LAKE BELTON HYBRID STOCKING 2022 -- FULL STORY
The following is a "cut-and-paste" from my article in the 03 April 2022 Killeen Daily Herald...
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department routinely stocks hybrid striped bass fry and/or fingerlings in reservoirs across the Lone Star State during the spring months.
These hybrids are created either by crossing a male white bass with a female striped bass to produce a Palmetto-strain hybrid, or by crossing a female white bass with a male striped bass to produce a Sunshine-strain hybrid.
In recent years, the large, egg-laden female striped bass needed to produce the Palmetto-strain have become more and more difficult to find. A case in point: This week TPWD employees Brian VanZee, John Tibbs and Michael Baird traveled to the tailrace below Lake Livingston’s dam to scout for the presence of female striped bass, hoping to return there in a few weeks to electrofish for mature female stripers.
This location has consistently produced mature female stripers for nearly 30 years. Despite ample water flow through the dam of approximately 16,000 cubic feet of water per second, not a single mature female striper was discovered. No hybrid striped bass and no white bass were discovered here, either.
Although TPWD will continue looking in alternate locations, this is not good news for Palmetto-strain production.
For this reason, and others, TPWD has begun turning more attention to, and investing in, the necessary equipment and technology to raise Sunshine-strain hybrid. Both male striped bass and female white bass are much more abundant, and easier to obtain, than mature female striped bass.
CAPTION #1: 1.2 million hybrid striped bass fry, each just slightly larger than these unfertilized fish eggs shown on the head of a penny, were stocked in Lake Belton this week by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department personnel.
CREDIT: Holding the Line Guide Service
CAPTION #2: Plastic bags, each containing water and small hybrid striped bass fry, were seen afloat in Lake Belton this past week as biologists waited for the temperature of the water in the bags to equalize with the lake temperature before releasing the fry. 1.2 million fry were stocked in this manner in Lake Belton this week.
CREDIT: John TIbbs, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
TPWD has actually begun to maintain female white bass in captivity at three of their hatcheries, A.E. Wood, Dundee and the East Texas Fish Hatchery; some of these fish were taken by rod and reel from Stillhouse Hollow Lake in the spring of 2020, others were collected annually by electrofishing. Male striped bass are fairly readily captured as needed by rod and reel from Lake Whitney and other locations.
Both male and female striped bass are also maintained in captivity at the Possum Kingdom Fish Hatchery. Currently these captive broodfish are used to supplement production, as it is not feasible to keep a large enough quantity to meet statewide needs for hybrids and pure stripers.
To quantify TPWD’s efforts thus far, Tibbs said the East Texas Fish Hatchery located near Jasper has already produced 4.2 million Sunshine fry in their first batch, of which 1.2 million were placed into Belton Lake on Thursday.
The Belton fish were stocked by biologists John Provine and Trevor Troxel. The men used the wind-protected White Flint Park as their base of operation and sought out the most fertile waters in order to give the tiny fry the best chance of finding sufficient food, in the form of rotifers, necessary for their survival.
The A.E. Wood Hatchery in San Marcos just produced its first test batch of 400,000 fry in preparation for mass production, according to Tibbs.
Tibbs also shared that the Dundee Hatchery in west Texas is preparing their captive fish to be spawned two to three weeks from now. With the 60 female white bass and the 21 male striped bass at that location, biologists anticipate an additional contribution of up to five million hybrid toward the TPWD’s total for the year.
This all came as good news to the locally organized Belton Anglers Stocking Hybrid (BASH) participants who recently raised over $8,400 in private funds to purchase Sunshine fry from an out-of-state hatchery should TPWD’s efforts have fallen short.
Tibbs, the Waco District’s Inland Fisheries Supervisor, personally attended the organization’s major fundraiser held at Miller’s Smokehouse in Belton on Feb. 8, as did Hugh Shine, who represents the 55th District in the Texas House of Representatives.
As it is, the organization will simply roll these funds forward as a ready backup plan should the unexpected happen in the future, all so Belton Lake will continue to be optimally stocked in accordance with TPWD’s own lake management plan.
Not all of the Sunshine-strain hybrids produced will be stocked as fry. TPWD has the ability and budget to grow some of these fry out to a larger size, referred to as fingerlings, in grow-out ponds located on hatchery grounds.
Although TPWD cannot commit to it until all of the rearing is completed and all of the stocking is underway, it is conceivable that Belton Lake would receive a second stocking of fish above and beyond the initial 1.2 million stocked this week as TPWD tries to help the reservoir recover from a missed stocking in 2019, and poor recruitment from the 2015 and 2016 hybrid stockings.