especially in late Spring and Summer.