# Lower Trinity Stripers



## P (Nov 18, 2012)

Can any one tell me what month the stripers move up to the LLD haven't ever caught a keeper and I hear that's a fair spot to bag a nice one . What is a good bait live or art.


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

TP&W arrives at the LLD om the first work day nearest April 6th every year to collect their striper brood fish. This year it should be on the 7th. The two weeks prior to that date is normally the best fishing.
BUT.......a lot depends on water flow. Too low and you can't reach them against the weir. (rocks)
Too high and it is near impossible to fish.
TP&W has full cooperation of TRA. So they can take their boats right up to the weir or in case of high water TRA will temporarily close the gates.
Also it is not a good idea to be there in a boat while they are shocking fish. They frown on unsolicited help.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

So there is a resident stripper population in the lower trinity? Or do they just fall out of lake Livingston on accident?


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## P (Nov 18, 2012)

thanks ill mark it on my calendar


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## big-john (Jan 6, 2011)

alanmacias541 said:


> So there is a resident stripper population in the lower trinity? Or do they just fall out of lake Livingston on accident?


They are doing studies atm to figure that out...they think at least a few may be successfully spawning from what I've heard


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Interesting. ..you'd think it'd be too hot for striper but maybe??? A gentleman told me he fishes for white bass out of lake anuhuac so I suppose everything is possible


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## stuckinfreeport (Sep 13, 2012)

There are far too many small stripers below the dam for them not to be hatching. Before they moved the cable back in the late 70's, catching a 25 to 30 lber was not difficult. We used to fish off the rocks on the west side and kill them. What you don't see anymore down there is the hybrids. Used to catch a bunch of them also. They are all fun to catch, but too bloody for me. Never keep them anymore when I do catch them.


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## pYr8 (Apr 17, 2012)

Them LLD stripers head to homes all over the state. Kinda wish they'd take to reproducing in lakes other than Texoma


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

I imagine tpwd gets right up close to the dam which is where I imagine all the stripers are; I have been fishing below LLD 5 times and caught nothing but buffalo while picking up loads of trash littering the bank...the fish are definitely beating me...maybe a boat is the only way you can catch fish out there


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## pYr8 (Apr 17, 2012)

Yeah, get in a boat, head right up to the cable & cast 100 yards of line out :rotfl:


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

alanmacias541 said:


> So there is a resident stripper population in the lower trinity? Or do they just fall out of lake Livingston on accident?


They don't get there by accident. They are a species that lives in salt water and spawns in the river system. All of the stripers in the lower Trinity are fish that matured in the lake and intentional when down stream when the gates were open to release flood water.
They range up and down the river from the dam to Wallisville. TP&W tagged and tracked 50 fish some years ago. They know their survival range in the river very well.
Right after Rita damaged the LL dam which caused an emergency release of water most of the stripers left the lake.
That fall after the water cleared from the flood fisherman caught hundreds of stripers in Trinity Bay. It was a bonanza.

A few interesting facts about the LL and lower Trinity stripers:

They are all siblings or cousins. All fry produced in Texas hatcheries come from LL stilling basin brood fish. Those brood fish come from Texas hatcheries. An unbroken circle.

They originated from 100 fish brought to Arkansas from Santee- Cooper in the 1960's.

In over 14 years of test netting in the LL TP&W has never caught a 30 inch or larger striper.

There are a few fish that eventually exceed 30 inches below the dam. But they have not caught a fish over six years old in the stilling basin. The normal life span of a wild striper is 20 years.

The LL record is only 31.5 pounds caught in March 1986. Twenty eight years ago! A fish that size from a north Texas or Arkansas lake would end up on the cleaning table.

The first striper stocked in Texas were from Arkansas hatcheries. Those fish grew fast and accounted for all of the existing lake records. Our fish are so inbred that they will never reach record size. The extreme hot weather over stresses them and they die very young.

The hybrids in LL are natural cross breeds from the upper river white bass spawning run or escapees from the upper lake system. Hybrids were never stocked in LL.

One of our biologist once commented to me that he has heard stories about large stripers being caught on trot lines but he wonders why there has never been any photographic proof. Just aquatic myths.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Great information Sunbeam thank you. I remember you mentioning the wild hybridization that occurs resulting in the hybrids we see at Lock-N-Dam. I saw plenty of folks (not me unfortunately) take some nice sunshine hybrid fish home the times I went to lock n dam last year. They were big and had nice fat bellies. I can't for the life of me understand the lack of investment in genetic diversity for the stripers here in Texas. I mean I am sure they could buy a few from a couple different states in order to strengthen the gene pool. Makes no sense. Buy a couple from MA, a few from AR, and maybe even a few of those Northern California stripers in order for the fishery to actualize its true potential. Regarding the overheating of the stripers in Lake Livingston: why not just stock hybrids, which from my understanding have a much higher tolerance for heat, and avoid the loss on the TPWD investment that is striped bass??


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

The reason for no new blood line is more confusing. TP&W still feels that some of the original stripers from below the LL dam might contain genes of the lost or possibly extinct subspecies that once roamed our Texas gulf coast. They were a few fish from that strain that were still being caught and sold off Port Aransas area as late as 1960. It might be possible that they were still coming up the Trinity as late as 1977 when the first stripers were stocked in LL. I would think that gene pool would be so diluted as to be nonexistent today. But that is their story and they are sticking to it.
One biologist told my son that he thought they wanted fish of the size now being produced since they are easier to handle and transport plus they have some built in resistance to the heat not found in northern stripers.
So if you have a burning desire to catch a 30 pound plus striper better head north to Arkansas because it does not swim in Texas waters.


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## redexpress (Apr 5, 2010)

Call me cynical, but I think they could solve the native issue fairly quick with DNA tests. 
I would think Santee-Cooper stripers would have close to the heat resistance required for Lake Livingston. Throw a few of them in the gene pool.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Sunbeam said:


> The reason for no new blood line is more confusing. TP&W still feels that some of the original stripers from below the LL dam might contain genes of the lost or possibly extinct subspecies that once roamed our Texas gulf coast. They were a few fish from that strain that were still being caught and sold off Port Aransas area as late as 1960. It might be possible that they were still coming up the Trinity as late as 1977 when the first stripers were stocked in LL. I would think that gene pool would be so diluted as to be nonexistent today. But that is their story and they are sticking to it.
> One biologist told my son that he thought they wanted fish of the size now being produced since they are easier to handle and transport plus they have some built in resistance to the heat not found in northern stripers.
> So if you have a burning desire to catch a 30 pound plus striper better head north to Arkansas because it does not swim in Texas waters.


The gulf strain of stripers is long gone. A simple DNA test could resolve the issue. I have read ShadSlinger's (and please correct me if I bespeak you Loy) advice to those catching stripers in the summer to not release keeper fish since they have a high mortality rate. I don't see the extra hardiness if these fish cannot survive a catch and release. Therefore why not expand the gene pool. There is one place in texas where you can find larger stripers: the Guadalupe Tailrace below canyon lake. Check out this link:

http://**********************/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/9640499/another_big_striper#Post9640499

This gentlemen posts the largest pictures of stripers I have seen in Texas. Maybe that could be an area where they promote trophy striper fishing?? Who knows but at least this post shows that such fish CAN be grown in Texas it is just a matter of planting them in the right place.

Back to the issue of Lake Livingston: Plan appears simple: CHANGE LIVINGSTON TO A HYBRID LAKE!!!! If they want stripers in the stilling basin in order to pluck them for their breeding program then they could stock them below the dam. Shouldn't be too hard right? Obviously I am not a biologist and unqualified to make any requests based on scientific evidence; I just think a resource should be utilized to its fullest potential whatever that potential may be.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

alanmacias541 said:


> The gulf strain of stripers is long gone. A simple DNA test could resolve the issue. I have read ShadSlinger's (and please correct me if I bespeak you Loy) advice to those catching stripers in the summer to not release keeper fish since they have a high mortality rate. I don't see the extra hardiness if these fish cannot survive a catch and release. Therefore why not expand the gene pool. There is one place in texas where you can find larger stripers: the Guadalupe Tailrace below canyon lake. Check out this link:
> 
> http://**********************/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/9640499/another_big_striper#Post9640499
> 
> ...


Link won't work for a thread on TFF. If anyone knows how to enable it please let me know


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Here is the picture since I cannot figure out the link


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## Bankin' On It (Feb 14, 2013)

Well heck I see the problem...

**cuts one pant leg off cargo pants**

It's on now!

I keed I keed. That's a big fish. Wow.


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## Lake Livingston Adventures (Mar 15, 2013)

Now here is an argument worth having. I think you guys are spot on with the hybrid thing. I reached out to the TPWD with the same questions a while back. Here was their response. I believe lake Livingston would be one of the best hybrid fisheries in the state if they were introduced.




Hello Bob,

My name is Chris Richardson. Iâ€™m 26 and grew up in Livingston and fished lake Livingston very frequently. I saw on the TPWD website that you guys are conduction a study on the survival rate of stripers in lake Livingston and am interested in your findings. I fished that lake hard from around 1998 to 2006 and still fish it about 10 weekends a year and have never caught a striper over about 10 Pounds. Very few have been that large, although we catch our limit quite often. I always thought those were big until I moved to Athens and started fishing lakes like Whitney and Tawakoni. We regularly catch stripers on Whitney to 15 pounds and catch some on Twok that size. Iâ€™ve looked at past stocking history and it seems that Livingston gets 3 times as many stripers as those lakes but it just doesnâ€™t produce the same quality of fish. I can understand why whitney would be a better habitat for stripers with deeper water and a possible natural spawn but it seems to me that Tawakoni and Livingston are very similar lakes with large amounts of shad, big relatively shallow south ends, lots of catfish, and stained water.

All of this information leads me to this. Has the state considered dropping the stocking of striped bass in lake Livingston and beginning to stock Hybrid Bass? I Fish Cedar Creek, Richland Chambers, Palestine, and Tawakoni on regular basis and the Hybrid fishing is great. These fish seem to thrive much better in the warm Texas waters than stripers. These fish are only stocked in the 100,000 to 200,000 per year range and these lakes are full of them. Their survival rate has to be much higher and their weights in Texas max out to well over 10 pounds. I feel that if half the numbers of hybrids were stocked in Livingston than the current stripers it would be twice the fishery that it is now.

I love my hometown lake and hope to move back there eventually and possibly do some guide fishing. If any information from local fishermen would aid you in your studies please let me know. I would be happy to volunteer my time and know others that would as well.

Thanks

Chris Richardson

Response

Hello Chris,

Bob forwarded your email to me because I am not only the Statewide Stocking coordinator but I also oversee the striped bass broodfish collection each year below Livingston. To answer your question:

1. Has the state considered dropping the stocking of striped bass in lake Livingston and beginning to stock Hybrid Bass? The lake Livingston tailrace, as your probably aware, is where we collect our striped bass broodfish each year in support of the statewide striped bass and hybrid striped bass stocking program. In fact, since the early 80â€™s the Livingston Tailrace has been our primary and best location for collecting adult striped bass for statewide hatchery production; there is no other location in the state where we can typically count on collecting the numbers and sizes of striped bass needed for the stocking program. Because of this Lake Livingston is always the top priority in terms of stocking pure striped bass. It is believed that the tailrace fishery or striped bass population is mostly maintained by striped bass that are stocked into the lake proper that grow to one or two years of age and then pass through the Dam during flow releases. The survival study you refer to in your email is a research project that was developed to see if this is actually the case or is there enough natural reproduction below Lake Livingston to support the tailrace population and to maintain that source of broodstock. Depending on the results of that study, we may or may not be able to reduce the number of striped bass we stock into lake Livingston each year. If we are able to cut back on the number of striped bass stocked into Livingston that would free up additional hatchery production for use at other lakes and that production could be in the form of hybrids rather than pure striped bass. Would we stock Lake Livingston with hybrid striped bass? Probably not, the reason being is because we need PURE striped bass to make the striped bass as well as the hybrid striped bass fingerlings that are stocked into Cedar Creek, Richland Chambers, Palestine, Tawakoni, Whitney and other lakes around the state. Each year as part of the broodfish collection process we conduct genetics analysis on the broodfish that we collect in order to maintain some populations of pure striped bass in the state. Yes, we do see some hybrid striped bass in our broodfish collection efforts but those fish are released and not used for our hatchery production. As you mentioned in your email, I agree that hybrids would do well in Lake Livingston and probably even do better than pure striped bass because they are able to tolerate the warmer water temperatures. However, if we stocked it with hybrids we would be making it more difficult to continue getting pure striped bass in support of our statewide striped bass and hybrid striped bass program. 

I hope I have answered your questions and I appreciate your interest in the striped bass and hybrid striped bass fisheries of the state. Thank you for your offer to assist with this project but at this point all of the data has been collected and we are in the process of analyzing that data and writing up the report. However, I am including Mark Webb, the District Fisheries Biologist who is in charge of managing Lake Livingston, in this email so that he is aware of your interest in helping out with the lake as we often use volunteers or get help from anglers to conduct various management projects or surveys on the lakes. Thanks again and if you have any other questions please feel free to contact me. 



_Brian Van Zee_
TPWD-Inland Fisheries Regional Director
1601 E. Crest Dr.
Waco, TX 76705
Voice: 254-867-7974
Fax: 254-867-6839


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

Chris Richardson said:


> The survival study you refer to in your email is a research project that was developed to see if this is actually the case or is there enough natural reproduction below Lake Livingston to support the tailrace population and to maintain that source of broodstock.
> ...


This study has been ongoing now for several years...and I participated in it initially by providing 65 striper heads from Livingston fish ranging from 18 to 28 inches to the biologist leading the study. The results from my fish showed about 1/2 of the 2010 fish I provided were likely to be NOT from the stocking program. This result surprised them and prompted further detailed study which is still ongoing today.

Based on the studies, they are very confident that a natural spawn does happen below the dam and probably happens also above the main lake, but it is indeterminate as yet on how extensive either are.




Sunbeam said:


> .... All of the stripers in the lower Trinity are fish that matured in the lake ....


Not according to the state biologists I talk to and who are performing this study.

In addition to the reason that you were given by Brian on the question of hybrids, I was told, when inquiring about starting a public hybrid stocking aka Tawakoni and Buchanan , that there is still an element of biologists that believe the original Gulf striper strain may exist in some manner in the lower Trinity and they absolutely do not want to risk eliminating it. So, hybrid stocking on Livingston isn't going to happen until/unless things change dramatically.


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

Thanks to all for the input. This is some interesting info. I for one hope they do not change the plan one iota.
History has proven over and over that when man puts his finger in mother natures business he normally screws it up.
So for TP&W has managed to intervene by getting a striper population establish, inferior as they might be, in LL and the lower Trinity.
I fear that any change now might be disastrous to the existing program and result in a worse not better fishery.
The Livingston stripers are small and fragile but as the guides and the dedicated striper fisherman can attest they are there year after year. That is better than what could be the alternative.
Livingston make make a great hybrid lake. The Oklahoma fish and game thought the same about Altus-Luger lake when they put hybreds in it back in the 80's. The hybrids distroyed the trout program and the crappie and small mouth starved to death after the shad population was decimated.. Then the hybrids began a decline that ended with the worse fishing lake in the state in just ten years.


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

The story I find on Altus-Luger Lake is somewhat different. http://newsok.com/altus-lugert-lake-dead-as-a-fishery/article/3843485

The precipitous fish decline was due to Golden Algae and had nothing to do with hybrid striped bass stocking. In fact, the locals there lament the loss of the hybrid fishing. According to everything I can find with research, its just not true that hybrids caused the lake's decline....golden algae, the same stuff that pretty much wiped out the striper population on Lake Granbury and severely hurt the TP&W stocking program a couple years back was the major culprit.

The "private" stocking programs in which individuals contribute to a fund to purchase and stock hybrids has been highly successful on Tawakoni and Buchanan. I wanted to start one for Livingston patterned after those successful programs....but no program can succeed on Livingston without permission to stock the fish in the lake and TP&W will not grant that permission.

I'm hopeful that some day that may change...but not optimistic that it will happen any time in the near future.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Hopefully one day it will change into a striper fishery below the dam and a hybrid fishery in the lake itself.


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## fedupfisherman (Nov 27, 2013)

Meadowlark said:


> The story I find on Altus-Luger Lake is somewhat different. http://newsok.com/altus-lugert-lake-dead-as-a-fishery/article/3843485
> 
> The precipitous fish decline was due to Golden Algae and had nothing to do with hybrid striped bass stocking. In fact, the locals there lament the loss of the hybrid fishing. According to everything I can find with research, its just not true that hybrids caused the lake's decline....golden algae, the same stuff that pretty much wiped out the striper population on Lake Granbury and severely hurt the TP&W stocking program a couple years back was the major culprit.
> 
> ...


 Great info Meadowlark,I like your first hand accounts better than the cut and paste one posted.


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## waterspout (May 21, 2004)

alanmacias541 said:


> Interesting. ..you'd think it'd be too hot for striper but maybe??? A gentleman told me he fishes for white bass out of lake anuhuac so I suppose everything is possible


 lake anuhuac is fresh and turtle bayou that feeds it is full of white bass and nice crappie FYI! they usae to run tourney on the bayou out of a bait camp off 563 that turmed in some super nice crappie!


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

I talked at length in person with a gentleman that appeared to be the biologist in charge of the brood fish gathering one day below the Lake Livingston dam. I just happened to be there fishing when they came. I will not hold my breath waiting for TP&WD to stock hybrids in LL! He indicated they absolutely don't want hybrids competing with their striper program there.


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## Momma's Worry (Aug 3, 2009)

*stripes*

a fish ladder around the **** is needed....and let mother nature take her own coarse.........my 83 year old Dad tells me stripers have always been up and down stream of Liberty...all dinks and seam to die off after reaching 15"s or so .....I have never heard of a larger one........


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## shadslinger (Aug 21, 2005)

stuckinfreeport said:


> There are far too many small stripers below the dam for them not to be hatching. Before they moved the cable back in the late 70's, catching a 25 to 30 lber was not difficult. We used to fish off the rocks on the west side and kill them. What you don't see anymore down there is the hybrids. Used to catch a bunch of them also. They are all fun to catch, but too bloody for me. Never keep them anymore when I do catch them.


Man those were the days! 
I fished there a lot from 1977 to 2000. The schools of small stripers would school top water and cover an acre or more. You could tell they were small stripers by the tightness of the school and the size of the splash, so you would know not to cast to them.
Those hybrids would try to take your arm off when they came through.
The flow was much more consistent then, it seemed there would be at least 3 gates open most of the time.

In front of gate #7 was striper heaven and around first light and again right at dark they would blow the place up. At times you could not even hear people talk the booms of exploding stripers were so loud.
A lot of shad would wash down the slide after going through a gate and the action would start at the rocks and work towards the cable, which was so close you could hit the rocks with a Zebco 202.
A hooked striper of any size was a real fight in the current, my best about 22lbs was caught from the bank, I thought my arm would fall off before I got it to the bank.

Drought cycle and the bulk heading of the rock face and the big V cut in it that funnels the water down the middle has changed all of that. Now a high discharge is the only time more than two gates are open(mostly one gate) and the water clears out in two days time, when it used to drain slowly and the fishing would be great for a month sometimes afterward.

Some of you guys need a bigger font, my eyes are not what they used to be. 
:work:


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

Momma's Worry said:


> a fish ladder around the **** is needed....and let mother nature take her own coarse.........my 83 year old Dad tells me stripers have always been up and down stream of Liberty...all dinks and seam to die off after reaching 15"s or so .....I have never heard of a larger one........


There's a lot of myths regarding Livingston stripers....the attached fish measured 32 inches and weighed 16 pounds and came out of the river in 2012. I have literally hundreds of pictures of other Livingston stripers measuring up to just under 30 inches and weighing up to 10 pounds(check out "best of" albums for a sampling).

Rumors of Livingston being the worst striper lake in the Country are greatly overstated, but may not be all bad if it keeps the crowds down.

It is what it is and its there for all to enjoy.


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

I lived in Clinton OK from 1991 to 2000. I fished Altus-Lugert at least twice a month during good weather. We caught big hybrids on a regular basis. Twelve to fifteen pound fish were very common. I do know from first hand that the local always complained about the lost of the winter trout fishing and the nearly complete decline in bass and crappie fishing as the hybrid got bigger and more numerous.
A delegation of fishermen petitioned the Oklahoma commissioners to stop stocking hybrids in 1996 if I remember right. The record hybrid bass was caught in 1997 at around 23 pounds. I fished the lake the next day and saw the Polaroid photo.
I saw a news paper article in the Daily Oklahoman while I still lived in Clinton that the Commission had suspended stocking hybrid in Altus-Lugert in 1998 or 1999. This was long before the drought and the Golden Algae problems. 
The lake level in the 1990's varied due to irrigation use but was normally full in the winter. 
The saugeye and bass fishing was very good in the early 90's but had really fallen off before I left in 2000. In fact the last two years we only fished hybrid since the saugeye and bass fishing was much better in Foss and Ft Cobb lake.


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## waterwolf (Mar 6, 2005)

Use to wear the stripers out near Anuhuac when temps would drop in the winter,,,white/red tail shrimp tail with a 1/2 jig head,,,,it was a blast.they were thick


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## P (Nov 18, 2012)

it may b that they cant get up past the dam to cooler water in hot weather like 65 years ago and wat we have are a limited amount that are hanging on and evolution will in time give us a striper that can thrive in this river if some other thing don't take em out . mother nature has her ways


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

SS, I think another factor now versus then was the salt water barrier that was built. Now the TRA doesn't have to release as much flow to keep the river fresh enough for irrigation. In turn, the lake level fluctuates less.


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## alanmacias541 (Feb 4, 2013)

Amazing about lake anahuac...i always see reports of redfish from there never knew it was predominantly composed of freshwater.

I agree with Sunbeam's valid point regarding the general catastrophic effect human meddling has on nature. However, forcing a striper population to exist on a lake that isn't ideal habitat is a prime example of this human meddling. If hybrids would be a better fit on Lake Livingston the only question is why not? Regarding the decimation of crappie and largemouth populations: wasn't that the complaint when stripers were introduced there? But it seems as though those populations still thrive in Lake Livingston albeit in different habitat than the stripers. 

The TPWD argument that harvesting fish from below the dam would be more difficult is true: they would be forced to differentiate between hybrids and stripers. However, isn't this a task anglers from all around the state perform on a daily basis in waters where both of these fish exist? And aren't there biologists employed by TPWD who would be able to quickly differentiate between the two while collecting fish in the field and return the hybrids to the water?


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## shadslinger (Aug 21, 2005)

WBF, that is very true, the saltwater species that we used see below the dam was cool. They are gone now.
Late in the evening it was not uncommon to see ballyhoo skipping across the water as the big stripers started their feeding. Blue crab were thick (and delicious!) from mid summer to November you could catch coolers full. I have not seen enough crab in five years to bother with.
Every year a crappie fishermen would pull in a flounder and river herring were often thick.
Now about the only saltwater specie I see are mullet.


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