Now boys, behave yourselves!</p>
B-TRACKER,</p>
I brought up this issue with TWRA last year. As I fished the river, I noticed that while I caught hundreds of spots, I caught very few small largemouth & smallmouth. As I learned about the relationship between these 3 species of bass, I found out that where they shared the same water, the spots tended to dominate and eventually take over the area. I also learned that all of the Region 4 lakes already had a 15 spot per day limit (Norris, Douglas, Cherokee, etc.) but none of the Region 3 lakes had a liberal spot limit. So, I asked the Commission to increase the limit on spots to 15 per day per angler for the Upper Nickajack. Our Regional Biologist told me that a bass fisherman would not keep a 10" bass (spot) therefore it would not do any good. I told them it can't hurt and it might help. So, the Commission asked the Agency, "Why not?"</p>
TWRA responded by asking the Commission to postpone their decision until they could do some electrofishing studies. They did that this past winter and spring and came back with the recommendation to raise the limit to 15 per day from the Dam down to Chickamauga Creek. So, TWRA agrees that for that area, an increase in creel limit is justified.</p>
By the way, Norris has gotten so bad that TWRA has recommended that the creel limit be removed on that lake. </p>
So, what do we need to do? </p>
I plan to do something to try and educate the folks who fish the piers at the RiverPark to help them identify a spot so they will know what they have. Some fishermen down there won't keep any bass under 15" for fear it's a largemouth.</p>
We need to be on the lookout for and report folks when we see them fill a 5 gallon bucket with little LM & SM.</p>
We need to be diligent to harvest spots so that when we get further studies done we will see if the percentage of largemouth & smallmouth is increasing or not. For now, the few of us who take this seriously need to concentrate our efforts on the area between the Dam and South Chickamauga Creek.</p>
I'm going to ask the Agency to do some studies further down the river so that we might get the area extended to Suck Creek.</p>
I have attached an article written by the Head of Fisheries Management for TWRA. He wrote this partly because of my request. </p>
<font color="#3300ff">Spotted Bass Identification and Creel Limits</font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">Recently TWRA received several calls and correspondence from anglers expressing concern about spotted bass identification and their more liberal creel limits in certain Tennessee reservoirs. These anglers were concerned that they might unintentionally keep numbers of largemouth bass over the limit while attempting to limit out on spotted bass. Several years ago when we first proposed liberalizing creel limits on spotted bass in east Tennessee we were also concerned with this and looked for one single characteristic that both anglers and officers could rely on. The character we settled on was the small patch of teeth on the tongue- spotted bass have them, largemouth bass generally do not. The word "generally" refers to the unusual trait of largemouth bass to occasionally exhibit a small tooth patch. This oddity shows up in one in every 100 to 150 largemouth bass. <u><font color="#ff0000">So even if the bass with a tooth patch is a largemouth, for simplicity sake, we consider it to be a spotted bass.</font></u> That way no one has to wonder if they are exceeding the limit or what species of bass they are keeping. Please refer to the Fishing Guide for a drawing depicting the location of the tooth patch in the mouth cavity.</font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">You may have wondered why we liberalized creel limits on spotted bass in the first place. Why should we be worried about this small member of the black bass family that usually measures less than 12-inches in length? <font color="#ff0000">Several years of fairly intense sampling of black bass populations in reservoirs have indicated that in certain waterbodies, the proportion of spotted bass in the population is increasing, apparently displacing largemouth and smallmouth. In some instances, the percentage of spotted bass in electrofishing sampling has increased from less than 20% to currently exceeding 50%. The quality of the black bass fishery- fewer largemouth and smallmouth- is at stake.</font> Additionally, pound for pound spotted bass are recognized by many anglers and biologists alike as the scrappiest and most aggressive of the black basses, out competing largemouth and smallmouth for food and space. Their food habits are worrisome as well. <font color="#ff0000">Studies 10 years ago at Norris Lake indicated that adult spotted bass feed more heavily on black bass offspring (all 3 species) than did largemouth and smallmouth.</font> So to counteract this shift in spotted bass abundance and dominance, we have proposed more liberal creel limits on these reservoirs that allow anglers to take home more of these smaller cousins of the more preferred largemouth and smallmouth. So far, the reservoir type exhibiting this population shift has been upland, storage impoundments with high water clarity. However, anglers around Chattanooga are expressing concern for increasing spotted bass catch rates they are seeing on Nickajack and Chickamauga, two mainstream impoundments. TWRA is currently evaluating this situation and we will report the findings to our Commission sometime next summer.</font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">What can you do as an angler to protect largemouth and smallmouth bass fisheries? <font color="#ff0000">If you fish waters with liberalized spotted bass creel limits, please take as many as you can of all sizes, within the creel limit, of course. Encourage other anglers to do the same</font>. Our creel surveys show that anglers have been reluctant, so far, to focus their efforts on harvesting spotted bass in the lakes with liberal creel limits. </font><font color="#ff0000">Anglers need to realize that TWRA does not have the manpower to remove these tiny dynamos from all these bodies of water for you. You must do it for yourself and for the other anglers that enjoy the bounty of fishing experiences we have in Tennessee. </font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">Bill Reeves</font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">TWRA</font></p>
<font color="#3300ff">Fisheries Chief</font></p>
A couple of key points:</p>
The #1 predator of LM & SM are spots!</p>
Rob Mottice, the biologist at the Aquarium told me that they tried to put LM, SM, & spots in the same tank, but they had to take out the spots because the spots would not let the LM & SM get anything to eat!
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