Texas Fishing Forum

!!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!!

Posted By: big D

!!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/27/16 07:21 PM

I received a call back from Niki Ragan, a Texas Parks & Wildlife Biologist regarding the future stocking of hybrid striped bass in Lake Somerville.

Texas Parks & Wildlife performed lake studies and reached out in local papers asking for hybrid striper anglers to contact them if they fish for hybrid striper. They did not receive one letter, one email, or come in contact with a single hybrid striper angler during lake studies. The biologist informed me that Lake Somerville is currently off the hybrid striper stocking list due to the lack of anglers fishing for them.

Please see the attached email and send a hand written letter, send an email, and call to show your interest in the hardest fighting freshwater fish in
Texas. I want to flood them with letters, calls, and emails until we are placed back on the list!!!

Thanks & God Bless!!!!
Posted By: J-Moe

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/27/16 07:31 PM

Done, I sent an email.

Thanks
Posted By: BBFISH

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 02:01 AM

done :))))))
Posted By: Coolshot

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 01:50 PM

Done!! Email Sent
Posted By: hook-line&sinker

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 04:32 PM

I was involved in a small way with the first request TPWD made for comment to survey the utilization of the hybrid stockings at lake Somerville.. and yes there were very few replies to their request. This is a good group of people and they work very hard to ensure the health of the fisheries through-out the state. That being said TPWD needs angler comments to back up the hard data which they collect. Hybrid striper stocking is based on certain criteria that several Texas lakes meet. The hatchery rearing hybrids has a variable number of stockers each year and TPWD wants to ensure that their stocking efforts are not wasted. Lake Somerville has been stocked regularly with hybrids since the 70's and has proven to be a rich fishery capable of good growth rates and sustained harvesting. Many other lakes would benefit from hybrid stocking but there is only so many fish to go around... This is when your opinion and voice needs to be heard if you want to have any influence on TPWD decision making process..
Posted By: hook-line&sinker

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 05:48 PM

a note to the biologist:


Fly Fishermen will spend lots of money and travel hundreds of miles to catch a cold water trout but not so much for warm water bass. The one exception to this rule might be the striper and/or hybrid striper in Texas rivers and tailrace.

I’ve got many FishTales videos of hybrid striper fly fishing in the Lake Somerville spillway covering this year and last. The high water from the flooding set up the tailrace as one of the premiere hybrid striper fishing destinations in all of Central Texas. Most weekends are thick with fishermen lining the rocks and downstream banks fishing for hybrid stripers, whitebass and catfish. Weekdays are a little less crowded and often more productive.

Needless to say an absence of the hybrid stripers in the Lake Somerville tailrace would influence those fishermen making a long journey but I suspect many of those people are local and fishing for dinner and not just for sport.

Another issue I would like to approach is the management of the spillway fishing as the lake gets back to normal level and the water release from the dam is reduced and eventually cut off completely. I have every reason to believe that this September will be just like last September when the release from the lake stopped and the whole creek turned over (O2 depletion) resulting in a massive fish kill.

I’ve talked to the Corp of Engineers and their rules of operation do not allow for them to prevent this fish kill probability by continuing a marginal release from the lake into Yegua creek below. What can TPWD do in these special circumstances? Can bag limits and length limits be adjusted to promote a wholesale harvest of these fish before another fish kill? I just hate to see all that fish go to waste again when it could be on someone’s dinner table..
Posted By: jsinn01

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 05:52 PM

Email sent.
Posted By: J-Moe

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/28/16 09:26 PM

Keep spreading the word to all your fishing buddies. I've got several of my friends to send emails. Flood their inbox with emails.
Posted By: FishinAg02

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/29/16 02:31 PM

email sent.
Posted By: big D

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/29/16 06:37 PM

TP&W has received several emails!!!

Keep it up guys!!!
Posted By: Duma

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/29/16 10:39 PM

Sent
Posted By: GC2656

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/30/16 01:56 AM

Thanks for the heads up on the Hybrid stocking big D. Email sent!
Posted By: J-Moe

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/31/16 02:18 PM

bump
Posted By: TXfisherman12

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 07/31/16 06:10 PM

Email sent this afternoon. TPWD routinely has to make difficult decisions, such as this, so I echo with what Big D is saying - there can never be enough replies from concerned fishermen to reverse their decision.
Posted By: big D

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 08/01/16 07:08 PM

GOOD NEWS!!!!

Thanks for your help and support!!!

Posted By: hook-line&sinker

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 08/01/16 09:32 PM

yes good news indeed! smile

Most of TPWD decisions deal with long term goals often influenced by the feedback they get from sportsmen, businesses, government agencies and local communities. The general public has no easy way to learn or hear about the whole decision making process without being involved at all levels. This is also true when it comes to the Corp of Engineers (COE) and how they are directed to manage the lakes and water supply through state and federal guidelines. Any of you who have worked for very large corporations, governmental agencies or the military have at least an idea of how slowly things get done. One directive that almost every state and federal agency operates under is "do no harm" especially to people and the environment. This is the most important function to all of us and should be part of our duty to help those trying to help protect our world and people.
Posted By: TXfisherman12

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 08/02/16 02:05 PM

This is great news! I also got the same reply from Niki (which probably many others did) with additional positive feedback towards one of my more provocative comments. For what it is worth here is the email chain:

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your email! This is exactly the kind of feedback we needed, and I have good news!

Due to the flood of emails and phone calls, we have been allowed to put in a stocking request for next year. What happens now is we will submit our request at the end of the year/first of next year, and then we wait. There are usually more hybrid striped bass requested than what our hatcheries can produce, so how many we get (or if we get any at all) depends on what the production numbers look like later in the spring/summer. Keep your fingers crossed for a good year for the hatcheries!

Just to clarify the process, we normally get this kind of information during our creel surveys (sometimes referred to as angler interviews). One of the things we always ask anglers is what are they fishing for, but we somehow miss the hybrid fishermen/women, or they don’t say hybrids specifically. When this kind of situation happens, we’ll post requests for anglers to write in and tell us they fish for them on fishing forums, online newspapers, social media, and even mention it in tv and radio interviews. Apparently, the forums that were used a couple of years ago were no longer popular among they hybrid fishermen/women, and Somerville has a huge following in Houston that wouldn’t have seen the local ads. We knew there were a lot of people who fish for them, but we needed actual proof that hybrids were being targeted (like the emails that have come in the past several days) so that we could justify the stocking request. Thanks to the gentleman who shared my email with you guys, we now we have that proof! And a better idea of where to post requests like this in the future.

As for survey flaws, we're working on that. We have to do our creel surveys a specific way so they can be compared year to year and reservoir to reservoir, so our hands are tied there. However, some other ideas of how to better capture fishing data on reservoirs like Somerville are being thrown around right now. Hopefully we can come up with a solution and avoid this problem in the future.

Thanks again for the feedback! You're absolutely right. Somerville has such a good hybrid fishery, and we want to keep it going!

Happy Fishing!


<*//>< Niki Ragan

Fisheries Biologist

College Station - Houston District

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department



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[color:#FFCC00]Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2016 1:01 PM
To: Niki Ragan
Subject: Hybrid striped bass - Lake Somerville

Dear Niki,
It is with much sadness that I recently discovered that Lake Somerville is being excluded from TPWD hybrid striped bass stockings. I know that past TPWD surveys have revealed that there is little interest among Texans in hybrid striper fishing on this lake. But I feel these surveys might be flawed, as I can attest first-hand of the many Texans that routinely fish for hybrid bass at Lake Somerville. On weekends and weekdays many fishermen crowd the banks of the lake and spillway, but also use motorized boats to pursue these fish. Most of these fishermen (too numerous to count) use live bait, minnow imitations and shiny lures to catch these hard-fighting bass. But also fly fishing for these bass has gained popularity in the past years, drawing even more fishermen to the lake. Many fishermen of the lake reside in local communities such as the towns of Somerville & Brenham and the Bryan-College Station area, but there are multitudes of fishermen, like myself, that drive several hours to fish the lake. Fishermen routinely travel from the populous areas of Austin and Houston to partake in the Lakes's hybrid striped bass fishing opportunities. And, as you might know, these fish are delicious on the dinner table, which adds greater interest into hybrid fishing among fishermen.

One final mention about fly fishing for hybrids. Texas has many great saltwater fly fishing options along the Gulf coast and tidal waters, with a chance at catching a sizable fish. But unfortunately there are much fewer opportunities that exist for freshwater fly fishers, especially those trying to catch larger, sportier fish such as the hybrid.

I sincerely hope that TPWD re-considers to include Lake Somerville in the hybrid stocking program.

-Alan
Posted By: big D

Re: !!! SOMERVILLE NEEDS YOUR HELP - HYBRID STOCKING !!! - 03/29/17 11:57 AM

Reminder:

With lake stockings near, I encourage all who fish Lake Somerville for hybrid to contact Texas Parks & Wildlife.




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