Earlier this week, I had the privilege of being invited to join TPWD personnel as they harvested brood stock for their striper and hybrid stocking programs. The last two years had been lean ones for that program, so they needed a major effort (and a bit of fisherman's luck) to get the numbers of fish required.

About 8AM, a caravan of TPWD vehicles crossed Lake Livingston dam, several of them pulling stocking trailers from the three hatcheries that would participate in the stocking. Meanwhile, three shocker boats made their way upriver from the boat ramp downstream. The land-based crew quickly unloaded stock tanks, water pumps, nets, and the scientific equipment they would use to test the readiness of the spawners.

Once all was ready, the signal was given and the invasion began. Shocker boats moved up to the base of the weir below the spillway and dropped their wands into the water. All manner of fish rose briefly to the top while biologists with long handled nets made quick grabs for stripers and transferred them into live wells. When they had a load, they beached their boats and the land crew came out to collect, sort, and process the catch.

Once they had one hatchery's quota captured and processed, I was offered the chance to take my place at the front of a shocker boat, net at the ready. The mild DC current briefly stunned a plethora of catfish, buffalo, carp, gar and several species I could not identify along with the stripers. Our boat managed to net a half dozen stripers in the 5-10 lb range and headed back to shore.

After about 75 fish had been processed, we broke for a shore lunch hosted by the Trinity River Authority's board. Fried catfish, hush puppies, fries, slaw and pecan pie restored us for more "work" in the afternoon.

It was great to see our TPWD Inland Fisheries staff at work and witness their teamwork and professionalism, mixed with the excitement of getting out of the lab or their office to do something they really enjoyed. The TRA staff were interested bystanders and great collaborators in the process, as was the local game warden who patrolled downstream to ensure that none of the stunned fish made their way illegally into some fisherman's ice chest.

All in all, a great day. Thanks, TPWD!

Mick, that sounds like a fun day.

What a great day! That sounds to be as much fun as a day of angling.

The most amazing thing to me was the number and variety of fish that were in that short stretch of river. I am still looking through my guidebooks trying to identify all the species we observed.

So, Mick, are you implying that we may not be catching every fish that is there when we fish a spot. Surely, we're not missing any of them???

It would be interesting to see how many fish are actually there that we never see.

That's right, Rex. Those poppers on top don't do so well catching mooneyes, redhorse suckers, river carpsuckers, eels, etc (all seen this week). Also present in the river but unseen were paddlefish and alligator gar.

Interestingly, I never saw a bass or sunfish the whole time I was on the water.

That sounds like way to much fun. How long do those fish stay stunned? I would love to see the fish floating to the top like that.

Stunned only briefly. I don't know the exact science, but they've experimented with it and only use enough "juice" to get them up to or near the surface. The ones I saw appeared affected for under a minute, sometimes less, sometimes more. I was also told that in clearer conditions it is easier to see and net the fish. It was pretty murky on Tuesday, so the fish had to be within 18" or so of the top to see them. They also said electroshocking is harder on salmonids than on the species we saw. It's also hard on the paddlefish, so they kept the boats out of the deeper water downstream where the paddlefish are more prevalent.

Mick, did you stay for the rest of the party�?
Watching the eggs develop under a microscope until right moment to fertilize is very interesting but you probably know this.
Hybrid stripers are my primary interest - TP&W produces the striped bass x white bass and is known as a Palmetto bass.

Arkansas based Keo fish farm provides us with white bass x striped bass cross, known as the Sunshine bass, but you know all this stuff.
Very interesting - thanks for your report.

George

I did get to check eggs under a microscope and compare them to a crib sheet to determine how many hours until spawning. They had a narrow window of acceptable egg maturity and would return to the river any females outside that window. They were splitting shipments to different hatcheries, some to produce Palmettos, others stripers. Each fish was fin clipped to check DNA for pure strain fish. They had collected a few hybrids that went back into the water.

Harvesting slowed late morning, so they asked TRA to bump up the flows and the afternoon went much faster.

Interesting stuff!
Very narrow window...
G/

Yep, they were looking for females within 11-13 hours of spawning. They threw back the rest, though they did put some of the 14 hour fish in a holding pen, just in case they needed them.

one time standing on a rock below whitney, i caught 12 species of fish on a small jig fly.

It's amazing the range of species that get stopped by a big dam like that. Livingston Dam is the only one on the Trinity, so it gets lots of stuff up from the salt, too.

Mick- you got any pictures? Sounds like a pretty cool day.