11-05-2018, 07:52 PM
[quote tigerpincer]Awesome information here. TX. Curious as to why no mention of SM Bass? Is this cause they tend to stay in the rocks and don't get caught up in the nets, are there numbers lower than that if the perch or other reasons?[/quote]
[#0000FF]I asked Chris about the bass...smallmouths AND largemouths. Both are in Willard, but smallies are in greater numbers. I also questioned a comment he made about catfish not spawning as well in higher water years. My observations have been that they usually spawn BETTER when the water is higher up into the rocks of the dike. Here is his response. (Thanks again, Chris)[/#0000FF]
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Good question. My window of observations on the catfish is shorter than yours, but my observations during the drought years were that we saw better catfish recruitment in those years than when the water was up (i.e., more young cats in the gill nets). I've got a working theory on this, which is that the lower water level in the drought years allows the water to warm up quicker and gives the cats an earlier start to their spawn. There was a graduate student that studied channel catfish spawning in Willard Bay many years ago and he found that instead of using the holes in the rocks along the face of the dike, the catfish prefer to use the interface between the rocks and the bottom substrate, so it appears the available spawning habitat for catfish stays pretty much the same whether the water is up or down. With this in mind, the shallower the water, the quicker that area at the bottom of the rocks warms up. Like I said though, you may have more years of observation than me and this is not something we have studied intensely - it's more just a few observations and a theory so I am in no way saying my theory should be taken as gospel.
Regarding the bass, we see some in our nets but it is much the same story as the yellow perch which is that we don't have enough to really draw any conclusions. I think this is less a bass numbers thing than it is a gear thing as I'm pretty sure there are tons of them making a pretty good living along the dike. Smallmouth and largemouth bass are both very visual predators and they move a lot less compared to the fish like wiper, walleye, and catfish. Because of those two things, they are much less likely to get caught in gill nets as they can usually see and avoid the net and they don't move around enough to get tangled in them often either. That is why biologists use electrofishing to survey bass populations, as with electrofishing we are actively traveling the shoreline to intercept and catch them instead of waiting for them to run into a net.
Chris
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[#0000FF]I asked Chris about the bass...smallmouths AND largemouths. Both are in Willard, but smallies are in greater numbers. I also questioned a comment he made about catfish not spawning as well in higher water years. My observations have been that they usually spawn BETTER when the water is higher up into the rocks of the dike. Here is his response. (Thanks again, Chris)[/#0000FF]
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Good question. My window of observations on the catfish is shorter than yours, but my observations during the drought years were that we saw better catfish recruitment in those years than when the water was up (i.e., more young cats in the gill nets). I've got a working theory on this, which is that the lower water level in the drought years allows the water to warm up quicker and gives the cats an earlier start to their spawn. There was a graduate student that studied channel catfish spawning in Willard Bay many years ago and he found that instead of using the holes in the rocks along the face of the dike, the catfish prefer to use the interface between the rocks and the bottom substrate, so it appears the available spawning habitat for catfish stays pretty much the same whether the water is up or down. With this in mind, the shallower the water, the quicker that area at the bottom of the rocks warms up. Like I said though, you may have more years of observation than me and this is not something we have studied intensely - it's more just a few observations and a theory so I am in no way saying my theory should be taken as gospel.
Regarding the bass, we see some in our nets but it is much the same story as the yellow perch which is that we don't have enough to really draw any conclusions. I think this is less a bass numbers thing than it is a gear thing as I'm pretty sure there are tons of them making a pretty good living along the dike. Smallmouth and largemouth bass are both very visual predators and they move a lot less compared to the fish like wiper, walleye, and catfish. Because of those two things, they are much less likely to get caught in gill nets as they can usually see and avoid the net and they don't move around enough to get tangled in them often either. That is why biologists use electrofishing to survey bass populations, as with electrofishing we are actively traveling the shoreline to intercept and catch them instead of waiting for them to run into a net.
Chris
[signature]