on fishing for spawning bass

[Jim]

In a different long term set of studies on the effect of fishing for largemouth bass during the spawn had some interesting results.

In nature, the biggest and most aggressive male bass have the most successful nest and produce the most babies to the next generation. It makes sense as they can protect the babies better than small, timid bass.

Well, large and aggressive bass are the most easily caught by anglers and thus are not passing on that trait to the next generation. Skipping all the genetic reasons, a set of fishing tests were run on lakes closed to fishing, lakes with closed seasons during the spawn, and open fishing lakes.

In the closed fishing lakes, bass were caught easily off the nest within 15 casts and usually on the first cast. In the closed during the spawn lakes it was a moderate amount of the bass caught and in the open lakes only about 10% of the bass were caught within 15 casts.

It seems that overtime, fisherman have selected for non-aggressive bass by catching the more aggressive ones and now most bass will not easily take a lure when guarding there nest.

I know this fits with a bunch of spawning bass on Old Hickory as I can sit on a nest for hours and never get the bass to bite. Up in Canada, when the bass are on the bed it can be super easy to catch them ever when not fishing for them.

Just some more to think about,
Jim

PS - I also saw really cool presentations on TN muskies, fish distributions in the Caney Fork river, fish movement around the Cumberland City steam plant, brook trout in the Smokies, and many others.

[tkwalker]

Great Info .... <'TK><

[browntrout]

Jim,
I would be interested on any info that you picked up on the Caney Fork River if you dont mind sharing. Thanks for sharing the other info. That is some interesting stuff for sure.
Thanks,
Roy

[Alphahawk]

Good stuff!


Regards

[bd-]

I've always wondered about the impact of tournament fishing during the spawn on bass populations. It does result in a lot of bass getting pulled off the beds.

bd

[Jim]

Originally Posted by bd-

I've always wondered about the impact of tournament fishing during the spawn on bass populations. It does result in a lot of bass getting pulled off the beds.

bd

In a different study looking a nest abandonment by largemouth bass after catch and release show that bass will abandon a nest if nest predators (usually sunfish) have eaten a good portion of the eggs before the bass gets back to the nest. Although the male bass head back to the nest, many times they abandon it for good within 24 hours. If the bass gets back quickly and the nest is still full of eggs they rarely abandon it, even after catch and release.

Moral of the story - release bass quickly if you are bed fishing.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by browntrout

Jim,
I would be interested on any info that you picked up on the Caney Fork River if you dont mind sharing. Thanks for sharing the other info. That is some interesting stuff for sure.
Thanks,
Roy

The Caney Fork study was not about trout specifically. It was about the whole fish community and they collected 67 different species of fish using electroshocking. They had 5 sites from near the dam to down near Carthage. The study was looking at the gradient in environmental conditions (Temperature and Dissolved oxygen) and its relationship to the observed fish community. They observed a shift in species as you moved away from the dam because flow conditions improved, the temperature increased and dissolved oxygen was more stable. A more natural fish assemblage was observed at downstream sites.

As with most presentations, you can't see the details of the fish collections and how that may help or hurt fishing. That will have to wait for the publication of the results.

It was interesting to see all the different species in the Caney Fork in addition to our favorite trout and striped bass. And yes they did catch plenty of these.

Jim