I always heard that stripers were introduced to large lakes to take advantage of the very large gizzard shad that were in those lakes. I'm sure the striper eat a lot of them but I don't think the fisheries people thought this out. Those big gizzards spawn many times during the year and keep the lake full of baitfish.

I was crappie fishing at Ray Roberts yesterday and late in the evening I was amazed at the number of shad balls around me. I ended up with a pretty good box of fish but I no idea why my shiners worked in such a fog of shad. Possum Kingdom and even Texoma do not have shad populations like they have at Ray Roberts. Stripers are ocean going eating machines. In very large lakes they can coexist with the native fish but their constant foraging for food and voracious appetites along with the fact that the winter temps that have the native fish sluggish are actually the best temps for stripers clean out the lake of bait fish.

Without stripers PK and Texoma would not be as fun to fish but the amount of bait would skyrocket.

Keep catching all those stripers and then there will be shad for everyone.

You are apparently not old enough to remember Texoma BEFORE the stripers were introduced.

It was a Sandbass Mecca. There used to be a flotilla of boats lined up over the river channel all night long drowning minnows and taking boat loads of sandbass. No limit at the time, and catches of over 100 fish were common. Heck, a buddy and I caught AND Cleaned 162 in one day. I have seen ACRES schooling at one time. Good times for sure.

My understanding is that Stripers were introduced simply as an alternative species for fishermen. Not strictly to control baitfish populations. All this happened during the 60-70's in an experiment to bring better fishing to Texas. There are Books written about it.

Some of us still long for the old days.

I started fishing Texoma in 2013 so I do not remember Texoma before Stripers. My post was just a commentary on how different I see lakes with Stripers and those without them. Once you put Stripers in a lake things will change dramatically.

Stripers decimate thread-fin shad populations(and anything else they can eat) which rapidly reduces other game fish numbers and size. Witnessed it on Mead, Powell & Havasu and it didn't take it long to happen.

Think of it like this, take all the fat ladies away from a Pizza Buffet, and it leaves more pepperoni for you.

^^True statement^^

You are correct. But, the original plan was for Stripers to roam the lake eating shad, or whatever they came across, while the Bass and Crappie stayed home and ambushed prey like frogs, minnows, crawfish, etc. as it swam by. In other words, the original plan hinged on the survival of all species because they lived in different parts of the lake, and fed differently.

I think you are right. The results didn't quit fit to plan.

A lot of it depends on the lake and it�s fertility. Take tawakoni for example, tons of predator fish in there, Stripers, hybrids, and blues, and it has a good Shad population. PK has a decent Shad population as well, although I don�t see as many there as I do at Twok.

There�s no shortage of Shad ( threads and or gizzards) in PK. You do have to know where to find em.

I'm sure stripers do displace some of the other fish species in a lake but they also bring in another group of sport fishermen. I target stripers almost 99% of my fishing time. I also tend to spend some money in the local economies at convenience stores and restaurants so adding stripers to a lake isn't all bad. And as a fish predator, I don't take cats and whites typically, which wouldn't be the case if there were no stripers to hunt.

Kerry: If you threw a net at Buck Creek on Ray Roberts this past week one throw would have brought up more shad than you could use in three days. I've never seen that many shad anywhere and definitely not at PK. PK could use more protected areas for baitfish.

Lots of Crappie close too, as the local Guide Cody Tucker came in with a double limit of crappie for his clients. Those crappie don't eat like striper and neither do the sand bass. The entire area in front of the buck creek ramp looked like someone was dropping rocks from the sky as sand bass were feeding on the shad balls. I was catching a few sand bass fishing for crappie and tossing them back. It would have been very easy to have limited on sand bass that evening.

I was of the opinion the stripers were stocked in the big lakes because here in texas only tbe big lakes are deep enough to have the required cold water for the stripers to survive year around.

I have seen several Shad boom and bust cycles over the years. Cold weather Shad kills do more damage (here anyway) to Threadfins than the predator fish do.

Check out "Striper Fishing in The Carolinas". I saw it on the Documentary Channel, I bet it can be found on YouTube.

Tells the fascinating story of the first freshwater Striped Bass fishery in The Santee-Cooper lake system as well as some of the original Striper guides.