10-Foot Bass Rods?

The Rise of the 10-Foot Bass Rod
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

Bassmaster revealed recently that they will allow 10-foot rods in tournament boats next year, up from the 8-foot maximum that has been the standard forever.

A lot of anglers might ask what the heck any bass fisherman would want with a rod that long, when most of us never use anything bigger than about 7’6″, but there apparently is a demand for the monster sticks among some of the top Elite pros.

The advantages are in two areas–for flippin’, the short game of bass fishing, the longer rod gives a better angle to reach distant teacup-sized potholes, and also the potential power of these bigger rods will give anglers a better chance of derricking a big fish wrapped in 20 pounds of weeds to the boat.

The rods will also add some real potential distance, for those who master them, to crankbait fishing. The longer the rod, the longer the potential cast, and as most who enjoy crankbait fishing know, the farther you throw them, the deeper they go on retrieve. Since success with a crankbait often depends on grinding it along a gravel or shell bottom, being able to get a lure down there and keep it there throughout a long retrieve is going to have a big impact on the catches.

Of course, being able to handle the increase in tip speed of the rod and spool speed of the reel will be key, and it’s going to take a period of adjustment for most to get used to the big difference in the weight and balance of the longer rods. The backlashes likely will be monumental early on.

There will also be issues with storing the rods on nearly all bass boats, unless they’re made to be collapsible, as some flippin-sticks are already. The tubes on most boats max out at 8 feet, even on the largest rigs, and many boats under 20 feet long can’t handle anything over 7’6″.

There’s also the issue of keeping the hooks out of the angler on the other end of the boat, in team tournaments and during fun fishing with family. A 10-foot rod has the potential to reach all the way across the back deck of most boats if the bow angler does not watch his backcast. And when a burly angler up front powers up to cast a 10XD a mile, those big treble hooks are coming at speeds that just about break the sound barrier. It won’t be pretty when somebody gets stuck.

That said, increasing the legal rod length will be a shot in the arm for the tackle business in the coming year. Not only will all the pro’s have to have several of the new sticks, all of us wanna-be’s will also need a couple if we want to be at all similar to KVD or G-Man, and they’re probably not going to be cheap. Look for reel makers to jump on the train and make special reels for these rods, as well.

In short, there’s not much new under the sun when it comes to bass angling these days, but the addition of these new mega-rods will probably spark plenty of interest over the next few months among those who live and breathe tournament bass angling.

Eat Carp and Other Stuff

Recently I was talking with Kenny DeLay about carp. He shoots them with his bow, and has a boat set up for going after them. He asked me if I ever ate one. That went right along with an article I read recently about using every part of a deer you shoot.

I grew up on a farm and we wasted nothing. The old saying about using everything about a pig except its squeal was applied to our living. From that it is hard for me to throw out anything edible, even if it seems strange to some.

Back in the mid-1980s I was at our place at Raysville Boat Club on Clarks Hill, camping in my small trailer. Mom and dad were staying on the other side of the point in their mobile home. I was off for the summer so I put out sinking catfish food under our boat docks every day, hoping to get some catfish baited up.

One day about noon I was walking from the bath house past the docks and saw my mom fishing under them. She was sitting in her chair and reared back on her rod and Zebco reel, fighting something big.

I watched for several minutes and was close enough to hear her coaching herself, reminding herself to stay calm and not reel too fast. I heard her say “”keep you rod tip up.”

I went to help and netted a six pound carp for her. Since we considered them trash fish and considered them inedible because of all the little bones, we threw it back and mom went back to catching bream and trying for catfish to fry.

That night I got to thinking about the carp coming to the catfish food. I found a can of kernel corn, something I heard they liked, and got one of my light spinning rods rigged with a small hook. I had been under the dock only a few minutes when something hit my corn and took off. It turned out to be another six pound carp.

I caught three more that night before going to bed. The next morning I got mom and dad to fish with me and we started catching carp. Although I think we lost more than we landed, during the next three days we caught 37 weighing 157 pounds.

We didn’t want all the carp in the lake so we threw them in the bottom of our run-about tied under the dock. The first afternoon dad went to a nearby marina to get some hooks and a guy there told him how to cook carp.

We fileted all those carp and put the chunks of meat in pint jars with a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of oil. Mom then put them in the pressure cooker at 15 pounds for 90 minutes. The jars sealed when they cooled.

Carp are full of little bones and hard to eat, but after canning them the bones were soft, like the bone in canned salmon. Although they don’t have the same flavor as canned salmon they make great croquettes

when mixed with spices and fried. I ate many meals of them over the years.

A few years ago Hovie Smith and I were at an outdoor writers meeting at Lake Eufaula. I took him out bow fishing and he shot a gar. I had never eaten one but he said he would show me how to clean it and cook it.

Hovie took tin snips and cut up the middle of the back, then peeled out the meat along both sides of the backbone. It was like taking out the back straps of a deer. There was a round piece of meat about 18 inches long and and two inches in diameter.

I cut the meat into two inch long chunks and sautéed it in butter. It was good and reminded me of Florida Lobster. The meat had that musky flavor and was a little chewy, but good.

It is way too much trouble to clean a gar that way but I found a much easier way. A few years ago I saw a jug moving around in the middle of Germany Creek in the middle of the day. It had a four foot gar on it and I took it in.

After killing it I gutted it and took a hacksaw and cut its body into one foot chunks. That night after grilling a steak I put the chunks on the grill, covered it and left it for about an hour. When I took it off the armor-plated skin peeled right off and the meat was warm and good when dipped into melted butter!

As I said, we never threw any food away. My mom could cook and old boot and make it taste good, so imagine how good regular food tasted. But we did go to extremes. After a dove shoot some folks pop the breast out and throw the rest of the bird away.

We cooked it all, to the point of saving the tiny hearts and livers to make giblet gravy to go with the fried birds. We would even take the little gizzard, split it and clean it out to add to the gravy.

I am careful shooting deer to try not to hit the heart or liver. I enjoy slicing them both and frying with onions, then making rich brown gravy. The liver is easy to clean, all you have to do is cut out the white connective tissue and the big blood vessels at the base of it. The heart takes a little more time since you have to take out the valves from all four chambers, but I think it is worth it.

I ate beef tongue one time and it was good. A recent magazine article told how to take out a deer tongue and clean and cook it. That will be my new meat for this year when I kill a deer.

Does Stocking Largemouth Bass Help?

Arkansas Study Looking at Stocking Contribution of Advanced Fingerling Largemouths

HOT SPRINGS – Fisheries biologists with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission are always interested in evaluating how stocking programs are working in the many waterways of The Natural State, all while working to get the agency, the resource, and the people of Arkansas a good return on its investment.

One way AGFC hatcheries are improving both largemouth and Florida bass production is by rearing advanced fingerlings to stock in area lakes. In the past, hatchery staff have reared bass to fingerling size, about 1½ to 2 inches, and released them in lakes in AGFC’s stocking program. Hatchery staff have been researching and evaluating different techniques to rear bass to approximately 4 inches for a pilot study. When these advanced fingerlings reach about 4 inches, they are branded with liquid nitrogen to create an identifiable mark and then taken to study lakes as part of an ongoing research project with the AGFC Black Bass Program.

Dennis Fendley, hatchery biologist at AGFC’s Andrew Hulsey Fish Hatchery, said “When a bass reaches approximately 2 inches in length, its diet shifts from eating insects to feeding on fish, and that often means dining on their smaller cohort. In a production setting this increased cannibalism leads to a reduction in numbers of fish available for stocking. This is the same trend seen with walleyes, stripers and other predatory fish.”

A pilot study for rearing 4-inch advanced fingerlings is underway for largemouth and Florida bass at multiple AGFC fish culture facilities. At these culture facilities hatchery staff are evaluating how different feeding regimes and food sources affect the growth rate of bass fingerlings. With the assistance of the hatchery staff working to increase the size of stocked bass biologists hope to increase the survival rate of stocked fish against bigger bass and other predators within the system. A larger fish, in theory, has a better chance of survival.

According to Colton Dennis, AGFC Black Bass Program coordinator, “When you stock bass fingerlings that are 1-2 inches long, a 15 percent survival rate is considered a success. One question we are trying to answer is, ‘can a better survival rate be obtained by stocking fewer but larger bass?’ The biologists also have to determine if the value of the stocking contribution outweighs the cost of rearing a larger fingerling.”

Fendley says it’s not just a matter of food.

“It costs more to feed advanced fingerlings, and it takes more pond space that could be used for more production of smaller fingerlings so there is a trade-off.” Fendley stated “The hatchery can rear larger fingerlings to meet the needs, but you can potentially only rear 80,000 to 100,000 advanced 4-inch fingerlings in the acres where a million 2-inch fingerlings were reared, increase quality but decrease quantity.”

Jeff Buckingham, AGFC Black Bass Program biologist, has designed a pilot study for the program to evaluate the stocking contribution of the stocked branded fish in selected study lakes.

“Biologists will start sampling the study lakes approximately one month after stocking,” Buckingham said. “Bass will be collected and examined for the identifying brand, add an additional identifying mark, and then release them back into the lake. The additional identification mark will serve to identify fish that have already been collected at least once during sampling to avoid those fish being counted more than once in the study. Sampling will continue until the spring approximately every 30 days to search for branded fish in the study lakes.

“During sampling if we collect and release 100 bass from a study lake and 10 have a brand then that’s a 10 percent survival rate. If it’s 20 fish? That’s even better,” Buckingham said. “The overall goal is to provide a bigger bang for our buck for both the resource and the people of Arkansas.

Sampling data of the study lakes stocked with the 4-inch advanced fingerlings will also be shared with AGFC fisheries pathologist. Ongoing genetic testing of bass fin clips will provide agency staff a better evaluation of the success rate of Florida bass stockings and how Florida bass coexist with native largemouth bass in Arkansas lakes such as Millwood, DeGray, Ouachita, Columbia, Chicot, Atkins and SWEPCO. Dennis says there are a lot of moving parts in the pilot study, and will take a combined effort of hatchery staff and field biologists to pull it off.

“We are evaluating a lot of different strategies with our bass right now,” Dennis said. “Everything from how we rear bass on our hatcheries, to the effectiveness of our stocking programs, and evaluating a couple of different things on stocked fish once they get recruited into a lake.”

The branded advanced fingerlings are being stocked in different study lakes around the state. Branded Largemouth Bass in the study are being stocked into Lake Frierson and Craighead Forest Lake, while branded Florida Bass are being stocked into Gurdon Lake and Dr. Lester Sitzes III Bois D’Arc Lake.

Lots of Spots at Lake Martin

I love October for many reasons but one of the most important is the annual trip to Lake Martin. All three bass clubs in Griffin get together for a two day tournament the second weekend in October. The weather is usually great, fishing even better and we all have a lot of fun.

This year was a little different. The second weekend in October came a little early since the first was on a Saturday, and a hurricane off the coast brought strong winds to Lake Martin. But the fishing was even better than normal for numbers of fish if not for size.

Some folks went over early. Raymond English spent the whole week at the lake and said he caught over 100 bass and over half of them hitting topwater baits, one of the most exciting ways to catch fish. Niles Murray got there Wednesday and caught a lot of fish each day. I also arrived on Wednesday but didn’t get on the water until Thursday. That day gave me an idea of how good it was since I landed about 14 keepers and the quality of fish was good, with many of the spots in the 2 to 3 pound range.

Friday I went out with Chad Miller to get information for the November Alabama Outdoor News article. Chad guides there and wins a lot of tournaments, and he seems to know every rock in the lake. He fishes differently, too.

Many of us will pull up on a point and start casting, hoping for a bite. And if he fish are biting we will keep casting to that point, no matter what the size. Chad knows the lake so well he will pull up on a point and make five or six casts to a key spot, then move on. He is targeting that three or four pound bass on the point that he needs in a tournament. He may hit 50 places in one day.

It works for bigger fish. Chad and his son fished a tournament Saturday while we were fishing our tournament. They weighed in five keepers weighing just under 16 pounds. Their weight would have won our clubs’ two day tournament beating all of us that weighed in ten bass!

In the two days 30 fishermen weighed in 262 keeper bass weighing about 339 pounds, most of them spots. There were 24 five-bass limits Saturday and 26 on Sunday. Of the 30 fishermen, 22 weighed in limits both days.

In the tournament we pay back each day like it was a separate tournament. On Saturday, John Smith won with five at 9.96 pounds and his 4.49 pounder was big fish, Kwong Yu was second with five weighing 8.47 pounds, third was Robert Proctor with five at 8.43 pounds and Richard Dixon places fourth with five at 8.0 pounds.

The next day Jamie Beasley won with five weighing 9.03 pounds and had big fish with a 3.04 pounder, Zane Fleck was second with five at 9.02 pounds, I placed third with five weighing 8.69 pounds and Lee Hancock placed fourth with five weighing 8.28 pounds. As usual, nobody placed in the top four both days. I have no idea where the quality bass I had been catching went!

I could not wait to go out Saturday. Not only had Chad shown me some places to fish, I had gone out Thursday before daylight and found a dock with a light on. I could see bass under the water around the light and caught a spot that weighed almost three pounds. And there were at least 15 more that size or bigger following it!

Saturday morning there was not a single bass around that dock. That worked on my mind. Then I hooked a two pound largemouth in a tree top on a topwater bait and it jumped and threw the bait, then a keeper spot did the same thing. Starting out so bad messed my mind up.

I fished hard all day but landed only 9 keepers, my worst day, and had 5.83 pounds with my best five. Sunday morning I could see two bass under the light but neither of them would hit. But at 7:30 I went to a rocky point where I caught fish 40 years ago and had a limit in the livewell, all on topwater, by 8:00. That put me in the right mood so I started fishing places where I have caught fish in the past, and landed 19 keepers during the day and placed third.

The point I caught fish on first thing is one I fished back in the mid 1970s. It runs out shallow for about 20 feet and years ago there was a dock on the end of it with a walkway going out to it. Linda and I were fishing it one morning and the cabin owner walked out and talked to us. He was very nice, even pointing out where he had brush piles. We caught a lot of fish with him watching.

The next weekend in the Sportsman Club tournament Harold Cox and I started there at daylight. As we started casting the cabin owner came out on his porch up on the hill and started yelling at us, cussing us for everything he was worth. I ignored it but Harold yelled back so I cranked up and left. There is no place to hide in a boat if the guy in the cabin had lost it and got a gun.

I had not fished that place in almost 40 years because of that, but I noticed Sunday morning the dock and cabin have been torn down and a new house is being built. I am glad I stopped there Sunday morning.

September Sinclair Tournaments

In our September tournament, 14 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished eight hours at Lake Sinclair to land 43 keeper bass weighing about 60 pounds. There were three five-fish limits and no one zeroed.

I managed to win with five weighing 8.95 pounds and had big fish with a 4.58 pounds largemouth. Sam Smith was second with four weighing 6.19 pounds and Robert Proctor and George Roberts tied for third with five at 6.06.

I landed five keepers, including the big one, the first hour we fished. I also missed six or seven fish during that hour, all on a top water popper near grass beds and docks. After the sun got up I caught one more fish in seven hours!

I did have some excitement at about 11:00. I had cast a topwater plug to a seawall and as I worked it across the flat leading to deeper water something blew up on it, missing it by about two feet. I reeled in and threw a floating worm to where the fish had hit, and as it sank my line started moving toward deeper water. I set the hook and something big pulled for about four seconds before coming off.

I knew there was some brush there so I reeled in and cast a jig head worm to it. I felt the bait hit a limb then something took off, running about five feet before pulling off. Although exciting it was disappointing. All I can figure is there were gar around that brush and would hit, but I could not get my hook into their bony snout.

———-

On Saturday the Sportsman Club held a youth tournament at Sinclair. There were five youth competing and three of them caught keepers. Blaze Brooks, fishing with JR Proctor and Zane Flake, won with 5.80 pounds and his 1.78 pounder was big fish. Austin Lynch fishing with Raymond English and two other youth was second with one 1.95 pounds and Treston Cheeves, also fishing with Raymond, was third with 1.59 pounds. The other two youth, Kamron Cheeves and Caleb Dague, fishing with Sam Smith, fished hard but did not land a keeper.

Alabama Adds to Vast Artificial Reef Zone

Alabama Adds to Vast Artificial Reef Zone
By David Rainer
Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
from The Fishing Wire

Another artificial reef was deployed off the Alabama Gulf Coast this week in Alabama’s vast artificial reef zone. While a reef deployment may not seem like news, this was indeed special because it could change the way industrial and corporate entities view options for recycling materials.

(Billy Pope, aerial courtesy of Alabama Power) A 195-foot barge loaded with two 100-ton boilers from Alabama Power Company plants in Washington and Mobile counties became the latest artificial reef to be deployed off the Alabama Gulf Coast last week about 25 miles south of the Sand Island Lighthouse.
The new reef deployment was the result of a multitude of partners. Alabama Power Company provided a pair of boilers that had been taken out of service from plants in Washington and Mobile counties. Cooper/T. Smith provided a barge and transportation of the reef material. Alabama Wildlife Federation (AWF) and the Alabama Marine Resources Division (MRD) worked as liaisons to start the process and complete the deployment.

“One thing I’m so excited about with this Alabama Power reef project is that it just shows that the more we’re involved with the community, community leaders and business leaders, there are a lot of great things we can do as partners,” said Marine Resources Director Chris Blankenship. “Tim Gothard with the Alabama Wildlife Federation and Matt Bowden with Alabama Power are the ones who reached out to us with this idea. Then it grew with the work with Angus Cooper and Cooper/T. Smith. They had a barge that had neared the end of its useful life, and we needed a barge to transport the material to the deployment site.

“I think there are a lot of opportunities out there to get companies to rethink the ways they’ve always dealt with materials that have reached the end of their service life. The more we get involved with these organizations and companies, the more we can show them there are other opportunities to partner together. It’s good for the companies and good for the marine habitat. That’s why we think it’s important to get the word out about this project, because it can show what we can do with other private companies. I also hope this is a long relationship with Alabama Power as they continue to provide service for their ratepayers and, at the same time, enhance the environment.”

The new reef is located about 25 miles south of the Sand Island Lighthouse in a depth of about 120 feet in the Tatum-Winn North General Permit Area. The boilers are about 18 feet tall and about 40 feet long and weigh about 100 tons each. The barge is 195 feet long.

“A reef this size would take at least a dozen of our super pyramids,” said MRD Artificial Reefs Coordinator Craig Newton. “So this reef is a big cost savings for our artificial reef program. Alabama Power is experiencing cost savings as well because they don’t have to hire skilled personnel to disassemble the boilers and salvage them.”

To prepare for the deployment, Newton said holes were cut in the sides of the boilers to expose an array of small tubes inside the boiler.

“That’s really going to increase the surface area for encrusting organisms to attach to the reef,” Newton said. “It increases the complexity of the reef by providing refuge for small fish, and it’s really going to be easy to find on your bottom machine.

“Within days, the reef will have red snapper on it. Within months, it should have mangrove (gray) snapper on it. Then we’ll start to see the blennies and damselfish and all the little critters that will help support that ecosystem. By the time the season opens again on January 1 (2017), you could see amberjack on the reef because of the vertical relief.”

Blankenship said Cooper/T. Smith’s donation of the barge is a significant enhancement to the reef.

“The barge is part of the reef,” Blankenship said. “The barge and two 100-ton boilers will make a reef that’s going to be there for decades.

“This is the kind of partnership we’re looking for in our reef program. A company like Alabama Power can realize some savings by partnering with us as they upgrade their equipment. That material doesn’t go to the landfill or get cut up for scrap. Instead, we use it for marine habitat. It’s really a win all around. We want to reach out to other companies that might have these same opportunities.”

Angus Cooper III of Cooper/T. Smith said during his time as AWF president, he was able to witness the work Alabama Power is doing to enhance wildlife conservation in the state.

“Alabama Power is truly one of the leaders in our state when it comes to water quality and wildlife conservation,” Cooper said. “We at Cooper/T. Smith are extremely excited to partner with them on this reef project, our first such collaboration. We look forward to seeing the success of this project, both to the ecosystem and in providing a source of outdoor entertainment for our community.”

Wes Anderson, a team leader with Alabama Power’s Environmental Stewardship Projects, said the boilers had reached the end of their useful service, and it was time to either scrap them or find another useful purpose for the material.

“We became aware of other possibilities through our work with Coastal Cleanup and Renew Our Rivers programs on the Alabama Coast,” Anderson said. “Some of our guys said, ‘We sank 60,000 Christmas trees in our freshwater impoundments. Why don’t we make some nice saltwater reefs with some of this salvage equipment?’ When we approached our bosses with the idea, they were very supportive and thought it was a great idea. We were able to show a cost savings for our ratepayers and a great addition to the marine environment.”

Alabama Power Vice President of Environmental Affairs Susan Comensky added, “Being involved in the construction and deployment of this reef is especially exciting for us at Alabama Power because it’s a first for us. In the past, we have simply disposed of old equipment like these boilers, so seeing them repurposed to create a habitat for marine life is very gratifying.”

AWF Executive Director Tim Gothard said the organization’s commitment to Alabama’s artificial reef program made it easy to help foster the partnerships that led to the deployment of the Alabama Power reef.

“We were just glad to be able to connect the dots between all the key players,” Gothard said. “It’s a great public-private partnership for Alabama Power Company to be alerted to a piece of equipment they were retiring and its possible use as an artificial reef. Then Marine Resources was able to evaluate the material to make sure it was suitable for an artificial reef. And, finally, Cooper/T. Smith was able to make transportation available and add a barge to enhance the whole project.

“To me, the exciting part is to see the public and private entities work together with the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to accomplish a project that will be great for the reef system. It will provide really great opportunities for our citizens and general public who like to fish our offshore reefs.”

The Alabama Power reef was deployed near the 70-foot Offshore Supply Boat Reef to provide additional habitat for species that anglers can target outside of the short red snapper season. MRD officials expect species like vermilion snapper and triggerfish will inhabit the reef as well as amberjack.

“The more diversified we can make the reef program, the more ecologically sound and more stable the reef system will be,” Newton said. “The size of this reef will make it better suited to handle storm events and other stresses that might happen.”

Boating Comedy Can Be Dangerous

The boating comedy show continues at area lakes. After a relatively sane weekend at Bartletts Ferry two weeks ago, this past weekend at Sinclair proved the inconsiderate and those too stupid to follow rules and laws have not put boats away yet.

The most dangerous thing I saw as at the Highway 441 Bridge. I had pulled under it around noon to get in the shade and was watching two young boys fish from kayaks. The older looked to be about 14 and the younger one maybe 10. They were having a great time fishing around the pilings in their tiny boats.

All bridges in Georgia have big “No Wake” signs and buoys on them. There are at least two reasons for that law. Going under a bridge your visibility is limited by pilings and riprap. Going slowly helps avoid an accident. No wake also helps protect other boats from being slammed into pilings and thrown around under the bridge.

As is usual many barges slowed down enough so their wake was only a foot or two high rather than the three or four foot wakes they usually throw off. The kids in the kayaks had a tough time when hit with even a one foot wake. If their boats had been damaged or if they had been swamped and drowned, the boat driver making the wake would be legally liable for it.

The worst I saw was an idiot in a pontoon boat. He came at the bridge wide open, having to go around the no wake buoy on the way, and duck down to keep from hitting the bridge with his head. There is no way he could see other boats under the bridge or coming to it since he could not even keep his head up. He went under the bridge at full throttle. I tried to get my phone out to video it and get his registration numbers to report but did not have time.

The dumbest thing I saw was at the boat ramp. I came in a little early and the only other club member at the dock was Kwong. He tied up and went for his trailer as I idled in. As I tied up I knew we were in trouble. The double ramp had a big SUV with a trailer backed in almost taking up the middle of the ramp. The big barge he wanted to load was tied to the dock and when he got out of the SUV he left his door open, further blocking the other side of the ramp.

Kwong finally got his trailer backed in around the open door and I pulled him to the top of the hill, went back to my boat and he tried to back my trailer in for me to load. But now not only was the inconsiderate idiot’s door open, the three people with him were standing in the middle of the one open ramp. They finally moved when Kwong almost hit them with the back of the trailer.

I got my boat loaded and Kwong pulled me to the top of the hill. I watched as another club members pulled their boat out. The guy with the barge was still trying to get his on the trailer right. Then he pulled up just enough to clear the water with the back of his boat, not only blocking that ramp but also blocking the area where you have to swing around to back you trailer in.

I think the whole club took our boats out on one ramp while that idiot blocked the other one. Maybe it will get too cold for such inconsiderate folks soon.

September Bass Fishing Is Tough At Jackson

We had only seven members of the Flint River Bass Club fish our September tournament at Jackson. We started at 5:30 AM trying to avoid some of the traffic and heat and quit at 1:30 PM. There were 12 bass weighed in, six spots and six largemouth. Two of us had limits and two did not catch a keeper.

Chuck Croft won with three largemouth weighing 7.17 pounds and his 3.66 pounder was big fish. Niles Murray placed second with five at 5.73 pounds, my five weighed 5.60 pounds placed third, Don Gober was fourth with two at 2.93 and Wes Delay rounded out the fishermen with keepers with two at 2.86 for fifth.

Chuck said he caught all three of his bass before daylight around lighted boat docks. I caught two of mine before daylight on a jig and pig on a rocky point then at noon got three more off that long point I talked of earlier.

I kept seeing fish on the point but could not get them to hit. I finally drug a Fishhead Spin along the bottom and caught a keeper spot. I guess that turned them on a little since I soon got a small keeper largemouth on a jig and pig and another one on a drop shot worm.

Fishing is tough right now and will be until cooler nights start making the water temperatures drop. That should happen within a couple of weeks. And eventually the lakes will get less crowded as people go hunting and watch football games rather than going to the lake.

Traditional End to Boating on Labor Day

Tradition has it that Labor Day is the end of the boating season. This is not a traditional year!

Last weekend while fishing a club tournament at Jackson I was shocked at the number of barges still on the lake. I consider boats that don’t plane off, that just plow through the water making a huge wake, a barge.

Although they are great for skiing and they don’t really bother me when they are out on the lake, for some reason some drivers think they have to stay near the bank and get as close as possible to fishermen. That does cause problems.

One boat at Jackson just before noon was not only being inconsiderate, they were breaking the law. I was fishing a long point in Tussahaw Creek and had put a marker out about 100 yards from the bank where the point dropped from ten feet deep into deeper water. From my marker back to the bank the bottom slowly sloped off.

There was one boat that came between me and the bank about 75 feet off the bank. I have no idea how they didn’t hit the bottom. This big boat was plowing along about 25 miles an hour making a wake at least four feet high. And no one was behind the boat skiing.

Not only did they rock me a lot, they went by a dock with pontoon boat tied to it. They were within 50 feet of the dock. Georgia law says boats must stay at least 100 feet from a dock unless at idle speed. When the barge went by the dock I though its wake would tear up the pontoon boat.

They kept going along the bank like that as far as I could see them. At weigh-in I mentioned it and another club member said that same boat came by him just like that, way up the Alcovy River. Apparently the folks in that boat ran the whole shoreline of Jackson Lake just like that. I wonder how many boats they damaged that were tied to docks.

I expect pleasure boaters to be inconsiderate of fishermen, but I find no excuse for someone in a fishing boat to do that. While on that same point in Tussahaw creek a bass boat was puling tubers. For some reason their route made them circle over the point I was fishing rather than go 100 yards to more open water. They circled within feet of my marker, some times when I was within casting distance of it, repeatedly.

The fun did not end at the ramp. We were taking out at 1:30 at the Georgia Power Ramp. There is a double ramp there with docks on each side. When I pulled up someone in a pontoon was tied to the dock, completely blocking one ramp. I watched as they finally got a trailer backed in and started trying to load it as two or three boats either launched or took out from the one ramp they left open.

In the meantime three teenage boys had pulled to the top of the ramp. They were waiting to put their bass boat in. They started yelling at the older men having trouble with the pontoon, fussing at them for being so slow, I think.

When the pontoon finally moved the teenagers got their boat backed into the water after several tries. For some unknown reason one of them was wading along beside it. He finally got into the boat and, after several minutes, got it cranked.

He kept trying to back it off the trailer but it would not move. He yelled at the truck driver to back in further and kept having problems. He finally had the diver pull up on the ramp so he could get out of the boat, walk around to the back of it and unhook his rear tiedowns.

One of these days it will be cold enough to make some folks stay home. I won’t miss the comedy.

What Is A New Way to Control Fish Populations?

Idaho Fish and Game Develops New Way to Control Fish Populations
Editor’s Note: Today’s feature comes to us courtesy of the Idaho Department of Fish & Game

Technique won a national award for fisheries restoration
Roger Phillips, Public Information Specialist, IDFG
from The Fishing Wire

Hatcheries have long been used to replenish and restore fish populations, but can they also be used to reduce or eradicate them? Idaho Fish and Game researchers are studying whether using traditional hatchery technology in a nontraditional way can eliminate unwanted fish populations in the wild.

Fish and Game researchers and hatchery staff are collaborating on a project using 50 year-old technology to develop a monosex fish population whose offspring can only produce males. These males have two YY chromosomes (YY) rather than the usual XY arrangement.

Stocking YY-male hatchery fish into a body of water with an undesired fish population could change the sex ratio to all males within a few generations, and the unwanted fish population would eventually fail to reproduce and therefore die off. Once accomplished, Fish and Game would stop stocking those fish and fisheries managers would then restock that body of water with a more desirable fish species.

Brook trout were selected for the first YY project because they are short lived and quick to sexually mature, which enables researchers to rapidly produce the hatchery broodstock and test the technique in a natural environment. Brook trout are also good candidates because they are nonnative, frequently overpopulate, and stunt in both lakes and streams, which means fish are too small to be of interest for most anglers.

The YY technique begins in a hatchery, where young brook trout are exposed to low-doses of a common female hormone, estradiol, which has no effect on female fish, but causes male fish to produce eggs when they mature. The egg-producing males are crossed with standard males, which produce about 25 percent YY-male offspring. Those offspring are used to produce another generation that will theoretically produce exclusively male offspring when bred with any other brook trout.

Brook trout produced in the program for stocking in the wild are not exposed to any hormones and appear like all other brook trout, but they carry two male chromosomes instead of one.

While it sounds complex, it’s a fairly simple method of using hormones to affect gender in a segment of the population, then selectively breeding them to get an entire population to produce one gender. It’s routinely done in commercial aquaculture hatcheries to raise identical-looking food-fish, increase growth rates, and control reproduction.

If the program with brook trout proves successful, the “YY male” method could eradicate or limit other undesirable fish species in select waters, perhaps even large bodies of water with carp infestations, or other unwanted fish that limit game fish populations and harm habitat.

Fish and Game has long used fish toxicants to eradicate unwanted fish from entire bodies of water, but toxicants are typically limited to smaller bodies of water, such as ponds, small lakes and reservoirs or small streams.

Netting, trapping, and other fish removal methods also rid waters of unwanted fish, but those efforts are rarely a long-term solution because a few fish usually escape and spawn successfully. All those methods are time consuming, labor intensive, and often have to be repeated years later when unwanted fish populations rebuild.

Fish and Game officials hope the YY-male approach will be a cost-effective technique to control undesirable fish populations. Gary Byrne, the Fish Production Manger overseeing the hatchery portion of Idaho’s YY brook trout program, said it only took four years to develop the YY brook trout broodstock.

Head Fisheries Researcher Dan Schill, who led the team conducting the research project, said they are encouraged by the low cost of broodstock development, and they hope the technique will curb brook trout populations in waters where it’s being tested.

“The proof will be in the pudding over the next few years when our research staff obtain results confirming whether stocked YY fish successfully spawn in the wild and are ultimately effective in reducing the percentage of wild female brook trout in test waters,” Schill said.

Stocking trials of YY Brook Trout in four Idaho streams began in 2014, and the first results are encouraging. A marked YY Male was observed actively spawning in October with a wild female, and testing done on wild fry in study streams in 2015 conclusively showed that some YY males successfully spawned. Of equal note, all progeny of stocked YY fish found were XY males, exactly as predicted and as investigators hoped.

Fish and Game officials presented their findings at the August 2016 American Fisheries Society (AFS) national meeting in Kansas City, which has generated excitement in the fisheries science community. There, the AFS announced Fish and Game’s YY Male Brook Trout Research Program won the 2016 Sport Fish Restoration Outstanding Project award in the category of Research and Surveys.

The awards highlight the importance and effectiveness of the sport fish restoration program and recognize excellence in fisheries management, research and education.

Questions and answers about the YY-male fish program

Q: I understand the basic method of producing YY males in the hatchery, but how does the process of eliminating an undesirable fish population work in an actual stream or lake?

A: In natural fish populations, females have two X sex chromosomes (XX) and males have an X and Y chromosome (XY). When two wild fish spawn, offspring can only inherit one sex chromosome from each parent. Offspring receive an X from the female because that’s all she produces. Half the progeny receive an X from the male side and half receive a Y, which produces a 50:50 sex ratio.

When a hatchery-produced YY male spawns with a wild, XX female, all the progeny inherit one Y from the male and one X from the female and therefore would all be XY males. The basic idea is to continue stocking YY Males into the wild population until all the fish in the water are male, then stocking would end and the population would consequently die off.

Q: Is Fish and Game trying to eradicate all brook trout?

A: No, that’s not the intent of this program. While there is interest in eliminating brook trout in specific waters where they severely impact native species or stunt and become undesirable to anglers, this is primarily an effort to test the basic YY male concept in small, isolated waters. Anglers will continue to find hundreds of streams and mountain lakes in Idaho with wild Brook Trout populations.

Q: Are these brook trout being stocked considered a GMO?

A: No. Because no genes are “spliced” into the target fish genome from another fish species, the YY male fish produced are not genetically modified organisms (or GMO’s), a plus that has been noted by the authors of several recent scientific papers reviewing the YY male approach.

Q: What happens if someone eats a fish that’s been exposed to estradiol.

A: Fish exposed to the hormone in the program remain in enclosed hatchery production silos and are never stocked so it’s virtually impossible for that to occur. However, the doses given to tiny fry are very low and the 100 percent clearance rate from tissues is a matter of days, well over a year before fish become a size of interest to anglers. For these reasons, it is inconceivable that an angler or other animals would be exposed to estradiol, which is a common and frequently used human prescription drug that’s also used in aquaculture.

Q: Could the YY approach lead to eliminating other types of unwanted, non-native, or nuisance fish?

A: Although not the goal of the current program, Fish and Game is always trying to find ways to improve fishing and water quality. Where an undesirable species is limiting fishing opportunity, this is one method that could be attempted if the present experiments on Brook Trout prove successful.

Q: Is it reversible if for some reason you wanted that fish back?

A: Yes. All Fish and Game would have to do is stop stocking YY fish and the population would return to a normal 50:50 sex ratio.