Results of landmark LMB study released

[Paul Roberts]

There are a fair amount of tournament mortality studies. From what I remember it was higher than I'd expected. Team9nine has those studies on hand. I gotta run here (little boy just woke); I'll post a link to some of this shortly, unless Brian beats me to it.

[tyrius.]

[quote author=1726322B15282522353334470 link=1239807122/22#22 date=1239850702

If angling impacts nest success by catching the male (as the research in this case stated occurs) then one would expect a difference in relative success between HV and LV male bass. If LV bass fail to raise broods and HV succeed, there is selection at work, at the hands of anglers.

[Catt]

Conventional knowledge indicates that the male bass builds the nest, fans it out and guards it (zealously). Generally, a good male that is aggressive and active will attract more than one female to his nest and spawn with each of them. Along with that, an active female will spawn a number of times and, in most cases, in a number of different males' nests. She moves down the shoreline making it with different males. The male sits in one spot and waits for more females to come by. I think that is sort of a hedge (on the part of the female) against an infertile male spoiling the hatch of a good fertile female. So she spread her eggs around and he spreads his fertility around. That ensures a higher success rate for that spawn.

That is important knowledge for fishermen, because most people think that once the female leaves the bed, only the male is left. It is true that the female only guards the nest for a short time before moving away, but other females will come to that nest. The other thing to keep in mind is that this isn't a long, drawn-out process. Once the water reaches the upper 60 degrees, which is ideal, it only takes about three or four days for the eggs to hatch. I think the male will spend about six weeks on the beds as the females rotate through, but the whole spawning season happens over three full moons, bringing a new wave of spawning with get full moon period.

Cook emphasizes that understanding the spawning habits of the female bass will significantly improve your chances of catching some of the biggest bass of the year. He believes that the female often moves on and off of the bed to deposit more eggs (hatchery studies support this claim). Few females drop all of their eggs at once. Instead, they expel a portion and then move off to a near by break line, bush or grass edge.

It is this sporadic purging of eggs and the ability to spawn with different males on several nests that keeps the annual spring bedding season from being severely impacted by large tournaments. Texas Parks & Wildlife Department biologist Clarence Bowling says studies have shown that a female (when handled properly) will simply locate a bed and an available male in the area where she is released and complete spawning.

Quote: Ken Cook, a former Oklahoma fisheries biologist

Cook has read about the spawning habits and habitats of the bass as detailed in technical journals from the scientific world. More importantly, he has gained even more knowledge from countless hours spent on the water observing spawning bass and gauging their reactions to lures, predators, boat presence, changing weather conditions and more.

[Paul Roberts]

Paul Roberts wrote on Yesterday at 10:58pm:

But that is merely selection between two "strains" (HV or LV) it is not necessarily harmful to the overall population numbers.

Unless the writer of the article is completely misrepresenting Phillips his point is:

Philipp recommends that to preserve bass populations across North America, management agencies need to protect the nesting males during the spawning season. "There should be no harvesting bass during the reproductive period. That makes sense for all wildlife populations. You don't remove the adults during reproduction.

Tyrius, I didn't write that. That's not quoting me. Oddly, I can't find that text in the thread!

[mattm]

Well, back to Lake Fork:

If some percentage of the bass population "learn" anything

individually or over generations, then every retarded fish in

Texas would have to call Lake Fork home.

I don't know if fish learn neccesarily, but b/c of the fishing pressure, imo, fish on Fork are considerablly harder to catch most times than they are on other lakes. I'm fortunate enough to get to fish Fork 20-30 times a year, and I'm always amazed how that lake can kick me right in the pants. There is also a great lesser known lake close to me called Ray Roberts. This lake doesn't see 10% of the pressure Fork does and I feel like 10 times the fisherman when I'm on it. The fish are just easier to catch.

[nboucher]

I did hear back from Dave Philipp, one of the study's authors, and he has read this thread. He says he'd love to join the discussion and clarify the study. He's in the field for the next couple of days but says he will register for BR over the weekend and add some posts then. Should be a pretty interesting discussion.

[roadwarrior]

I did hear back from Dave Philipp, one of the study's authors, and he has read this thread. He says he'd love to join the discussion and clarify the study. He's in the field for the next couple of days but says he will register for BR over the weekend and add some posts then. Should be a pretty interesting discussion.

Excellent!

;D ;D

[Paul Roberts]

OK...first, a note to the Moderators. I've been able to post links before and hope that continues so that we can all share good info. This site I'm posting these links from is not a discussion forum so it shouldn't be competition, just a wealth of info to bring to bear on subjects.

I haven't reviewed this stuff very closely as I'm not a tourney angler and T's just don't affect me on my small waters. From what I remember delayed mortality is highest in SM (esp deep caught and warmer water caught), and with LM in high water temps.

From Brian Waldman's (T9) site:

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2008/01/index.html

Water Weigh-Ins: Ouch!

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2007/05/index.html

See: Tourney Impacts...

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:lncSn8XKSUkJ:www2.tntech.edu/fish/PDF/Blackbass.pdf+melissa+kaintz+smallmouth&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2007/06/reservoir_hydro.html

...From now through September, every 8-10 hr tourney will kill between 20-30% of the bass weighed in via delayed mortality. Depending upon all the other combined factors discussed, this may or may not make a difference on some waters. ...

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/used-to-be.html

...

It has been documented in numerous studies that smallmouth are more prone to both initial kill as well as delayed mortality under tournament conditions when compared to largemouth bass. So there is a documented basis from which to make this argument about protecting the smallie resource. Delayed mortality is another issue. Science tells us that once the fish reach the postspawn phase, and then on through the 75-80 degree summer water temps, keeping bass in a tourney livewell, no matter how well maintained is going to kill some fish due to delayed mortality. I don't care how many swam off after you dumped them back into the river, several won't make it. Out of sight, out of mind seems to be the justification of most bassers, but the push for smaller limits is merited, at least through the summer months based on the facts.

...

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2007/07/index.html

...

- Out of 175 bass tournaments on Center Hill Lake, initial bass mortality ranged from 0-16% with an average of 3%. The majority of the bass weighed at Center Hill in tournaments were spotted bass.

- Out of 379 tournaments at Percy Priest, initial bass mortality ranged from 0-23%. The majority of the tournament bass weighed were largemouth.

- Average delayed mortality through the summer tournaments of smallmouth bass on Dale Hollow was 27%. Released smallmouth tend to get the heck away from their release point fairly quickly, with most being many miles away by the 5th day. There seems to be a big issue with the way people still treat fish in their livewells and this might be the reason for the delayed rates, along with summer water temps.

...

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2008/04/page/2/

See: Severity of Barotrauma Influences the Physiological Status, Postrelease Behavior, and Fate of Tournament Caught Smallmouth Bass - Gravel & Cooke

[tyrius.]

Tyrius, I didn't write that. That's not quoting me. Oddly, I can't find that text in the thread!

The second quote is directly from the article linked in the original post.  I wasn't trying to say that you wrote that.  I was saying that the writer of the artice (the one the OP linked) said it.

[tyrius.]

I did hear back from Dave Philipp, one of the study's authors, and he has read this thread. He says he'd love to join the discussion and clarify the study. He's in the field for the next couple of days but says he will register for BR over the weekend and add some posts then. Should be a pretty interesting discussion.

Good news!!  It's always better to get a discussion straight from the source rather than filtered through a summary article.

[Paul Roberts]

I did hear back from Dave Philipp, one of the study's authors, and he has read this thread. He says he'd love to join the discussion and clarify the study. He's in the field for the next couple of days but says he will register for BR over the weekend and add some posts then. Should be a pretty interesting discussion.

Great! Good job on following up on this.

Tyrius, notice it says: "Paul Roberts wrote on Yesterday at 10:58pm:" Obviously an oversight. Just don't want to be mis-quoted.

[hookset on 3]

Interesting article.

I think the statement from the article:

if bass are angled and held off of their nests for more than a few minutes, when they are returned to the lake, it's too late; other fish have found the nest and are quickly eating the babies.

This is true in some waters (with high sunfish density) but not so for waters without. I see both situations existing in adjacent ponds.

I've always had this concern about catching males off beds. While some studies have shown that it only takes a few successful beds on a good hatch year to create a good year class, I have to argue that this argument misses the food value good hatch years can bring to the mature bass in that water body. YOY are great food for mature bass in a lot of ponds I fish. I'd like to see more YOY bass not less. We can cull 'em (for growth of remaining bass) after they grow too large to be considered bass food.

Wherever I've fish, males are vulnerable to anglers and on popular waters many are caught repeatedly and to a state of exhaustion.

Another quote from the article:

"Most of the selection is occurring on the LV fish that is, for the most part, the process is making that line of fish less vulnerable to angling. We actually saw only a small increase in angling vulnerability in the HV line," Philipp said.

I guess I need to see the original article.

Team9nine wrote:

Plus there is the question of if bass catchability were truly inherited to a high degree, after nearly 40 years of tournies and increasing pressure, how is it we can still even catch these green fish to the degree that we do?

I can answer that one. Bass are way more vulnerable to angling under low visibility conditions, and much less so under high vis conditions. We mostly get our licks in under deep overcast, and our butts kicked when it's sunny. We can adapt by fishing deeper, or into cover, but it just isn't the same as a good dark day. Heck, I'll even settle for a light wind ruffling the water sometimes.

Best case scenario: Give me a pond that's NEVER been fished, either sunny or cloudy.

Hello Paul, great idea for a new thread: What's the best virgin water pond you've ever fished?

Hookset