No, they did not start stocking hybrids at Lake Livingston, and they will not stock them so long as they use LL for their striper brood fish. However, hybrids are stocked in lakes upstream of LL that are in the Trinity River watershed, and some make their way downstream. In large water releases from the upstream lakes, many make their way down.



Also, there is probably or at least possibly some hybrid reproduction going on in the river above LL, even though not a great number. I say not a great number because I think the biologists know their stuff, and they say it doesn't happen easily.

 

Interesting they have seemed to show up over the past couple years. Wonder when TPW started stocking them upstream?
Am I correct in saying that there seem to be quite a bit more now than ever before?

 

They started stocking Richland chambers in 1996 with Palmettos and stocked it almost every year since then. They stocked sunshine in 2013 and 2014 There also. That is one of the lakes that feed into the Trinity river and during a high release these fish will get into the river and end up in Lake Livingston. This is one of the reasons why they are showing up in Livingston. I forgot to mention the palmetto is from striper eggs and the sunshine is from whitebass eggs. They say they are the same. With so many lakes up the Trinity river watershed with hybrid stockings we will continue to see hybrids for a while in Livingston along with the few that mother nature put-on the watershed.

 

I have been studying the Texas striper and hybrid programs for years. I read every thing TP&W puts out.
In fact I think I am as close to a self appointed expert that we have on the board. LOL
What Matt and Donald said is all very true.
The only thing I might disagree is the fact that the Sunshine and Palmetto are not the same.
The Sunshine is no more than a white bass on steroids.
They grow faster, run in large schools like whites and have the shorter life span than the Palmetto bass.
The hybrids in Livingston are both types. If you talk to fellows that fish a lot like Loy and the Johnnies they will tell you that there are some hybrids in the lake that are different from the others. I know Loy has had his butt handed to him by some huge hybrids.
The Sunshine is a deeper body harder fighting fish that the Palmetto or striper. They get much bigger much faster.
Some facts I have gathered over the years.
TP&W does a net survey in Livingston every three to four years. Since the survey started two decades they have never caught a striper over 30 inches.
TP&W harvest striper brood fish from the Livingston tail race in the first week of April.
They have never caught a fish over six year of age. Some a little over 30 inches but very young for a fish that normally lives twenty five years in other northern reservoirs.
Starting a few years back TP&W started using radioactive markers in the ear bones of the stripers stocked in Livingston. In recent years they have harvested striper in the tailrace with out the mark indicating that some natural spawning is occurring.
Most likely in the tail race since the stripers found at the Lock n Dam at Crockett are normally males. Sexually mature striper females have already left the lake the year before.
About 8 to 10 years ago the TP&W did a migratory study of alligator gar in the lower Trinity. Thet places sensors in numerous site on the river from US 59 to Wallisville. They caught and tagged gar in a dozen places in the river.
The study was a bust. They found the gar were home bodies that stayed in there home pools.
The guys ay Kerrville decided to tag fifty striper below Livingston before removing the sensors.
They were amazed. The stripers run the river like greyhounds. They had records of single fish that went from Livingston to Wallisville and back in less than 10 days.
Livingston is the only lake on the Trinity that gets Stripers. All of the Dallas area lakes get Palmetto bass.
I had not kept up on my homework so I was surprised to see that TP&W put sunshine bass in RC lake.
OK uses sunshine bass. Even in the small lakes in western OK they grow huge. When I fished Foss Lake almost daily a 15 pound hybrid was normal. It took a twenty pounder to get an uh or ah at the marina.
The state record from Lake Altus in wester OK is over 29 pounds. The hybrid had destroyed the trout and smallmouth fishing in Altus. They stop stocking them but a drastic algae bloom killed all of the lake so that hybrid fishery is gone forever. OK wildlife now limits the lakes that they stock hybrid because they grow so big they are harmful to some lakes with other fisheries. They love trout and smallmouth bass.

 

I should add that Larry, our own Meadowlark, did lots of data gathering for the biologist. He collected and cataloged many ear bones and fish weight/lengths. His work gave the biologist a world of info they would have taken months to do on their own.

 

I've been reading a lot too recently about the stocking of Texas lakes. It started out trying to find out more about the Hybrid I caught last month.

I also remembered my mom caught a Walleye in Lake Somerville. I ask my dad about it, but he said no it must have been when we were on vacation up north. But I recalled it being in my dad's little roof top aluminum boat. We never took it out of state.

Well if you look on TP&W "Lakes" page they stocked Somerville with Walleye a for a few years after they built the lake!

 

Pretty tricky to find on my phone, but here is a link to the stocking history for Somerville;
https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/action/stock_bywater.php?WB_code=0680

 

Here is a link to all texas lakes;
https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/recreational/lakes/lakelist.phtml

 

Thanks for all the good info guys.

 

I fish mostly below the Lake Livingston dam and in the Trinity River down stream, and have done so for many years.


Used to be we would catch pure stripers and the occasional fish that looked like a striper and white bass. It would be a bit more elongated than a white, but not as slender as Striper. The color is a bit duller too, less bright white to the belly and less silvery. Kind of darker looking.


After the big big floods of recent years I am catching a cross that is shaped and colored like a big mean white bass but with more of the broken lines.


I think the first are natural hybrids and the later are stocked hybrids that came from upstream during the floods.


The largest Stripers I have seen did not come from the Lake or below the dam. They came from quite a ways down river. The biggest was 35".

 

which taste better, hybrid or striper?

 

Striper tastes much better than hybrids in my opinion

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Agree with trapperjon^^^

 

The Filipino does them in sweet/sour sauce with lots of pineapple and fresh veggies.
She could make a pine 2 X 4 taste good.

 

LOL!

 

Livingston got stocked with Richland Chambers hybrids during the floods of the last 3 years. Thats the simple answer to your question.

 

Good posts guys!

 

Great response! These are the kind of threads I love!

It’s interesting very few Striper at/over 30” are ever caught, I see the record is 31.5” from 1986.

Wonder if the Biologist have a theory why the Stripers don’t grow much bigger or live longer than six years in Livingston? Is Livingston the only lake that has this anomaly?

Let’s hear y’all theory? Know you have some thoughts on it.

 

It’s interesting very few Striper at/over 30” are ever caught, I see the record is 31.5” from 1986.

Wonder if the Biologist have a theory why the Stripers don’t grow much bigger or live longer than six years in Livingston? Is Livingston the only lake that has this anomaly?

Let’s hear y’all theory? Know you have some thoughts on it.

My theory is that the water depth isn't deep enough and the temperature gets too warm for the fish to live as long as they should in LL. Heck, this time of year catch and release won't work for stripers in LL, they will die.

I personally asked a TPWD biologist (during their annual brood fish collection in April years ago) why Texoma wasn't used instead of Livingston for their brood stock. He replied they would love to but that legally Oklahoma owns all the river below the dam instead of just to the middle.

I think the only other possibility for the striper brood fish in Texas would be Whitney, but I don't know what the TP&WD say about it. It is possible that golden alga-related fish kills in the Brazos make the TP&WD not want to use Whitney, but I don't know.

 

Weight= 31.5
Length= 37”
Looked at the wrong colum.

Does this Weight and Lenght look odd? Almost a lb an inch??

 

Weight= 31.5
Length= 37”
Looked at the wrong colum.

Does this Weight and Lenght look odd? Almost a lb an inch??

Yes. Honestly, I always suspected that record. A 37 inch striped bass would average 21 pounds and would be 11 years old according to standard National data. I've caught stripers which generally fit that profile and fish over 40 inches which weigh over 30 pounds...but never have seen one at 37 inches that was over 30 pounds.

The really suspicious part of that record for Livingston is the 37 inches itself. That would require a fish 11 years old in the standard data and there has never been a striper taken below the dam older than 6 years old, according to Parks and Wildlife.

Even allowing for rapid growth rates, it is difficult(maybe impossible) to get to a 37 inch striper in 6 years. I've caught 20 pound stripers below the dam and caught others in the 15 to 20 pound range and all fit the National profile data of length vs weight with some above average on weight depending on time of year.

There is an artesian spring right below the shelf in a certain spot below the dam that does produce relatively cool oxygenated water year around. It seems plausible that a big striper could hole up in that spot and last longer than the 6 year barrier but 11 years seems not likely.

Most of the questions you posted on spawning were answered in the study that Nate Smith published in March 18 2013. In his study entitled, "Striped Bass Stocking Evaluation of Lake Livingston and Lake Livingston Tailrace", Nate provided the conclusive data(which was based on fish yours truly provided) that stripers do spawn on Livingston both above and below the dam.

For the upper Lake part of the study, T,P,W inoculated the YOY with markers in 2007, 2008, and 2009 I believe. These markers were actually a die which was visible on the otoliths of the harvested fish. One mark for one year, two marks for another year, etc. No mark would indicate a natural spawn.

I provided 80 some stripers that I caught from the lake to the study ranging in size from 18 inches up to 29 inches over the course of spring and early summer. The biologists harvested the otoliths and looked for marks. Nearly 50% of the fish I provided did not have any marks...not one or two or any.

Based on these statistically significant results, the conclusion was reached that yes indeed stripers are spawning in Livingston...at possibly fairly high rates under certain conditions.

You can probably get that study off the 'net...or I could e-mail you one but it is rather lengthy. I've been doing other things since then and don't know what additional studies they may have done, if any.

 

You're a very blessed man Sunbeam

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I wonder if any of the one below the d a m n ever head down into the bay?

 

The first few year after the initial stocking in 1974 the fingerling were purchased from out of state hatcheries. The TP&W hatcheries did not get geared up for years after the program started.
At first the Texas hatchery broodstock came from Texoma. But due to a vicious fight over the salt creeks on the upper Red River, Oklahoma got mad and cut Texas off from harvesting stripers below Texoma.
So their only source was Livingston.
The problem is after a few years ever striper they hatch is either a brother, sister or first cousin. Our stipers are so inbrid they could play a banjo, (that's a hillbilly joke)
That limits their growth rate. Those first fingerling that the record came from were not inbrid. Arkansas has numerous lakes to gather brood fish. Texas has one.
But the biggest growth inhibitor is the hot water.
Striper thrive in water below 72 degrees. Wild fish never see water over 60 F.
The deep lake that have record fish are also cold.
A cold blood fish uses calories based on its body heat. Warmer the water the more food it needs. I remember one of the biologist saying the Livingston stripers are like a nuclear recactor. Constantly burning fuel to create energy just to be able to get more fuel.
They just do not gain the size to age ratio that cool water fish obtain.
They do better in the tailrace but still too warm. So we get a stunted fish that is dying of malnutrition most of its life. And unlike wild northern fish they can't survive well in the hot water of Trinity Bay or the Gulf. There was once a wild populatin of wild stripers that used the Gulf rivers as spawning grounds. They have been gone for nearly a century.
The hybrids seem to have the same problem. As I said before hybrids that live in Oklahoma lakes cool enough to sustain year round trout and walleyes grow huge hybrids.

 

... Wild fish (of today) never see water over 60 F.
....

Fixed it for you.

Clearly, the native strain of striped bass that was commercially fished in Texas waters all the way down to Corpus years ago saw water temps way over 60 deg.

I agree with biologists who still hold out hope and act accordingly that the DNA of those Gulf striped bass may still exist in some river fish today. Its worth protecting, IMO, for that possibility.

 

There is another possibility for the 37 inch fish which I forgot to mention.

Many years ago, the Striped Bass was native to our waters in the Gulf. In fact, there was a substantial commercial fishery based on striped bass. This was documented as a specific subspecies of striped bass . It hasn't been prominent in our waters since the 50's I believe...and attempts at re-establishment in the 90's failed miserably. I have caught stripers in the past at the old H,L, & P spillway on Trinity Bay.

Some biologists believe that original strain of striped bass still MAY exist in the Trinity River stripers. Because of that, they take great care not to do anything which might further jeopardize that possibility...such as introducing hybrids.

Back to the 37 inch fish...although I've always heard that fish came from below the dam, it could have possibly been a river fish from that strain of Gulf stripers and as such could possibly have reached an age more than the "stockers". Seems possible...if not likely.

 

It's been almost 30 years since I caught a striper over 20 lbs and it was a couple miles downstream below the dam. When they were working on the wier and had the shoot open you could catch 12 to 15 lb stripers at the shoot.
I would rather have whites over stripers or hybrids to eat. I usually give the hybrids away.
The big hybrids came out to play this morning on Livingston.

 

What a great bunch of reading. Thanks for taking the time to post the info.

 

Wonder with the natural spawns occurring in the lake-do you think the newer generations of the fish will adapt better to the lake conditions--ie--the warmer shallower waters? I would think from an evolutionary aspect they would adapt.

 

Interesting thought! I am in no way an expert, but from what I do understand about evolutionary biology, it would take many generations for something to change its biology and adapt. But, hell im just a country boy that loves to hunt and fish. Are there any biologists on this board that could examine your question?