2016 striper fish stocking

Water Body Number Stocked Size
Buchanan 93,809 Fingerling
Canyon 31,131 Fingerling
Colorado 80,157 Fry
Livingston 461,911 Fingerling
Tawakoni 796,595 Fry
Travis 454,767 Fry
Whitney 103,841 Fingerling
Total Stocked 2,022,211


Second place for most fingerling. Hope them stripers makes a come back and not all get flushed again next year. Tired of all this rain and flushing of some good population of fish in the lake. Looking forward to what the future has to offer. Thanks TPWD!!

Btw I observe Buchanan dam and don't seems that they can release too much water due to all them houses and boat docks built right next to the banks down below the dam on Inks lake. So correct me if I'm wrong. Buchanan gets their stripers and should get the least chance of getting all their fish flushed. So that being said. They should always have some good numbers of stripers there. ?
Just because not a lot of good report doesn't mean they don't have a good striper fishery. Just me personally thinking.


Thinrk I should pay Lake Travis a visit before I head back to Buchanan. Two Lakes in one trip

Yes you are wrong. Buchanan has no flood pool, and thus everything over full gets released. Full pool Nov-April=1020 ft, May-Oct= 1018 ft

LCRA Lake Buchanan Fact Sheet

Thanks for your input. So how is it that them boat docks down below the dam on Inks seems like they've been there forever and not effected by the release of water. Here on Livingston every time they release water eveything on the side of the river get washed away. And when I was down there last week not even the slightest flow on Inks. I went right up to the orange buoys below the dam. Does that mean there is no flow right now untill it gets above 1020'. No release. I'm just trying to understand this lake.
I guess maybe Buchanan does not have the trinity dumping water into it like Livingston so release is minimum.

Buchanan dam has hydro-generation at the dam located upriver from the orange buoys (blue arrow). 99% of the time water is passed through here for downstream uses, power generation, and lower flows.

The dam has three main gate sections that are for flood control (red arrows). These gates release large volumes to keep the lake within full pool. These gates are seldom used, mainly because the lake is seldom full. They did release back in June from a couple of gate sections. The previous gate releases were back in 2007. To answer your question, yes houses have been flooded before, especially in 1991.

Thanks mbfish. I was just very confuse when I see houses,docks,and Inks State Park so close to the water it just got me wondering. I guess those people that built their houses and dock knows the risk and are willing to take a chance. We had some historic rain down here this year that took away some or a lot of houses along rivers. I believe any thing is a possibility when it comes to mother nature.

Many were built in the flood plain. I would hate to pay the flood insurance, if you can even get it.

As Mb stated those homes and docks can flood. In June they had 5 flood gates open for a few days. The most gates open I believe were 22 back in the 40's. I think the most I have ever seen was around 12. As far as Travis goes it is a heck of a striped bass fishery. I just don't spend much time down there. If you go to the LCRA website you can see when they are releasing water on Inks. That is when you need to plan to be on Inks fishing.

Looks like LL is first by a wide margin. My guess is because Livingston dam is where TPWD catches the large female stripers every Feb for the hacheries. They do a good job.

There's a lot to be learned from the stocking data provided annually by TP&W.

One of the important things to look for is numbers of fingerling vs numbers of fry.

Another very important aspect is the number per acre of fish stocked.

For example, compare Tawok to Liv....37k acres to 90k plus acres. What really counts is fish per acre.

Also, from my personal studies, the fry survival rate is about 10% of the fingerling survival rate....so to get a comparison of apples to apples, convert the data to fingerlings per acre and then rank your water bodies.

2016 was a surprisingly low stocking year for stripers across the state and was considerably under what Livingston needs and has been getting in years past.

When Livingston has had great striper fishing years in the past, it has been when stocking levels have been up near 2 million fingerling and two to three years of reasonable water flows subsequently.

I've caught and recorded data on over 3000 stripers out of Liv over the last 10 years and have recorded fish caught vs stocking levels in two and three years previously. The good fishing years are those preceded by 2 million fingerling stockings and relatively stable water flows.

The "X" factor is how much natural recruitment of stripers we get on Livingston in any given year....so far no one has been able to make any assessment of the striper recruitment in any given year....only that stripers do have a natural spawn....but how much in any given year is anyone's guess.

Todd you are right. Correction Livingston is first place for most fingerling. Almost half a million striper fingerlings. WOW!!

Then more than a million fingerling in 2015. Double WOW!!. But most probably got flush through the dam.
Livingston 1,067,557 Fingerling
Livingston Tailrace 388 Adult

And 2014
Livingston 795,073 Fingerling
Livingston Tailrace 450,592 Fingerling

OK where in the heck did all the stripers go ?

Livingston is top lake for striper fingerling stocking. We are so fortunate.