Western Bass Fish In?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Maderos on January 17, 2010 at 6:06pm

We had a total of 8 caught between the 4 boats. We had 2 smallies, 1 squaw ( which you seen us catch ), and one big rainbow. The UW grad student also hooked up a fish and lost it. But was excited by the squawfish catch and the fact you can actually fizz a squawfish and have it remain alive. She will be doing a study of Salmon smolt predation with some smallies and squawfish in the lab at UW. Later in the month of Jan / Feb, she could use our help in getting her 4 smallies anf 4 squawfish. Detials later on when she needs them exactly.

Mark

Permalink Reply by Jordan Doucet on January 17, 2010 at 10:33pm

Right on Mark, I heard you hootin' and hollerin' right after I saw you catch that squaw. We ended up pulling two off that spot after you left.

As for the research girl, I also have a bad feeling about it. Did she happen to expand a little more on her research?

Mark Maderos said:

We had a total of 8 caught between the 4 boats. We had 2 smallies, 1 squaw ( which you seen us catch ), and one big rainbow. The UW grad student also hooked up a fish and lost it. But was excited by the squawfish catch and the fact you can actually fizz a squawfish and have it remain alive. She will be doing a study of Salmon smolt predation with some smallies and squawfish in the lab at UW. Later in the month of Jan / Feb, she could use our help in getting her 4 smallies anf 4 squawfish. Detials later on when she needs them exactly.

Mark

Permalink Reply by Joel Booth on January 17, 2010 at 10:59pm

I'm glad people are asking questions about this. Since I grew up close to the lower columbia all that I hear from salmon fisherman whining about how low the salmon runs are because the smallmouth eat all the salmon smolt. Consequently many guys kill all them that they catch whether they are inside or outside the law. They will never kill them all, especially since the guys that are the best at catching usually release them but is annoying to say the least to hear people whining about the evil smallmouth. People dont often think about ocean conditions, and the dams as contributions to salmon runs declining.

Permalink Reply by David Parnicky on January 17, 2010 at 11:26pm

I saw a study that was done years ago on the Columbia that I will try to dig up. In this study, they examined stomach contents of smallmouth and other fish on the river to see how much predation was done on smolts. If I remember correctly, they did this study at a time when large amounts of smolt were headed downstream towards the Pacific. I can't remember the exact numbers but I believe that of the smallmouth they sampled, less than 1% of the stomach contents were salmon smolt. Now sqauwfish on the other hand had a diet that was mostly made up of smolt! I believe smolt made up over 50% of the stomach contents in the sampled squawfish. The thing that stood out the most to me though was that around 24% of the stomach contents of the sampled smallmouth was made up of juvenile squawfish! My numbers may be off a bit as I haven't seen this study for a long time but it sure makes it seem rediculous to say smallmouth have a large detrimental effect to salmon populations. If anything, at least according to that study, they are helping more than they are actually causing harm by feeding on WAY more juvenile squawfish than smolt. I will do some google searching and see if I can find this study again. Might be a nice thing for people to have for future reference even though you never know how legitimate a study like that is as there are many variables that can skew results.

Permalink Reply by Joel Booth on January 18, 2010 at 12:57am

That would be interesting to see those numbers, I never thought of smallmouth eating squawfish that would be a good statistic to have...

Permalink Reply by Chad Simon on January 18, 2010 at 6:36am

I questioned the study first also, but then got to thinking this couldn't be better! I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't remember the last time I caught a winter smallie, and had it puke up a salmon smolt. It seems like the majority of their winter diet consists of crawfish and sculpins. Therefore, we shouldn't have anything to worry about. If this study was done in the Spring-Fall I would probably raise a red flag also!
cs

Permalink Reply by Tag Watson on January 18, 2010 at 8:20am

Juvenile squawfish??? Like carp, squawfish start out at approximately 2-3 lbs. and grow from there. I know Sessler will agree wtih me.

David Parnicky said:

I saw a study that was done years ago on the Columbia that I will try to dig up. In this study, they examined stomach contents of smallmouth and other fish on the river to see how much predation was done on smolts. If I remember correctly, they did this study at a time when large amounts of smolt were headed downstream towards the Pacific. I can't remember the exact numbers but I believe that of the smallmouth they sampled, less than 1% of the stomach contents were salmon smolt. Now sqauwfish on the other hand had a diet that was mostly made up of smolt! I believe smolt made up over 50% of the stomach contents in the sampled squawfish. The thing that stood out the most to me though was that around 24% of the stomach contents of the sampled smallmouth was made up of juvenile squawfish! My numbers may be off a bit as I haven't seen this study for a long time but it sure makes it seem rediculous to say smallmouth have a large detrimental effect to salmon populations. If anything, at least according to that study, they are helping more than they are actually causing harm by feeding on WAY more juvenile squawfish than smolt. I will do some google searching and see if I can find this study again. Might be a nice thing for people to have for future reference even though you never know how legitimate a study like that is as there are many variables that can skew results.

Permalink Reply by Marc Marcantonio on January 18, 2010 at 9:17am

Yes, I have spent more than 10 years making the case to WDFW that smallmouth are a net gain for salmon, or "a wash" at worst case, and they are finally getting it. This is what prompted the slot limit on smallmouths in the state. Sure, we have all seen smallmouths eat smolts, but in the grand scheme the impact is insignificant. Arguments to the contrary should be regarded as straw-man arguments based upon other agendas.

Bass are predators, and are opportunistic. They will eat practically anything that moves and can fit in their mouths. But before bass can eat anything, they must first catch it. For most of the year the range of bass do not overlap the range of smolts, so predation is minimal. Even when their ranges overlap (late May - early June) smolts are not usually targeted as they are more difficult to catch than other year-round prey like sculpin and crayfish.

There are always exceptions to every rule, and there is no doubt that when you have a situation like Newport Shores then you will see higher levels of predation on smolts than normally (oops, did something slip out there).

Northern Pikeminnow are a pelagic minnow species that makes its living on smolts. They consume salmon from the egg stage and throughout their growth until they become too large. They follow smolts wherever they go, and consequently they consume far more than bass ever do.

Bass fishermen do catch Northern Pikeminnow, and those that don't make it back to the lake or river alive are no longer able to eat smolts.

Several studies (since I started this campaign in 1998) have shown this to be the case.

ciao,
Marc

David Parnicky said:

I saw a study that was done years ago on the Columbia that I will try to dig up. In this study, they examined stomach contents of smallmouth and other fish on the river to see how much predation was done on smolts. If I remember correctly, they did this study at a time when large amounts of smolt were headed downstream towards the Pacific. I can't remember the exact numbers but I believe that of the smallmouth they sampled, less than 1% of the stomach contents were salmon smolt. Now sqauwfish on the other hand had a diet that was mostly made up of smolt! I believe smolt made up over 50% of the stomach contents in the sampled squawfish. The thing that stood out the most to me though was that around 24% of the stomach contents of the sampled smallmouth was made up of juvenile squawfish! My numbers may be off a bit as I haven't seen this study for a long time but it sure makes it seem rediculous to say smallmouth have a large detrimental effect to salmon populations. If anything, at least according to that study, they are helping more than they are actually causing harm by feeding on WAY more juvenile squawfish than smolt. I will do some google searching and see if I can find this study again. Might be a nice thing for people to have for future reference even though you never know how legitimate a study like that is as there are many variables that can skew results.

Permalink Reply by Mark Maderos on January 18, 2010 at 10:00am

As the day progressed we had some interesting conversations about bass and salmon predation. She also thinks that bass are not that big of a problem. I gave her some ideas about smallie predation of salmon smolt and I am with you Marc. If the only food available to a smallie is salmon smolt in a tank, then yeah, the smallie WILL eat it. If other food sources are available, ( sculpin, crawdad, sticklebacks, perch, etc, ) will a smallie go out of its way to eat a salmon smolt first. She also talked about the lack of overlap in range of the two when the salmon smolt migrate and didn't really feel that smallie school up and follow the smolt.

Mark

Permalink Reply by Jon Werner on January 18, 2010 at 10:16am

Marc,

Is that what prompted bounties on Squawfish on the Columbia?

Jon Werner

Permalink Reply by Keith Brooks on January 18, 2010 at 12:26pm

Several years ago there was a push by the Tribes to target Smallies as a problem at the mouth of the Green River at Lake WA. Our WDFW warm water biologist at the time (Mark Downing?) studied the issue with the Tribes and proved to their satisfaction at the time that Smallies where not a significant statistical threat to salmon smolt. If I remeber correctly they were talking about placing a bounty on Smallies but were convinced then it was not needed.

Permalink Reply by Joel Alinen on January 18, 2010 at 7:20pm

This is great stuff, so if we were to say smallies take advantage of whatever food source they have availiable then can we come to some sort of pattern? Do smallies eat certain species at differnt times? Or do they take advantage off crawfish, perch, kokane, ect randomly?

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page