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Posts: 742
| During the last few years on my home chain, whether I'm walleye or pan fishing, I'll catch a couple of white bass. I then learned through research that they are an invasive species on my chain. They are fun to catch on med/lite tackle, but does anybody know what kind of effect do they have on the walleye and panfish populations? They seem to be located in the same areas I catch walleyes and crappies. Kdawg |
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Posts: 1247
| Over the years different things show up in the lake environment, Legal stocking, bucket biology, dam breaks, and on and on.
I would guess that nobody wished they would have stock Carp? You talk about a mess. It took a while but look what happened with the St. Lawrence Seaway and all the stuff from the balencest water. |
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| White bass are very common in the Wolf River in WI and that is a big time walleye producer. How that translated to other bodies of water, don't know. |
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Posts: 209
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota | If you look at some of the most fertile rivers and lake systems a giant portion have white bass in them. Mississippi River system, all the Great Lakes, lower portion at least of the Winnipeg river. All of them are incredible fisheries. I wouldn’t be neatly as worried about them as yellow bass or other super rapidly reproducing fish like goby |
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Posts: 332
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Ogandrews - 5/28/2024 12:10 PM
If you look at some of the most fertile rivers and lake systems a giant portion have white bass in them. Mississippi River system, all the Great Lakes, lower portion at least of the Winnipeg river. All of them are incredible fisheries. I wouldn’t be neatly as worried about them as yellow bass or other super rapidly reproducing fish like goby
The white bass in Manitoba came up from introductions in N.D. in the '50s I believe. Took a few decades but became super-abundant in Lake Winnipeg and common to catch in the Red up to Lockport and as you mention, a late spring spawning surge into Winnipeg River and also the Icelandic by Riverton. I would say they were probably were competitive with walleye/sauger/goldeye/drum and predated on other game species given their niche. Difficult to quantify.
We don't know they what, how or why, but they apparently are all but gone and not showing up in commercial catches and in the master angler program. Population crash of some sort and will be interesting to see if they start showing up again. One would assume a specific pathogen took them out, but whatever it was not apparent in any way and very mysterious.
Fun to catch, but otherwise not missed given that they were introduced and the predation/competition interactions with natives.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/28/2024 6:38 PM
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