Very Interesting Stuff Out of Oregon

I came across this very intriquing story out of Oregon:

Lunker largemouth roam Lost Creek Lake

It brought up several questions/comments in my mind:

"We really don't want them taken out right away," Johnson says. "We want to see them have a chance. It was probably poor timing for us to put them there before Memorial Day weekend," he says.

Why can't they just put in place some type of mandatory catch and release practice for that lake on largemouth bass, possible even an 'emergency' ruling?

Still, the original stocking of rainbow trout and largemouth bass proved effective as largemouth feasted on fingerling rainbows and grew to become the largest largemouth in Oregon.

Interesting given their more northerly latitude. Perhaps the rainbow trout/giant largemouth bass relationship occurs regardless of locale? Also note that Yoder's two big swimbait bass featured on this site from Indiana both came from a pit stocked with rainbows.

Sometime in the mid 1980s, someone illegally released smallmouth bass in the reservoir, where they felt at home among the rocks and didn't struggle with fluctuating summer water levels as much as largemouth do. By the mid-1990s, smallmouth bass were everywhere and only a few big largemouth remained. Smallmouth were feasting on juvenile largemouth, and by 1997 the fishery was all but gone, another casualty to renegade fish-stocking.

Sucks from a bait bucket/armchair biologist point of view. Around here though it is usually illegal shad stockings. Still, we anglers need to realize that outside their native range, largemouth or smallmouth aren't necessarily a good thing. If they're not already in a body of water, there is probably a good reason why.

On the other hand, a very cool scenario playing out where smallmouth are severly outcompeting largemouth in a given environment or habitat situation. Probably not unlike the spotted bass saga in many mid-central and  southern reservoirs, as well as what happens in the lower ends of impoundments (SE US) where trophic levels are low.

Since then, groups like Johnson's committee have helped ODFW biologists catch bass in other lakes and release them into the reservoir.

Don't try this at home kids :) It is almost always frowned upon to transfer fish from one body of water to another, even when waters are very close to each other. The risk of transfer of some type of previously unintroduced pathogen/virus/critter/etc. is too great. Interesting that they would publicly mention this fact, though there are very few other ways in which to get mature bass into a body of water as cost to rear to that size would be prohibitive. On the other hand, you could also argue that fish reared in ponds on DNR properties that then subsequently get stocked into state waters is in essence no different than what is occurring here.

"They've been catching them so easily because all those Davis Lake fish have seen are flies," Johnson says. "They've never seen spinner baits before."

How cool is that? Conditioning? Pressure effects? To what level does this apparent conditioning really effect bass biting? For example, when some company comes out with a completely new worm design, is it really different enough via some cue that fish will bite it better than all the other commonly thrown worms? What about newly introduced colors on already existing and well utilized baits?

They also are planting willows and sinking discarded Christmas trees by the thousands each winter to create more largemouth habitat in the moonscape lake bed.

Can you really change just the basic cover in a lake and subsequently override other more seemingly dominant habitat characteristics enough to change a fishery? Would not things like water clarity, forage base and trophic level trump cover? IDNR has documented a slight increase in abundance of smallmouth bass over the years at both Monroe and especially at Patoka, explained presently by time and washing/removing some of the silt/dirt covering the underlying bedrock. Exposing more of this material and changing basic substrate seems to have created better habiatat conditions for the smallies in these reservoirs. 

Comments

[Paul Roberts]

The CO state record N LM is 11-4 (and reportedly only 22.5" long). I am told it came from a trout stocked lake at surprisingly high elevation (7500). The same guy told me that the angler has also caught another DD LM from this small res.