Florida Bass in Chickamauga

[AllisonMERC225]

This link talks about the stocking of Florida bass in Chickamauga and has a lot of good information on Florida vs. northern bass. I ran across it and thought it was interesting:

http://www.fishingtennessee.com/Articles/Summerlin/Florida Bass.htm

 

[SpurHunter]

Veru cool article! Must be why, we are seeing such good bags on Chick! it should only get better in the years to come.

 

[Pointer 78]

The stocking of Florida strain bass in Chickamauga was an abysmal failure and admitted by the chief wildlife officer of the TWRA in a meeting 3 years ago. I wrote an article on here with all the information a couple of years back. Perhaps it can be found. The return of grass, warmer winters, and excellent spawns have all contributed to larger fish on Chickamauga.

 

[jighead]

there will not be ANY large mouth in these waters if the spotted bass surge is not brought under control !!!!!

 

[Hal]

Why did it fail, emoQuestion

 

[Pointer 78]

It probably failed because larger fish were dining on the fingerlings just as soon as they hit the water. There wasn't enough cover for the fingerlings to hide in. Not as much grass back then either. TWRA kept records of DNA profiles of every lot of fish they released. For 4 straight years, on subsequent shocking surveys, no fish were ever found with these DNA profiles. A meeting between fishermen and the TWRA was held in upper East Tennessee. One suggestion was proposed that the area lakes be stocked with Florida strain bass just like the TWRA was doing on Chickamauga. I think the Chief Officer's name was Reid. Anyway, he told the group that the stocking program on Chickamauga was a failure but planned to release fingerlings for the fifth and final year that year anyway. I was in Knoxville around that time and read this in the KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL. I was stunned. We fisherman around here were told the program was working. A day later, I contacted Mr. Cook, an outdoor writer for the CHATTANOOGA NEWS FREE PRESS, and asked him to investigate. His article came out the next weekend and it was admitted that yes, the program has been a failure. No fish with the catalogued DNA have ever been found.

 

[RattleTrapper]

The book that he refers to at the end of the article, "the Compleat Tennessee Angler" is a good read, I would recommend it to anyone that fishes Tennessee lakes regularly.

 

[Guest]

Some of the results that Pointer 78 mentioned are in this report:
http://www2.tntech.edu/fish/PDF/lmb.pdf

 

[sprestwood]

Improving habitat improves the size, surviability, and the number of fish in the water.

 

[FishinMagician]

We have not had any winters with weather cold enough to have a shad kill in several years. The fish now have a longer growing season and plenty to eat. We still do not have the numbers of fish on Chickimauga that we did have but the quality of fish we have now is unquestionable. Everything comes in cycles so enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[FishinMagician]

jighead - 4/29/2008 7:58 PM

there will not be ANY large mouth in these waters if the spotted bass surge is not brought under control !!!!!

What do you think the native bass species of the Tennesse river system was before TVA built dams and flooded land?

 

[CATCHMAN]

I went out of Wolftever with the TVA biologists in March when they did their sport fish survey. This topic was discussed. Keep in mind this was TVA not TWRA. It was their opinion that the Florida bass hasn't impacted Chickamauga. Even though a couple hundred thousand were stocked, they were not concentrated enough to take hold. They (whoever they are) are currently in the "thinking process" about stocking one particular creek, such as Wolftever, Soddy, Sale etc., and see if the "overload" will affect the area. All the smart people are trying to figure that out. I guess in the mean time we'll just have to continue Big Orange bass.

 

[fishinvol]

FishinMagician - 4/30/2008 9:39 PMWe have not had any winters with weather cold enough to have a shad kill in several years. The fish now have a longer growing season and plenty to eat. We still do not have the numbers of fish on Chickimauga that we did have but the quality of fish we have now is unquestionable. Everything comes in cycles so enjoy it while it lasts.

 Last winter/early spring ( 2007) chickamauga and lower Nickajack had a very big shad die off, but that's been the worst in a long time and hardly had any at all this year.

 

[polo-dog]

Great article. Thanks for sharing it with us. It's too bad that the Florida strain experiment in Chickamauga hasn't gone as well as the biologists had hoped. I have caught some fish on the Chick that looked more like what I think of as a Florida strain bass but I didn't check the number of scale rows, darn! I'll just have to remember to check them next time.

 

[rsimms]

From the very beginning the Florida bass effort was categorized as an "experiment," as are most new wildlife and fisheries management efforts. No one ever said it would work, so I don't really like to call it "a failure." The last official numbers I received were that 8% of the bass TWRA ran DNA tests on showed some Florida genes. That was at least two years ago... and before they began the "concentrated" stockings mentioned here. They only do DNA work every other year. It ain't cheap.

TWRA Biologist Mike Jolley tells me they will be sampling again in May and hope to run DNA tests on about 60 bass. This DNA review will probably determine whether the effort continues or not.

Regardless of whether it yields the hoped-for results or not.... TWRA, and all the anglers who contributed financially to get it started, should all be commended for their efforts.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[bullet]

i don't think all the fla. fingerlings are gone because a year or two after the stocking (maybe more than 2 years) i and a lot of others were catching small fla strain bass and lots of them, i'm sure that many survived, i have gone out with tva shocking up fish and believe me they miss many, many fish in an area they only shock a small swath around the banks, for instance: they net off the mouth of a small area or slough and a few of us would use our boats and fish for 1 hr. and then weigh and measure our catch then they go around the perimeter shocking them up and then weigh and measure these fish, we did this on all the tva lakes and on guntersville i had 3 or 4 fish in the 7-8 lb range off of beds along with 12-15 others, i was fishing up in 1-2' water and the fish were ready to spawn. another boat was fishing in the 4-6' areas with jerkbaits and although they were all smaller fish he had 20 or so fish out of the same area. we both could have caught more but ran out of time. when we went around the bank shocking up just a few small fish along with a few crappie and bream and catfish for a total of about 12 or so small bass. i told them that the areas up on the banks were where the fish were holding but we never went more shallow than about 5-6' water, they said that they try to do it the same each year so the results aren't skewed? i thought they wanted to check and measure all the fish in an area but that isn't the case??