Alabama bass?

[JGD]

Anyone see this? A little long but pretty interesting if not a little concerning.

 

John

[greentrout]

^^^

Thank you. They have a daunting task ahead of them ...

[Drew03cmc]

They can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. 

[TnRiver46]

Good way to make a big pile of money . Donate today to fight the spread 

 

I for one am not concerned in the least 

[Chris Catignani]

Heading to Neely Henry tomorrow for my Alabama bass fix.

[TnRiver46]

If you weed thru the mumbo jumbo of that video, you hear that the only lake they have flourished in TN is parksville and the fishing went from bad to great. The Alabama bass has pretty much turned the ocoee river into a good fishery where it was traditionally terrible and polluted from copper mines 

[Alex from GA]

I fish lots of GA rivers that used to have native species.  It's hard to find a pure Redeye, Chattahoochee, Altamaha, Shoal, Smallmouth or others.  Where I fish mostly, Lake Lanier, I catch several times the amount of Alabamas compared to LM.  I talk to old timers that fished here when the lake was first impounded and they say there were all LM. 

[Tennessee Boy]

If you don’t own the lake you don’t have a right to manage it.   I follow the rules.  The people who we pay to manage the lakes get to make the rules.

[TnRiver46]

36 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

If you don’t own the lake you don’t have a right to manage it.   I follow the rules.  The people who we pay to manage the lakes get to make the rules.

??????

[Tennessee Boy]

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

??????

The law says don’t move fish from one lake to another so I don’t.   I don’t get to choose what fish are stocked in the public waters I fish.   Ignorant people with good intentions can do great damage to fisheries.

[TnRiver46]

@Tennessee BoyIf we are paying someone to manage the river, I want my money back. I didn’t stock any fish I eat them. Like someone posted above, pandora is out the box. Rules don’t matter

 

no one stocks more invasive species than DNR. They don’t care about anything except getting money from your pocket to theirs 

[Tennessee Boy]

@TnRiver46 I didn’t accuse you of illegally stocking fish.   Someone obviously has stock many of them.   Someone has to decide what fish we want and what fish we don’t want in Tennessee.  If I like snakeheads,  do I have the right to decide they will be introduced to Tennessee?   There are many nonnative fish in the state.  There will certainly be more in the future.  The potential damage they can do far exceeds any benefit they might provide in my opinion.

[TnRiver46]

I’ve never witnessed much damage, they stock rainbow trout annd striped bass everywhere. There’s good money to be made from fear, just ask a silver carp 

[TnRiver46]

Wonder why nobody in California is worried about these fish? They seem to love them out there 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

The ironic thing is that the Largemouth have destroyed more local species than most any other living organism in the modern world.   Very few FW fish can compete with LGMs.  They've evolved to be truly apex predators in most FW environments.   

 

Heck the LGM is the main culprit for the entire extinction of the Giant Pied-Billed Grebe in Lago de Atitlán in Guatemala.   They stocked LGMs in the lake for tourism, within 4-5 yrs they were spearfishing 15lb fish.   The LGM outcompeted everything.   After extensive poisoning and commercial fishing efforts, the lake still has a Bass population decade and decades later.   

 

The U.S. Gov't put LGMs on trains back in the day, and wherever they found a lake, river, or stream, they stocked the Bass along the way.     

 

S. Africa and Japan have some of the biggest LGMs in the world but are considered a super invasive species and are doing everything they can to eradicate them now.  

 

Today the Alabama Bass is the boogeyman, but Black Bass have been the boogeyman in general globally for some time now.   

 

People and governments will always move fish around.   

25 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Wonder why nobody in California is worried about these fish? They seem to love them out there 

Those darn Californians stole our Bass and our WR ?

 

Our gov'ts traded Bass......CA wanted Smith Lake Alabama Bass, and AL wanted specifically FLGM from the S. CA lakes that had been stocked decades before from the actual Florida Dept of Wildlife using their FLGM.   

[TnRiver46]

Pretty ironic considering nobody acts more scared of invasive species than California 

 

wash and dry your boat for 35 days before fishing another lake while we trade exotic fish with Alabama 

[Tennessee Boy]

I guess I’m just humble enough to admit that someone with a PhD in biology may know more about biology than I do.  That doesn’t mean that I believe everything they say. They get things wrong sometimes just like I’ve gotten things wrong in my area of expertise. It’s just troubling to me that when someone post a video like this, that it is attacked by so many people on this site.  Many times people's have bragged on this forum about moving fish from one body of water to another, which is illegal almost everywhere. They are well meaning they just don’t know the rules, and they think they understand the ecosystem better than the experts.  I think we all need to be more careful about our responsibility to protect the sport and the fisheries that are critical to it. I don’t want this

forum to be a source of misinformation.   Just my humble opinion.?

[TnRiver46]

What if the misinformation is coming from the ones wearing the green jeans??

[Tennessee Boy]

5 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

What if the misinformation is coming from the ones wearing the green jeans??

I hope I’m reading this wrong. A video by the TWRA that is meant to educate people on the dangers of invasive species is attacked as part of government conspiracy to spread false information and fear in an effort to make money.   If I read this wrong, please correct me.

[TnRiver46]

@Tennessee Boy, I wouldn’t say conspiracy, more of another in the long line of convenient scapegoats. Southern pine beetle, the Norris lake rockfish battle of the 90s, hemlock wooly adelgid, emerald ash bore, Asian carp, zebra mussels, you name it. 
 

Twra just had a former employee expose all kinds of misinformation they put out about CWD, you don’t even need a tin foil hat to find this stuff out. Here’s an image article for ya…….. they showed up at the whistle blowers house and took all his devices 

 

https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/09/07/former-tennessee-wildlife-and-resources-agency-biologist-agency-manipulated-data-on-deer-disease/

 

[Tennessee Boy]

@TnRiver46 Thanks for providing some facts to support your position.   In my working days I had contract with several government agencies and private companies.  I learned that the number one priority of any organization is self preservation so I don’t doubt that some of your concerns about the TWRA are true.  That said,  the problems with the introduction of Alabama bass outside of their native region are well documented in many states besides Tennessee and in scientific journals.  Unlike Asian carp,  I’m unaware of any money being spent to reduce their numbers in lakes where they have already been introduced so I don’t see any reason to overstate the problem for financial gain.  All they are asking is that angler not introduce them into new water.  
 

I agree that it’s too late to stop it in the Tennessee river and eventually in the Cumberland.   If it plays out like it did in Lake Norman in North Carolina,  in 30 years the fishing will be great,  as Alabama bass are aggressive and fun to catch.  The problem is a 4 pounder will be considered the fish of a lifetime.

[TnRiver46]

I think it’s a no brainer you shouldn’t move the fish, kind of a universal law. But it’s really not much of a problem , like always. 

[Further North]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:20 AM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

The ironic thing is that the Largemouth have destroyed more local species than most any other living organism in the modern world.   Very few FW fish can compete with LGMs.  They've evolved to be truly apex predators in most FW environments

Muskies and pike eat bass...

On 9/26/2023 at 10:34 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Pretty ironic considering nobody acts more scared of invasive species than California 

 

wash and dry your boat for 35 days before fishing another lake while we trade exotic fish with Alabama 

35 days?

[T-Billy]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:55 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Wonder why nobody in California is worried about these fish? They seem to love them out there 

If an Alabama bass swallows a sinker in California, does it have to have a Prop 65 tag inserted to warn anglers of the devastating effects of eating it?

[AlabamaSpothunter]

9 hours ago, Further North said:

Muskies and pike eat bass...

35 days?

One of the most common things found by biologists when examining stomach contents are other Bass.   

 

In the Spring, I catch a ton of Bass that puke up half a dozen to dozen Bass fry.