Low water White bass.

[fishinwrench]

We're still at 655 lake level, and the actual run can't happen in my area until the lake gets above 657.... But I found a tiny creek inflow that they could access without risking getting picked off by a bird of prey. 

All males, and most are kinda small, but it felt good to get a few bites 👍  Got enough for dinner.  

 

[jdmidwest]

Good looking mess of fish.  Brighter than our Easter fish from Tennessee.

[fishinwrench]

4 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Good looking mess of fish.  Brighter than our Easter fish from Tennessee.

Genetically modified, thanks to our beloved MDC biologists.  🙄

[tjm]

3 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Genetically modified, thanks to our beloved MDC biologists.  🙄

It's not just adaptation to the modified water?

I have a question about these fish that I've never seen in the water, it appears that they spend most of their lives in the reservoirs, only entering the streams to spawn; so my questions are where did these fish live before the reservoirs were built? are they so weak that they can't work up a riffle or so big that they need a few feet of water to cover their gills?  were they introduced to the reservoirs long ago?

[fishinwrench]

8 hours ago, tjm said:

It's not just adaptation to the modified water?

I have a question about these fish that I've never seen in the water, it appears that they spend most of their lives in the reservoirs, only entering the streams to spawn; so my questions are where did these fish live before the reservoirs were built? are they so weak that they can't work up a riffle or so big that they need a few feet of water to cover their gills?  were they introduced to the reservoirs long ago?

A rather large number of White bass, Hybrid Stripers, and Mutts will run up the creeks immediately after a good rain, all year long. As a matter of fact I tend to catch better sized fish when they are NOT there for the purpose of spawning.  September to November is when the juvenile Stripers show up, and I have no idea why they are seemingly absent the rest of the year. 

They will shoot right through a short riffle even if they have to swim sideways to get through.....But they won't even attempt to shimmy through a long stretch of shallow water.   They seem to know how long they can expose themselves to hawks, eagles and ospreys, and get away with it. 

White bass are native to every river that feeds the Mississippi.  As far as I know they've been here since the beginning of time.    In my opinion they are the coolest fish we have, and that's why my hackles get raised when these idiot biologists go tinkering around with their DNA.   They don't seem to care that they could do irreparable AND PERMANENT damage to a fish species that doesn't need any human assistance whatsoever to sustain itself.  Actually does quite well in spite of humans (no length limits & overly generous bag limits). 

Stripers, and Hybrid Stripers are fun as hell to catch, and they are delicious table fare......but the inbred mutts of the ones that breed with native White bass are undeniably polluting the gene pool......and we don't know yet whether or not that's a desirable thing to initiate. 

Let's not pretend that biologists have never made an irreversible mistake before !   Hell, everything they've touched has had unforseen consequences.

[jdmidwest]

The hybrids and stripers seem to like impounded waters better.  True whites seem to run in faster waters.

The ones in the St. Francis near home should not have mixed with any striped bass.  I don't think anyone ever tried to introduce them.  Closest stripers I  have here are in Perry County MDC lake near Perryville.

They seem to school in the Wappappello Lake, but I have caught them floating in river far above all year long.

The ones in TN may actually be yellow bass, they all have the broken lines.  I think pure whites are the only ones with solid lines.

[Flysmallie]

10 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

They seem to know how long they can expose themselves to hawks, eagles and ospreys, and get away with it. 

 

The ones around here seem to make moves like that in the dark. I've seen them at night with 2 or 3 inches of their back out of the water. 

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, Flysmallie said:

The ones around here seem to make moves like that in the dark. I've seen them at night with 2 or 3 inches of their back out of the water. 

If they do that around here then they apparently go back down before daylight, because you'll never find any above a long stretch of extremely shallow water.  

What happens here is that when the lake is at normal elevations, and then the creeks get up and muddy, the gravel & sediment settles out over the flats.......So then when they pull the lake down low, like it is now, there is no more than an ankle deep trickle that might be 150 yards wide and 100-300 yards long that separates the lake from the creeks.  You can't even float a kayak across it.   

I've seen gar try to snake their way across that, but nothing else.

Little short stretches of shallow water 25-30 yards long, with some flow moving across it......Sure, they'll shoot right across that. 👍 

Once the lake level gets above 657.0 then it's like OPENING THE GATES. 

[tjm]

USGS shows that historically WB ranged up the major tributaries of the Mississippi river a couple hundred miles give or take and yellow bass did too but not as far maybe fifty miles or so. As of 1900 they show no WB in most of  the Ozark Plateau area, although they do show that they should be where I've never seen them. They were apparently introduced to the White River reservoirs.

It's commonly said that they come up rivers/creeks from the reservoirs but that they can't pass low head dams such as on Shoal Creek  or Elk River unless in flood. So although they may have been in every creek at some point of time it seems that they have never lived there. also explains why I've never seen one. FWS says "White bass are a member of the temperate bass family and are a migratory pelagic (open-water) fish";  a strange description given that 'pelagic' usually refers to the oceans, but I take it they mean "far from the banks". The migratory part explains why they may ascend a stream but never remain there.

You folks that fish in the Miss. R. coridor should have both WB and YB, and the YB can be distinguished by the dorsal fins being joined.

[fishinwrench]

7 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

The ones in TN may actually be yellow bass, they all have the broken lines.  I think pure whites are the only ones with solid lines.

When you are catching mutts you'll notice 3 things.....

#1- The line pattern is dark and distinct, but different on every single fish you catch, similar to hybrids.  And tooth patches are all over the place.....some have a single patch, some have 2-3 patches, and some don't have any tooth patches at all. 

#2- They often have weird spasms when you grab them, they actually vibrate like they are having a heart attack.

#3- When you release them they don't recover and swim away very quickly.....and often go belly up within sight of where you released them.  Might as well throw them on ice if you're keeping a mess because they'll die in a livewell immediately.   

#3 is the reason that bothers me the most, because pure White Bass are pretty hearty and aren't so easily killed.   Mutts seem to die easier than a dang shad !