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Has anyone lived in an area where they had shellcracker sunfish to catch? Seems to me that we ought to petition the IDFG to consider introducing shellcrackers to the state. They get noticeably bigger than bluegills and are a close cousin to them. Bluegills are alot of fun to catch, tasty and plentiful, at least in the past. However, there seems to be pressure on the bluegill here in southeast Idaho to the point that it is getting harder to find a bunch to catch. Shellcrackers spend alot of time in deeper water until the Spring spawn when they then come into the shallows to spawn like bluegill and crappie. They also have quite a bit more meat on their side than bluegill. Any thoughts on this?
DeeCee
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They would definitely be fun to have around. I grew up in the south and could always tell the difference in fight when you hooked into a big one. They seem to be downright agressive at times. They would be a fun experiment in addition to bluegill in some of those more warm water fisheries, but what would really be fun is rock bass. They look kinda like bluegill but get bigger, have bigger mouths, and fight really hard. When I was a kid, people called rock bass shellcrackers, which is wrong, but they also called bluegill perch. Go figure.
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I'm all for having some new species around. There are several lakes where it wouldn't hurt anything. I'd also love to see more Walleye locations.
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[cool][#0000ff]I have caught them in several waters in the Southeastern part of the US...and from a few waters in Arizona when I lived there. Great fish that hit small jigs or baits very aggressively and fight hard. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]They get larger than bluegills on average but seem to require warmer conditions to do well. Down in Arizona they did not start hitting until after the spring water temps got over 65 to 70 degrees. And I think they need warmer water to spawn than bluegills. My guess is that there are very few Idaho ponds that would make a happy home for them.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Here are a couple of pics of redears from Patagonia Lake, down near the Mexican border in Arizona.[/#0000ff]
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Wouldn't a few more lakes with crappie in them be about as good? The crappie grow larger, do well in some of our Idaho lakes, and seem to play well with other species that are generally stocked around here.
I don't think it would take nearly as long to get approval for more crappie than another species, even if it is a sunfish.
I like rock bass too. I caught a lot of them in Washington, but they don't seem to grow very large in colder areas. I haven't caught them in any other cool areas to compare if that is true everywhere. Anyone know?
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I would love to see rock bass around. I grew up in the northeast and really miss them. They certainly wouldn't have a problem with the cold weather here. I caught tons of them in Ontario, upstate New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut. Those places are all as cold if not colder than southeast Idaho.
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About 30 years ago we had a series of meetings about improving Lake Lowell fishing. There was the Idaho F&G, USFWS, Bureau of Reclamation, etc., along with a few interested fishermen. During those meetings I learned how hard it is to introduce new species into Idaho waters. Since almost every waterway eventually drains into the Salmon and Columbia, permission had to be granted by every entity that might be affected by the introduction. That included Oregon, Washington, the Feds, etc. The Idaho F&G fisheries biologists wanted to introduce White Bass (Sand Bass) into the lake but eventually gave up due to all the red tape involved, even though they felt that White Bass would be ideal in Lake Lowell.
Good Luck.
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How big did the rock bass average in the NE?
The ones in Western Wash were generally from 8 to 12 inches or so. But that might be a product of the "pure" water there rather than the cold --- less insect production.
I still don't think it will happen, as was said with white bass -- too hard to get approval. White bass or wipers would be great too.
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I think you nailed it. It is virtually impossible in today's climate to get a different species introduced legally in any of Idaho's waters. And yes, I think both redears and white bass would be good additions to the still waters, but it will never happen.......legally. I use to fish for "wipers" in the midwest. A white bass/striper hybrid. I think they were considered reproductively sterile. One option for new species introduction might perhaps be a sterile hybrid.
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Have caught Rockbass in Minnesota. They seemed to all be about the same size about a pound or pound and a half. They were definatey fun to catch, we never targeted them, we would just catch them, some days lots of them. Seems when we went later in August we wouldn't catch as many as when we were there in July. Lot's of the people out there look at rock bass and largemouth the same way lots of people out here look at whitefish and stuff. They would rather not catch them. We cooked ours up and they were pretty good. Not as good as perch or pike or walleye but they were still good eating fish.
By chance would the shell cracker do anything about the mussells? If so I would think they should definately be considered.
I would like to see a few Tiger Muskie put in a few more places or back into some of the places they have in the past. More crappie or perch would be good too.
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That was a pretty typical size back east as well. Definitely still panfish, but they're pretty thick fish and they're a ton of fun on a fly rod or ultralight.
As for wipers, there's always the option of getting a Utah license and heading to Willard Bay. I really need to go give that a try this year, I've never caught a wiper, but I hear they're amazing fighters.
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Lucabrasi,
Your question about whether shellcrackers would do something with mussells is a valid one. In the upper Midwest where they have an invasion of I believe zebra mussells, the shellcrackes have been found to be chomping down on them. The shellcracker or "redear" as some people call them have a set of teeth in their throat designed for breaking snail and mollusk shells and then eating the fleshly parts. To everyone else that has commented on this subjectt, your comments have been appreciated and are insightful. I agree, wipers would be great to have. I have a friend who lived in Utah and he heard they were really awesome fighters. I posed the shellcracker idea because Twin Lakes in Franklin County seems to have its bluegill population really being hammered by fishermen. Several years ago Dick Sculley the area Fisheries Manger asked me whether I htought a limit on the bluegill would be justifiable. I told him at the time that I thought the idea was too soon, maybe in several years. Well perhaps that time has arrived. In Twin Lakes there are perch, largemouth bass and crappie that prey pretty heavily on the bluegill as their forage base and humans are taking their share of bluegill also.. The shellcrackers are harder to catch later in the summer as they go deeper than many bluegill. Maybe that would help keep larger numbers of sunfish year around to be caught to relieve some pressure off the blugill by both humans and predatory fish. Just an idea I think is worth considering. Now if we could get the IDFG to consider the shellcracker.
DeeCee [fishin]
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I mentioned the wipers specifically because they are a sterile hybrid and would be much easier to get introduced. I have never caught one and have thought about going down to Willard, or go to Powell for the stripers. Only problem is the wipers need a prey species such as the shad etc., but I think they could do well in limited numbers in some of our reservoirs. I'd just as soon have good crappie though.
As far a limit on bluegill, I doubt if that is necessary. The fish in Twin seem to go in cycles that in my opinion have more to do with the timing of water draw down out of the reservoir in the spring, than with harvest. When the reservoirs draw down quickly they can wipe out the eggs and young that need the upper weed beds and shallows to survive. Plus there are finally some decent sized bass in there again and they like the bluegill a lot! I had two big bass last spring hit bluegills that I was in the process of reeling in. The perch and crappie also like baby bluegills. The balance swings back and forth, but it is better than the huge numbers of 3" bluegills that are in Johnson. That reservoir really needs more big tiger muskie or something like more full grown bass or wipers to help get more of a balance. The more I think about it a length limit on the bass in Johnson would probably help there alot. Just my opinion!
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A couple of thoughts on fish and success of introduced species. In SE Idaho our altitude is much higher than other places with equally brutal winters. There springs are a month sooner as are there falls are a month later. That gives quite a bit more time for the water to warm completely. Also our creeks and streams are more swift and come from higher up without a chance to warm so there is always cooler water going into our reservoirs and lakes.
Just a bit of thought I gave to some of the issues with some of the fish. Have no clue whether any of that would factor in.
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Springs were pretty late coming and winter came early in New England. I actually think that overall the falls are often a lot warmer and longer here. True, the streams can be cooler here, but rock bass are cooler water fish than a lot of other sunfish. They tend to live in the same places as smallmouth and thrive in that environment. I actually found smallmouth, rock bass and salmonids in the same streams quite frequently.
I don't know a whole lot about shellcrackers, so I don't know how well they would do here.
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[cool][#0000ff]Water temps are only part of the equation. That also has some effect on the food chain...or lack thereof. Many of the eastern and southern lakes are natural lakes with fairly constant water levels, weed beds and enough rainfall and runoff to keep fertility levels high. Lots more aquatic invertebrates for the new hatchlings until they get large enough to feed on bigger items. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]In some lakes in Utah and Idaho the natural production of zooplankton or other small food items shuts down at low temps. If that scarcity of food begins early enough and lasts long enough the young-of-the-year run out of food and starve to death before the food cycle replenishes itself in the spring. That is one of the reasons why some species simply will not survive in high altitude lakes in our mountain states. It is not because they cannot tolerate cold...because they do well in some midwest lakes that are even colder in the winter. It is just that they don't have enough of the right kind of groceries throughout an entire year to sustain them. If the food chain gets a broken link it won't hold the load.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Anyone who has fished truly fertile lakes in other states...after fishing Utah and Idaho...is amazed at the multiple species of forage items available year round, compared to what we have. There is always something in a harvestable cycle to keep the fishies fed throughout the year.[/#0000ff]
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I know of a spot in Wyoming where the Game and Fish has repeatedley tried to get cutthroats established. I guess it never has had them although it drains into a cutthroat river. The only thing they can figure out why they have not been successful is that the water is to cold for insect life/food for the fish. The main fork of the creek is coming out of a mountain/cliff as a spring deep inside and a nice hole on this creek downstream from there some miles is as cold in August as a meltoff stream in June. If you were to walk this creek it just looks like a prime classic trout stream you see in your daydreams. Not to big or small, plenty of deep holes around bends, just plain gorgeous....a perfect example and not a fish around. I was very curious and asked around and that is what I was told. Would be interesting to go up some time and turn over rocks just to see what one would find.
I have also heard, like you say, that many of our reservoirs with the fluctuations in water level that occur yearly never properly establish insect life.
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That certainly makes sense. I would think that overall the inconsistent water levels and lack of forage have a bigger impact on the fish and fishing out here than anything else. I think that rock bass would probably do okay in a lot of the waters here, but as has been said many a time, adding one more predator to an already infertile system probably won't do any good. I still miss the little buggers though.
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cpierce,
I agree that water draw down can play a factor in spawning success for bluegill. Also F&G said cold weather can play a big part in whether largemouth bass have a good successful spawn or not. Twin Lakes appears to be in a down cycle right now but for years it seemed to have a good population of bluegill. But then it only had largemouth bass as a predator, now it has crappie, bass and perch wolfing down the baby bluegills. This surely must be having some kind of major impact upon the bluegill population would you not think? I haven't seen baby bluegill in the shallows like I used to, there just not there anymore. Now the larger bluegills are getting hard to find.
Personally I think Johnson is out of balance. Seems there are a zillion baby bluegill in there now. When I was a kid there was only yellow perch, rainbow trout and largemouth bass and seemed to be a good balance. A lot of people fished for the large perch and the trout were a bonus. More tiger muskie or bass added back in might help the balance.
DeeCee [fishon]
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I agree Johnson does have an imbalance, that is why I mentioned having a bass limit there. I was thinking more of a slot limit than anything else. If the bass are allowed to grow big enough to eat the the 3" bluegills before they are harvested we might see a change. Even as it is I really like Johnson. It is such a nice little reservoir.
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