Another interesting side note.... Striped bass get more "freaked out" and physiologically stressed upon handling then our old friend the hybrid striped bass according to a study done at Virginia Tech.

I stumbled upon this study that was done where they left the fish out of water for 3 minutes and measured the stress response of the different fish.

Stripers don't do well after handling them. Blood glucose and lactic acid get out of whack and can make the fish unable to recover. Hybrids seem to get right back to life after the same stress. Pretty interesting.

If you have some time to kill:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=...dary%20handling

Jackson

it's like a donkey and a mule ,it's a crossbreedwhich do not breed .

I have heard that in lakes that have both, stripers and white bass, that naturally occuring hybrids can happen. If the stripers and whites are spawning in the same area. Eggs and sperm mixing with the opposite species. I dont know if this is true. Just what I have heard and it makes sense to me that this "could" happen.
I have also heard that a small percentage of hybrids can reproduce but, it is around 1%-4%.

The one thing we can all do to keep Hybrids in our lakes' is to learn, practice (and teach!) identification of young Hybrids.

+1 I wonder how many under hybrids get mistaken for large sandbass and taken home to fry?

I fish a lot at Ray Hubbard and I can tell you this happens a LOT!!! I see people keeping everything they catch no matter what size it is or species.

If everyone abided by the rules we would have plenty of each species at every lake. I know ignorance plays a part in this but, like the old saying goes. You can not teach stupid.

Let the Hybrids go and KILL WHITE-EE!

So let's just say that there is a boat full of Vietnamese fellows right next to you catching hybrids on live bait and KEEPING EVERY ONE, despite the size.

How would you gents handle that because I completely agree. The size limit is put in place to protect the population and if people are keeping the 15 inchers that they catch we won't have the great lake that we have today one day soon.

Jackson

I've seen it a few times JB...take TX numbers, call it in. It does work.

So if I call in the boat # something will be done? I have seen folks like this keeping everyting thing they pull out of the water at Lavon no matter what size. It drives me crazy but I didn't think calling it in would amount to anything. How would TPWD prove it after the fact unless they showed up to check them on the spot. Is there some system where complaints against a boat# get logged and warnings sent or not being able to renew your sticker or something? When you say it works, how does it work?

Yes , do call it in it does work. It worked at Rowlett Creek by FireWheel, a group of people were using a cast net and pulling in sandies. This was seen by several of us that were fishing there. TPW was called within a 30 min time frame TPW showed up. They did their check out of the group. TPW took care of business.

What if it's a group of red neck fellas from Garland? If we are racial profiling, viatnamese prefer Cats over fish.

Hey, not everyone follows rules at any sport. You tell them the warden will charge them 10 bucks for every illegal fish-

I see the same thing happen every afternoon. I have tried to tell the guys keeping small hybrid they are illegal to keep, but they just act as though they cant understand me. I have called them in. I did see the game warden this week and was checked. Probably because of the holiday weekend, but I am hopeful to see them more regularly.

I asked a friend that works as the (Inland Fisheries Hatchery Program Director, Region II) if "budget" will effect this years stocking program, he said no, it will proceed as scheduled.

Hopefully that will let some of you sleep better dreaming of a gazzilion small war horses

I know the fires that where around the PK hatchery closed it down for a couple of weeks so that may cause a delay, not sure. I should have ask him.

Your right GA...Alot of people of all types break or ignore the the law.

There is a guy I've had on my boat twice...showed him the Hybrids top to bottom and how to ID them. He seemed to get it.

Anyway, last week his wife tells me that GW Nixon checks him and two other guys, 2 out of 3 don't have licenses and have two undersize Hybrids. She wrote them up...He calls me and says "I know, but they were so close to legal" (17 inchers) and gave reasons why he kept them.

I hung up on 'em and added him to my "no take" list (only three people in 15 years!), but even better he is on the GW'S radar.

Man...I do not like poachers!