Alabama bass?

[TnRiver46]

Sometimes species expand their native range naturally, then what do you call it??? Alabama bass can spill over a dam or swim thru a lock . We have armadillos slowly expanding their range into east TN. Oh the horror!!!!

 

it’s actually all about habitat but nobody except pat brown and woody B have mentioned that, the “biologists” certainly haven’t. Habitat is all about food and herring and spotted bass together like peanut butter and jelly. 
 

 

another hilarious part of this discussion to me : 

 

Internet fishermen: if you put bass in a livewell and haul them around they almost certainly die 

 

also internet fishermen: if you put an Alabama  bass in a 5 gallon bucket it will spread like wildfire and make a million babies 

 

 

 

don’t believe everything you read or hear, stop and think critically and as always follow the money 

[MassBass]

On 10/10/2023 at 11:25 AM, king fisher said:

This is true, but I believe most, of the time an invasive species has a negative effect on the native species.  Most of the time anglers simply adapt to the change, and don't really care about the effect on the native species, especially if the native species is small, does not bite topwater, and tastes bad.  An example of this is the Northern Pike Minnow ( previously know as Squaw fish) in the Columbia River drainage.  Introduction of bass and walleye have biologists concerned about the effect these species have on trout and salmon, but no one cares about the Northern Pike Minnow.  They even have a bounty on them, paid by the power companies that built the dams, because they prey on the salmon and trout smolt.  Why are people not concerned about them?  Don't they have mothers too?  The reason is their mothers are ugly, small, don't fight well, and taste horrible. 

     

     

I have to disagree about the lowly Pike minnow, this was a once great fish, co-evolved for millenia with salmon and steelhead, and decimated by bounties, like many other once great predators of the American West.

 

Edit to add, when I was out there was an all-time bad year for summer steelhead, maybe the worst ever, without the Pike minnows the streams would have nothing there. Sorry to deviate from The South's issues with their bass.

[Zodiack]

On 9/25/2023 at 5:41 PM, JGD said:

Anyone see this? A little long but pretty interesting if not a little concerning.

 

John

Basically they doing the jiggy with it.

[Woody B]

Some recent catches have me thinking about Alabama/Spotted bass and competition for forage.  There's PLENTY of forage, Shad, Bluegill, ect in the lake I fish most often........but I've noticed that the Spots I catch are usually fairly fat, but the LM's I catch tend to be thin.   I'm not blaming the Spots, but it's strange to me.    The 2 bass pictured were caught yesterday on back to back casts.  Both fish are similar, on the fattness scale to what I've been catching lately for each species.   I'll have to look through my pictures but I don't recall catching a fat LM since spring.  Perhaps just differences in individual bass, but pictures others post of LM's caught where there's no Spots have plenty of fat bass pictures.   I've also notices that @TnRiver46's small mouths are skinny, but @A-Jay's aren't.  Are northern bass or any species just fatter this time of year than southern bass?   

[TnRiver46]

Southern SMB are always way skinnier than the ones where gobies live. Even in February when ours are fat, they still don’t compare. This was the case before Alabama bass “existed”

[TnRiver46]

 

Out here fighting the good fight , fish is in the freezer ( prob a ky spot)

[gim]

On 10/20/2023 at 11:51 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Southern SMB are always way skinnier than the ones where gobies live.

I think there is more to it than that. Your smallmouth are river fish if I’m not mistaken. River brownies generally have a skinnier profile to battle the current than their lake cousins. The smallmouth I target here on inland waters do not eat gobies because there aren’t any. They primarily eat crayfish with some perch mixed in. The photo below is a smallmouth I caught in May. No gobies.

[TnRiver46]

12 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I think there is more to it than that. Your smallmouth are river fish if I’m not mistaken. River brownies generally have a skinnier profile to battle the current than their lake cousins. The smallmouth I target here on inland waters do not eat gobies because there aren’t any. They primarily eat crayfish with some perch mixed in. The photo below is a smallmouth I caught in May. No gobies.

Yes they are river fish, we have no lakes only reservoirs 

[A-Jay]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:41 PM, Woody B said:

Some recent catches have me thinking about Alabama/Spotted bass and competition for forage.  There's PLENTY of forage, Shad, Bluegill, ect in the lake I fish most often........but I've noticed that the Spots I catch are usually fairly fat, but the LM's I catch tend to be thin.   I'm not blaming the Spots, but it's strange to me.    The 2 bass pictured were caught yesterday on back to back casts.  Both fish are similar, on the fattness scale to what I've been catching lately for each species.   I'll have to look through my pictures but I don't recall catching a fat LM since spring.  Perhaps just differences in individual bass, but pictures others post of LM's caught where there's no Spots have plenty of fat bass pictures.   I've also notices that @TnRiver46's small mouths are skinny, but @A-Jay's aren't.  Are northern bass or any species just fatter this time of year than southern bass?   

The bigger inland lakes here that are 'connected' to the Great Lakes (rivers) have gobies and the smb get pretty big on those water.

But several of the smaller lakes I fish are not connected, have no gobies  but still get pretty beefy.

This fish is a perfect example - caught last November . . .

Finally I use a wide angle camera lens and hold the fish very close to the camera,

so there's a good bit of that going on here too.

In other words, all I every catch is little dink bass. 

A-Jay

 

 

 

[WRB]

The current California/World Record Alabama Spotted record is 11 lbs 4 oz. TheAlabama Spotted bass found a home here.

Tom

[AlabamaSpothunter]

I wonder if the right climate exists to grow a Meanmouth that would break both the SM and Alabama Bass WRs.

 

If you could introduce the two at the same time and capitalize on that F1 hybrid vigor, I'd love to see how big they could get.  An F1/Tiger/Gorilla Bass can be almost twice the size of its NLGM parentage.    I've never heard data suggest an F1 can grow larger than a FLGM though, but we are just now cracking the code to habitat, climate, genetics, and forage in terms of places that could grow Black Bass future WRs.   

 

IIrc, they pulled a 7-8lb Meanmouth out of O.H. Ivie.

 

This reply is the exact reason why the N.C. DNC officials are laying in their beds wide awake 🤣

[thediscochef]

On 10/8/2023 at 5:24 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Nope sure don’t believe him. He sounds like a psychic with a crystal ball, foremost my foot. I posted a link to Toledo bend regs that included Alabama bass, you can’t tell them apart by just looking 

^bingo. They always throw out that “we will lose billions” just like the Asian carp that they were so afraid of, even tho they could have just closed the locks and stopped them immediately. 

Not trying to start anything here, but this stuck out to me and I'm bored/awake enough to write a whole freaking essay, wow what a nerd I am. I would like to preface with the reminder that I have no formal education about anything and I don't know any biologists. Any assertions I'm about to make are based on public information and personal experience at these water bodies.

We do have some Alabamas in Texas, though maybe not in the places you would think. Actually just one place, in a desolate region southeast of Lubbock. It's an interesting case study, in that they did not outpace largemouth populations per TPWD surveys. In 1996, Texas Parks and Wildlife was trying to figure out what to do with their newest reservoir, Lake Alan Henry. They obtained 150 "Alabama Spotted Bass" to stock in that reservoir, and before long people were catching 5+lb "Bama Spots" from it. I believe it is the only stocking of kentucky or alabama bass that TPWD has ever performed. A time consuming search of TPWD records from 1987-2023 returned only this one stocking, though I am human.

A few interesting points:
-A 2021 survey report on the sub-3k acre reservoir revealed that catch rates of LMB doubled those of Alabama Bass. In major flood years, Alabama Bass see a spike in catch rate, but in stable reservoir conditions the LM still prevail. The lake was initially only stocked with gizzard shad and bluegill, threadfin have been introduced but have not taken hold particularly well. So, limited forage species, Alabama Bass, and yet the LM still dominate catch rates - though no specimens over 18" were collected in 2021
-Alan Henry is a headwater of the Brazos River system, when there is water in the river below the dam, it flows into more reservoirs. There have been no reports of migration of the Alabama Bass, but that river is bone-dry unless there's a major rain event. Alan Henry is the place to stock Alabamas if you didn't want them to spread easily - there is very little water for miles in every direction

-If you read the texas forums about Alan Henry, they swear up and down that the Alabama Bass have taken over/ruined the fishery, but TPWD survey would suggest that Alabama bass are simply more aggressive than LM and not more numerous. Let us not forget that some LM do actually learn from watching other fish eat lures. While the survey would suggest that the growth of LM is limited in the presence of ALB, the experiences of the fishermen could just as easily be due to heightened awareness among larger LM as they watch their smaller dumber cousins eat napkins.

-Texas Parks and Wildlife has a vested interest in monitoring the movement of Alabama Bass, as they can hybridize with Guadalupe Bass. TPWD did enough damage to the native Guadalupe genes with the SM stocking frenzy of the 80s - much more and the species will no longer exist untainted in the wild. I would make the assertion that they are keeping an eye on what types of black bass show up on major tournament reservoirs like Toledo Bend, too, as this is directly tied to TPWD revenue. As far as ALB in Toledo goes, I see it one of five ways:

    -the reservoir ecology is so unfavorable for ALB that they do not exceed the size of average spotted bass

    -ALB population is so low that none of the 1000s of tournament anglers, hobbyists, guides, etc have ever identifiably caught one;
   -They exist in size and numbers but nobody (including TPWD) has caught one or noticed an uptick in size/numbers of "spotted" bass, maybe louisiana stocked them and they stay east of the river? 
   -There are mostly hybridized ALB that do not reach standard ALB size
   -TPWD has a regulation posted for a fish that has never been observed/doesn't exist statistically in the reservoir (I personally think it's this one based on what I've seen at other TPWD-managed waters alone). Why would they do this, you ask? I return with the question of "what has texas really ever done that made sense?"

Toledo Bend also has a regulation for Guadalupe Bass, and we know there are none present - their range does not extend anywhere near that river system, they've never been officially stocked, never been caught, never been observed in a survey, nothing. Guadalupe regs are actually posted at Meridian State Park Lake, which has never and will never support a reproducing GB population. I was there two weeks ago. While this isn't definitive, I would suggest that if there were any statistically significant Alabama populations in Toledo Bend the lake record would almost certainly be larger than the current 3.4lbs. Given the amount of tournament pressure and coverage that lake receives I feel like someone would have noticed ALB by now.

Best I can tell from my uneducated digging when it comes to the potential impacts of Alabama bass, it really IS all about the specific water body just like you said before. Things don't thrive where they can't. Different reservoirs on the same river system fish differently for a reason, and the impact/success of Alabama Bass really is a 100% ecological determination.

 

14 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

I wonder if the right climate exists to grow a Meanmouth that would break both the SM and Alabama Bass WRs.

 

If you could introduce the two at the same time and capitalize on that F1 hybrid vigor, I'd love to see how big they could get.  An F1/Tiger/Gorilla Bass can be almost twice the size of its NLGM parentage.    I've never heard data suggest an F1 can grow larger than a FLGM though, but we are just now cracking the code to habitat, climate, genetics, and forage in terms of places that could grow Black Bass future WRs.   

 

IIrc, they pulled a 7-8lb Meanmouth out of O.H. Ivie.

 

This reply is the exact reason why the N.C. DNC officials are laying in their beds wide awake 🤣

Brady Stanford, 2/22/23, 11lb 1oz 24.75" OH Ivie meanmouth

[Pat Brown]

Trout or Golden Shiners or Tilapia seem to be the conditions that could produce a WR bass IMHO.  😉If Ivey ever started stocking lots of trout, there would be a 30 caught within a few years probably.

[Woody B]

Maybe there's more to "thick" vs "thin" bass than just location.  A-Jay is thin, his bass are thick.  I'm "think" my bass are thin.   LOL

 

The interesting thing for me it "most" of the Alabama/Spotted Bass I catch are fat.  Most of the Largemouth Bass I catch are thin.   There's plenty of forage so it's not like the Spots are eating all the available food.   I caught a 22 inch long 5 pound Largemouth back in June.   Last Winter I caught a 4 pound 15 ounce Spot that was 19 1/4 inches long.   Some of the smaller largemouth I catch are fat, but the bigger ones are almost always thin.  The only thin spots I catch are 10 inches long.  I've only caught 1 fat, and big (by my standards) Largemouth this year.  It was 6 pounds even and only 20 inches long.  

[TnRiver46]

I should have said SMB from the north are always fatter regardless of what they eat, just the way it is

 

good digging @thediscochef, y’all got quite a hodgepodge of DNA down there 

[Pat Brown]

Certain forage requires effort to chase down and certain forage is 'slow moving and bad at evading predators'

 

I believe Herring are very fast and good at evasion as are threadfin and gizzard shad.  You need something fatty and abundant and slow moving that largemouth bass enjoy eating AND less competition overall for those tasty swimming morsels.

 

Spotted bass are just more efficient hunters than LMB.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

9 hours ago, thediscochef said:

Not trying to start anything here, but this stuck out to me and I'm bored/awake enough to write a whole freaking essay, wow what a nerd I am. I would like to preface with the reminder that I have no formal education about anything and I don't know any biologists. Any assertions I'm about to make are based on public information and personal experience at these water bodies.

We do have some Alabamas in Texas, though maybe not in the places you would think. Actually just one place, in a desolate region southeast of Lubbock. It's an interesting case study, in that they did not outpace largemouth populations per TPWD surveys. In 1996, Texas Parks and Wildlife was trying to figure out what to do with their newest reservoir, Lake Alan Henry. They obtained 150 "Alabama Spotted Bass" to stock in that reservoir, and before long people were catching 5+lb "Bama Spots" from it. I believe it is the only stocking of kentucky or alabama bass that TPWD has ever performed. A time consuming search of TPWD records from 1987-2023 returned only this one stocking, though I am human.

A few interesting points:
-A 2021 survey report on the sub-3k acre reservoir revealed that catch rates of LMB doubled those of Alabama Bass. In major flood years, Alabama Bass see a spike in catch rate, but in stable reservoir conditions the LM still prevail. The lake was initially only stocked with gizzard shad and bluegill, threadfin have been introduced but have not taken hold particularly well. So, limited forage species, Alabama Bass, and yet the LM still dominate catch rates - though no specimens over 18" were collected in 2021
-Alan Henry is a headwater of the Brazos River system, when there is water in the river below the dam, it flows into more reservoirs. There have been no reports of migration of the Alabama Bass, but that river is bone-dry unless there's a major rain event. Alan Henry is the place to stock Alabamas if you didn't want them to spread easily - there is very little water for miles in every direction

-If you read the texas forums about Alan Henry, they swear up and down that the Alabama Bass have taken over/ruined the fishery, but TPWD survey would suggest that Alabama bass are simply more aggressive than LM and not more numerous. Let us not forget that some LM do actually learn from watching other fish eat lures. While the survey would suggest that the growth of LM is limited in the presence of ALB, the experiences of the fishermen could just as easily be due to heightened awareness among larger LM as they watch their smaller dumber cousins eat napkins.

-Texas Parks and Wildlife has a vested interest in monitoring the movement of Alabama Bass, as they can hybridize with Guadalupe Bass. TPWD did enough damage to the native Guadalupe genes with the SM stocking frenzy of the 80s - much more and the species will no longer exist untainted in the wild. I would make the assertion that they are keeping an eye on what types of black bass show up on major tournament reservoirs like Toledo Bend, too, as this is directly tied to TPWD revenue. As far as ALB in Toledo goes, I see it one of five ways:

    -the reservoir ecology is so unfavorable for ALB that they do not exceed the size of average spotted bass

    -ALB population is so low that none of the 1000s of tournament anglers, hobbyists, guides, etc have ever identifiably caught one;
   -They exist in size and numbers but nobody (including TPWD) has caught one or noticed an uptick in size/numbers of "spotted" bass, maybe louisiana stocked them and they stay east of the river? 
   -There are mostly hybridized ALB that do not reach standard ALB size
   -TPWD has a regulation posted for a fish that has never been observed/doesn't exist statistically in the reservoir (I personally think it's this one based on what I've seen at other TPWD-managed waters alone). Why would they do this, you ask? I return with the question of "what has texas really ever done that made sense?"

Toledo Bend also has a regulation for Guadalupe Bass, and we know there are none present - their range does not extend anywhere near that river system, they've never been officially stocked, never been caught, never been observed in a survey, nothing. Guadalupe regs are actually posted at Meridian State Park Lake, which has never and will never support a reproducing GB population. I was there two weeks ago. While this isn't definitive, I would suggest that if there were any statistically significant Alabama populations in Toledo Bend the lake record would almost certainly be larger than the current 3.4lbs. Given the amount of tournament pressure and coverage that lake receives I feel like someone would have noticed ALB by now.

Best I can tell from my uneducated digging when it comes to the potential impacts of Alabama bass, it really IS all about the specific water body just like you said before. Things don't thrive where they can't. Different reservoirs on the same river system fish differently for a reason, and the impact/success of Alabama Bass really is a 100% ecological determination.

 

Brady Stanford, 2/22/23, 11lb 1oz 24.75" OH Ivie meanmouth

Oh wow, lot bigger than I thought.   Thanks.  

[thediscochef]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I should have said SMB from the north are always fatter regardless of what they eat, just the way it is

 

good digging @thediscochef, y’all got quite a hodgepodge of DNA down there 

Thanks. I learned a lot. TPWD has done some wild stuff - they used to stock walleye in DFW!

There's a LM strain they found with some unique genes in a small pond somewhere near Fort Worth that TPWD collected to add into their programs back in the 80s or 90s. They called it Kemp's Largemouth. There are so many genetics down here and they're so mixed up in some places that you could probably classify a unique species somewhere in the state. 

[thediscochef]

A guy caught an 11.7# Largemouth from Lake Alan Henry on Saturday 😃

[TnRiver46]

8 hours ago, thediscochef said:

A guy caught an 11.7# Largemouth from Lake Alan Henry on Saturday 😃

Reckon it ate a 3 lb Alabama bass? 

[thediscochef]

😂😂