# I think over stock and not enough shads?Livingston



## brucevannguyen (Oct 21, 2012)

I think the fishes are starving.Been out catching lots of whites bass when they are schooling chasing shads.The problems is out of the hundreds of whites I've caught throughout my trips up there at Livingston this past weeks, only two shads were found inside the the stomach.Some looked like they haven't eaten for weeks.Stomach all flat and skinny.I saw a couple of acres of white surface at one time,.That in my mind is way too many whites,plus if you add 5 to 10 thousands of 16,17 stripers on top of what the parks and state wildlife had just stock into the lake,and all the other predatory fishes cats,gar,fresh water drums,buffalos,yellow bass,crappies,you name it,the future of next year fishing might not seems as awesome as everyone is predicting.What yall fishing experts think.Last year them larger stripers were every where.I've caught a few at least most every trips I've fish up there.This year they all seems to disappear.I think they all die of starvation.Funny as it sounds,but how do we know the shads is a plenty enough for Livingston?


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## Rusty S (Apr 6, 2006)

Interesting observation. rs


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## hopn (Jul 5, 2012)

I'm with rusty on this one. Very good observation. I think also, you have to account for bigger predator fishes eating medium size fishes, food chain type of thinking. So the smaller whites are at risk. But still, there's a lot of WB in the lake.


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

The whites I caught today did their usual poop all over the place , in my boat... on me... everywhere. My guess is that poop is from digesting shad they ate.

Three days ago the whites I caught from a surface feeding frenzy did their usual throwing up of shad in my boat, as various stages of digestion. 

We might could use more shad, but there are at least some. I will admit I was too lazy to clean any of the whites, all catch and release. So, I can't say what was in their stomachs.


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## brucevannguyen (Oct 21, 2012)

*Starving fish*

The way I clean my fish is to pull out the guts and freeze them whole to retain the moisture scales,fins and all.So I pay very close attention to what they feed on,and how much content is in the stomach.Tell you the truth I think them fish is starving or them shads figured a way how to elude them predator fishes.The Lake is not balance right now,we need more shads.


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

brucevannguyen said:


> The Lake is not balance right now,we need more shads.


I do not disagree with this. 
I think it would be a shortage of shad, not that the shad figured a way to elude the predators.


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## mg64 (May 31, 2013)

Mother nature has a way of figuring this out. May be introducing to many stripers. Who knows.


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## Roosters Tackle (May 25, 2012)

My Dad tells me stories about how awesome of a white bass fishery Texoma was back in the day. He said after the introduction of Stripers. The white bass all but vanished. Maybe, WBF has a valid point and/or observation. The Stripers can be and often are absolute terror on the shad. Add the Striper population with their ability to swim faster and it "might" spell trouble for the white bass.

Tight Lines
Mitch "Rooster" Parker


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## Rusty S (Apr 6, 2006)

We had a longer than usual spring and we have gone to hot summer very quickly, Livingston is a deep lake and a big lake, might have something to do with it. If you have schooled up whites, the shad are nearby. rs


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## Rusty S (Apr 6, 2006)

Are ya'll catching many hybrids or yellows, I did not catch any during the spawn up river, I wonder the population the lake holds? rs


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## GT11 (Jan 1, 2013)

The whites I caught this past weekend puked a ton of shad in my live well. Up Kickapoo, there are monster schools of shad through the creek and into the shallow bays. Birds come in by the hundreds to chase them.


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## Git$um (Feb 11, 2008)

I am not an expert by any means, but i have seen plenty of shad on sonar. I htink that now the spawn is over, they are in deeper water, but they are still there. The white bass have been solid this year, not skinny.


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## Hoytbowhunter (Jan 15, 2009)

I've had tons & tons of shad on my Sonar Every time I've been out Slabbing


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## fishinganimal (Mar 30, 2006)

This has been the story for many years. Nothing has changed. These fish (Whites) are very aggressive when it comes to feeding. They work the shad into a ball and push them to the top. If we had an issue with not enough food there would be fish floating everywhere. There is plenty of other bait in this lake as well.


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## whsalum (Mar 4, 2013)

The shad spawn I saw this year was as good as I've seen since the 70's.That being said the fish population is off the charts right now.I clean a 3lb hi fin blue back in April that had 21 small shad in it.Looked like it was about to bust.I think Livingston biggest problem with baitfish is a lack of structure.


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## GT11 (Jan 1, 2013)

This really leads to an interesting question....there are tons of shad up Kickapoo and I cast net for them to bait my trout lines. There are loads of cat fish up the creek too. The only time I have seen whites in big numbers in Kickapoo (north of 190) is during the spawn. Some Kickapoo holes are 25'+ deep but for the most part it is 8' - 12'. Is the water too shallow/warm/other to hold decent numbers of whites north of 190? I know the crappie guys will catch a few here or there but no big numbers outside of the spawn.


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

brucevannguyen said:


> ....I think the fishes are starving.


Livingston is a big lake....over 90,000 surface acres. Its difficult to project conclusions for the entire lake unless you are covering most of it on a frequent basis. Based on science, the shad population of the lake is down from recent previous years...but that doesn't mean necessarily that the predator fish are starving. The lake has an incredible shad population such that even with decreases in shad numbers, it still may have more than sufficient shad for the food chain.

In my experience, the white bass this year are in excellent shape and showing no signs at all of starving...quite the opposite, in fact.

Stripers have been stocked in the lake for over 35 years. In fact, the previous two years saw the lowest numbers of stripers stocked in many years. This year the stocking of fingerlings was back up above 1 million. This year's fingerling stocking hasn't been in the lake long enough to make a measurable difference in shad numbers, so if anything, given the past two years of very few stripers stocked, the pressure on shad from stripers was significantly reduced.

Stripers begin "starving" every summer on Livingston when the water temps exceed 80 degrees. Their metabolism is so high that they actually expend more energy in feeding than they gain in return and hence, in effect, are starving every summer on Livingston. If you carefully notice stripers above 18 inches on Livingston during the time when water temps > 80 degrees, you will observe that almost every one of them looks starved. This effect begins in early June and progresses through early September and by late August fish often times are just barely surviving or worse. I've got pictures of literally thousands of stripers I've caught during that time period on Livingston and I'd venture a guess that 99% of them have that starved appearance. It has always been so and likely always will.

It isn't due to lack of shad, far from it.... it is due to their inability to "operate" in high water temps. Livingston stripers simply do not survive past 5 years and many/most expire in the third and fourth years. The shallow nature of the Lake combined with a long period of hot temps spells a short life expectancy for stripers on Livingston. That hasn't changed since the lake was built and likely won't change in the future.


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## DesertFugee (Mar 7, 2013)

The whites I've caught recently have that indented belly look too, but I kind if think that is normal for whites, unless they're egged up. I also know they barf and poop a lot of stomach contents during the process of catching and live-welling. But as too the numbers of whites and stripers -- that's all a function of the nature of LL. If LL is basically a big tub of silt and bulkheads, the only thing that can flourish are the fish that are flourishing. Maybe we all need to commit to safely adding structure to the lake ... to provide at least some cover for natural processes that normally occur as a matter of course in a lake in which cover is not purposefully eliminated or prevented.


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## FISHROADIE (Apr 2, 2010)

Roosters Tackle said:


> My Dad tells me stories about how awesome of a white bass fishery Texoma was back in the day. He said after the introduction of Stripers. The white bass all but vanished. Maybe, WBF has a valid point and/or observation. The Stripers can be and often are absolute terror on the shad. Add the Striper population with their ability to swim faster and it "might" spell trouble for the white bass.
> 
> Tight Lines
> Mitch "Rooster" Parker


Since they stocked hybrids in lake Conroe the white bass are all gone. The low water conditions have not helped, they have not bee able to have a good spawn. I had a guide on Conroe Butch Turp ask me if I had caught any whites, I said no I have not he said he caught 4 all Year something is out of balance on lake Conroe. I used to catch hybrids mixed in with the whites 6 years ago. I have caught 2 in the last 3 years out of Conroe.


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

FISHROADIE said:


> Since they stocked hybrids in lake Conroe the white bass are all gone. The low water conditions have not helped, they have not bee able to have a good spawn. I had a guide on Conroe Butch Turp ask me if I had caught any whites, I said no I have not he said he caught 4 all Year something is out of balance on lake Conroe. I used to catch hybrids mixed in with the whites 6 years ago. I have caught 2 in the last 3 years out of Conroe.


As many days a year as Butch Terpe probably fishes, you would think he would catch many more than that accidently even if targeting other species of fish.
I think I will stick with Lake Livingston.


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## Roosters Tackle (May 25, 2012)

DesertFugee said:


> The whites I've caught recently have that indented belly look too, but I kind if think that is normal for whites, unless they're egged up. I also know they barf and poop a lot of stomach contents during the process of catching and live-welling. But as too the numbers of whites and stripers -- that's all a function of the nature of LL. If LL is basically a big tub of silt and bulkheads, the only thing that can flourish are the fish that are flourishing. Maybe we all need to commit to safely adding structure to the lake ... to provide at least some cover for natural processes that normally occur as a matter of course in a lake in which cover is not purposefully eliminated or prevented.


Also, when I was guiding on Richland Chambers. Every year around the end of June to the first couple weeks of July - the white bass would be all skinny and pour looking. Something about a transition period the lake would go through. But, soon the course of nature had run its course and they were back to full bellies and looking happy.

I haven't fished Livingston enough to know about the lakes transitions (all lakes go through these). Of course, Texoma has a really healthy natural Striper spawn, couple that with cooler and deeper water and the Stripers have a field day up there.


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

The white bass has been in the Trinity river system since they had to escape 30 foot gar with legs millions of years ago.
They are doing fine. With a 36 to 40 month life cycle the populations will vary greatly over a five year period.
TP&W's attempt to stock stripers in LL in order to create at least a few hundred brood fish in the tail race is a fragile operation. But those few that get to the magic 24 inch mark are few compared to the number stocked each year.
I am sure that for every legal striper in the lake there are several thousand legal blue cat. The blues have been sharing the shad with the whites for that same millions of years.
I have been on the lake since it was a river. I have seen whites schooling on the surface from the big bridge to old 190 by the tens of acres. I have also seen years when it was near impossible to catch a white that met the then 12 inch limit.
They come and go with good spawning conditions and poor.
Just like acorns in the deer woods. Some good years and some poor years.


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## hopn (Jul 5, 2012)

Sunbeam has spoken. End of discussion. :-D


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

Sunbeam said:


> The white bass has been in the Trinity river system since .....
> They come and go with good spawning conditions and poor.
> Just like acorns in the deer woods. Some good years and some poor years.


I agree with this so much that I started a new thread:
*River & Creek Flow VS White Bass Spawn*


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## Rusty S (Apr 6, 2006)

Sunbeam said:


> The white bass has been in the Trinity river system since they had to escape 30 foot gar with legs millions of years ago.
> They are doing fine. With a 36 to 40 month life cycle the populations will vary greatly over a five year period.
> TP&W's attempt to stock stripers in LL in order to create at least a few hundred brood fish in the tail race is a fragile operation. But those few that get to the magic 24 inch mark are few compared to the number stocked each year.
> I am sure that for every legal striper in the lake there are several thousand legal blue cat. The blues have been sharing the shad with the whites for that same millions of years.
> ...


 BOOM. rs


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## Rather-b-fishin (May 13, 2009)

I don't think TP&W would have had the huge stocking program on lake Livingston this year if there was a concern with shad population.


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## shadslinger (Aug 21, 2005)

The lake is just far enough from the waste of Dallas and the metro area to let the heavy metals drop out to the silt bottom and the discharge from a bunch of toilets to become food for shad.
Livingston has the biggest shad population of any lake I have fished, and supports a huge fish population of preditors to eat them. Anit nothing wrong with the shad population and the white bass are doing fine.
In fact better than many years of recent history in the lake.
It should continue to be excellent fishing for white bass for at least a couple of years.
You will always catch some white bass with a lean look to them this time of year and you will also catch a bunch that are fat and sassy barffing shad all over the boat/live well/and anglers who forget to point the loaded end away from from them.


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## markbrumbaugh (Jul 13, 2010)

I'd be more concerned about all the wintering double crested cormorants eating our shad, than too many stripers, catfish, gar, or whites. Those suckers eat nearly 1 lb per day of fish under 6 inches long. 75 percent is shad, and most of the balance is juvenile catfish. Perhaps us dock owners should apply for a nuisance control permit from the state. You have to be a landowner to get one. Personally I think the state ought to have an open season on them.


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## Hoytbowhunter (Jan 15, 2009)

Tell you what we fish the roadbed this weekend We seen clouds and clouds and clouds Shad from the bottom to the tops Not a shad problem in this lake


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