Barfish

Any tricks you guys have to share regarding barfish?

I have been trying to invite a couple of red ear sunfish home for dinner, but every time I go where they should be the dang yellow bass are cleaning the hooks before the bait hits the bottom. Shallow, deep, current, cover...doesn't matter. They are everywhere.

Redear are usually bottom fish. Try using a heavier sinker to get the bait down faster!

Barfish are really good to eat.

Once the yellow bass takes hold in a body of water the lake pretty well has to be written off for sunfish. A good example is Lake Weatherford. Once a good bluegill lake, the yellow bass have crowded the sunfish and white bass out. The yellow bass were spread over North Texas lakes when the Tarrant Regional Water district interconnected its lakes with a large pipeline to better manage the water resources. Benbrook was also impacted, but the yellow and white bass produced a natural hybrid which gets to a reasonable size. I held the yellow hybrid record for a short while until someone caught a bigger one.

My only suggestion is go elsewhere for sunfish. I have tried all sorts of tricks to catch sunfish through the yellow bass and nothing worked.

Great information.

I have never caught yellow bass, but it is on my list of fish to catch. They are not in Lake Somerville or the other lakes I fish. Reading this story I am glad they are not in the lakes I fish. Sounds like they have a significant impact on a fishery.

Kentucky lake was once a fantastic lake for crappie. This year was only fair. Many of the folks I talk to blame the yellow bass. They are everywhere. Fishing with crickets is virtually impossible.

There are some mussel beds in the mouth of the Blood that I have given up on fishing. Can't keep bait on a hook.

Doubtful that the yellow bass have impacted your crappie population. Two local examples that readily come to mind have healthy populations of both. Cedar Creek lake in East Texas is a premier crappie lake, and it has a sizeable population of yellow bass, and both species seem to be thriving.

More locally and on a smaller scale, White Rock Lake, a city of Dallas urban lake, has a fantastic population of crappie(for its size and location), and a seeming overabundance of yellow bass. Neither one has seemed to have impacted the other one. They co-exist quite comfortably, and always have.

Could be improved fish finding techniques(down scanning, side imaging, improved gps coordinates for humps and structure etc.) has more of an impact than yellow bass. Yellows are excellent table fare by the way, and where you catch one, you can usually catch 100 if so inclined.

Just my humble, probably worthless thoughts on the matter.

Rudy

I guess that crappie, largemouth, catfish and hybrids in Benbrook are happy to eat yellow bass along with the shad, but in my mind I can see the yellow bass ruining any unguarded nests and happily picking off the newly hatched fry and terrorizing all small sunfish species. I have resorted to eating them before, but it is kind of sad to do so. Also, very sad that we cannot, unless laws have changed, use them for bait.

I always have had a little bit of a problem with non native species being introduced because there always seems to be a downside.
Now we don't have them down in my part of the state unless some biologist came up with the bright idea of "hey lets put them in this lake and see what happens!"
If they ever do I promise to eat as many of them as I possibly can!

I am very much in this camp, but I am very happy with the introduction of redbreast sunfish into CenTex so I guess am not totally against it.

BTW, to the OP, once yellow bass have taken over to that extent, it's really hard to target and catch any other panfish in the system for a while.

I think part of the problem is one of geography. Barfish prefer the bars that build up at the mouths of creeks and rivers. The red ears I am targeting love the shell beds that are found...at the mouths of creeks and rivers.

Limit here is 30/day. Locals urge not throwing any back...but I don't think fishing pressure has any effect in a body of water this size.

I know it's hard to get any results trying to work with the gubermint, but maybe contact the local biologist and tell them whats going on.
I know one person can't get much done, but maybe encouraging others to do the same might help.
That way they can adjust or remove the limits altogether.

I am under the impression that yellow bass is native to Texas. Don't know about anyplace else. I have caught them in New Orleans in Lake Ponchatrain of all places. So i guess they are widespread, but always thought they were native to Texas.

Not exactly widespread. We don't have them in Central south Texas!
I've never caught one, but it seems they would be a lot of fun on ultralight tackle or a flyrod.
https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/yellowbass/

Jimbo; no size or bag limits on yellow bass.