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Name:
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GoneFishin
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Subject:
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INTERESTING ARTICLE LM/STRIPER
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Date:
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11/26/2008 6:24:23 PM
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Alabama 55 lbs 0 oz Tallapoosa River Charles Totty 1955
Here is an interesting article from August 2008.
Lake Martin striped bass may be record breakers
Sunday, August 24, 2008
MIKE BOLTON
News staff writer
It has been 52 long years since Charles Totty caught a 55-pound striped bass below Thurlow Dam near his home in Tallassee.
That striped bass state record has survived five decades of challenges, but there are anglers speculating that the record could soon be broken.
Lake Martin has produced 16 striped bass larger than 40 pounds this year including one that topped the scales at 48 pounds, 6 ounces less than two weeks ago.
Nick Nichols, the assistant chief of fisheries for Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, lives on Lake Martin and is an avid striped bass fisherman. Had that big female fish been caught in the spring when it was laden with eggs and carrying extra body fat, he said, it would have been interesting to see.
"A healthy female will carry eggs that are about 10 to 15 percent of her body weight," he said. "And they have extra fat reserves when they are carrying eggs that time of year.
"It might have been close (to a new record)."
Montgomery's Tommy Simmons will always wonder what might have been. The heating and air conditioning contractor caught the big striped bass on Aug. 11 while fishing with guide Jim Parramore on his first stripe fishing trip to the lake.
He didn't break the record but he wasn't disappointed.
"I was shocked," he said. "I was not anticipating catching anything of that size."
The fish was one of 14 40-pound-plus striped bass that Parramore has seen caught by people in his boat since February. The two other 40-pounders were caught by anglers with other fishing guides.
"We were catching 30-pound fish the last few years and I said last year that the fish were getting bigger and we might catch some 40-pounders this year," he said. "But I really didn't expect to see this many.
"I have to guess that the state record is in here now somewhere. The chances that the big fish we caught here a couple of weeks ago being the biggest fish in a lake this size are probably pretty slim."
Nichols says whether Totty's 55-pound striped bass state record will survive could boil down to a race between time and an unknown factor that haunts Lake Martin.
"We don't know why but every four to six years or so something happens on Lake Martin that causes a die-off of striped bass and it tends to really affect the larger striped bass.
"Alabama Power and Auburn University are doing a study right now to try to find out what causes that and what might could be changed to prevent it.
"The last die-off was in 2001, I think."
Totty's state record bass was most likely a Gulf strain of striped bass. It was caught before any dams were in place on the Tallapoosa River below Thurlow Dam. It was also before Alabama stocked any lakes with striped bass.
A common belief is that the fish swam up the Tallapoosa River from the Gulf of Mexico, but Nichols says that is unlikely.
"The Gulf Coast strain is more of a river fish, and they spend most of their lives in freshwater," he said. "There are some that may venture out to some of the shallow estuaries, but most spend their entire lives in freshwater rivers. That fish came out of the Tallapoosa River somewhere."
Lake Martin was the first Alabama lake to be stocked with striped bass back in the late 1960s when state fishery biologists decided that the deep waters of the lake might support striped bass.
The state stocked the Atlantic strain of striped bass from the east coast of the U.S. Those fish were fingerlings taken from Santee Cooper Reservoir in South Carolina.
Those fish survived, but state biologists eventually decided that the Gulf Coast strain, which is native to the state, would do better in the warmer waters in Alabama. The state began stocking that strain in Lake Martin and other Alabama lakes in the 1970s.
Lake Martin was stocked heavily with striped bass and hybrid bass, a cross between a striped bass and a white bass, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The stocking of hybrid bass in the lake eventually ceased. That decision is likely what has turned Lake Martin into a trophy striped bass lake and has people speculating that the state record could soon fall, Nichols says.
"The striped bass and the hybrid bass were competing for the same food supply," Nichols said. "One of our biologists believed that if we quit stocking the hybrid bass Lake Martin could really turn into a trophy striped bass lake.
"We did and it has."
The state now stocks three striped bass, or about 120,000 striped bass fingerlings, into the lake each year.
Striped bass require cool water and the bigger the striped bass are, the less tolerant they are of warm water, Nichols says. Striped bass thrive in Lake Martin because of its deep waters where a large, cold water thermal refuge exists in the 35-foot to 55-foot range.
The lake is also relatively fertile and that provides a good food base for the threadfin and gizzard shad that the striped bass use as their main food source.
E-mail: mbolton@bhamnews.com
©2008 Birmingham
© 2008 al.com All Rights Reserved.
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