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Lake Pleasant Striped Bass Study Report

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#1 ·
Handed out by AZ Game & Fish at the Monday, 3/7/05, Round Table.
If you catch a Striper with a tag in its back G & F is asking to please release it as it has a sonic tag in its belly.

Lake Pleasant Striped Bass Study
AGFD Research Branch

The Arizona Game and Fish Department Research Branch is conducting a 3 year study to determine the effects striped bass are having, and may potentially have, on the Lake Pleasant fishery. The study components include:

  1. Determine reproductive success and recruitment of striped bass in Lake Pleasant, including seasonal migrational spawning movements and habitat preferences, and
  2. Determine energetic demands of striped bass, white bass, and largemouth bass in Lake Pleasant to assess their effect on the primary prey source (threadfin shad), and evaluate the potential growth and impact of the striped bass population on the fishery.

Population estimates were conducted in Feb of this year using hydroacoustics surveys. Data is in the process of being analyzed, however at the time of the survey, fish (all species) were observed at depths of 10 – 20 feet in depth during the day, as well as associated with the lake bottom. Fish dispersed during the evening and night presumably to feed on the primary forage species – threadfin shad.

Six of fifteen striped bass were surgically implanted with sonic tags in February, and released back into the reservoir. The sonic tags emit a pulse at a given frequency, allowing us to locate the fish (see photo).


Tagged fish are also marked with a floy tag just below the dorsal fin. The tag resembles a clothing tag and has AGFD and a 4-digit number stamped on it (see photo). If you catch a striper with a floy tag, that fish has a sonic tag implanted in it’s abdomen, and we kindly ask that you return the fish to the water so we can continue to collect location data on that fish. If the fish is not in good condition and you feel it will not survive release, we ask that you keep the fish and return the tag to us so that we may implant it in another striped bass. Telemetry surveys to locate tagged fish are currently ongoing, and we are in the process of scheduling another tagging event to implant the remaining tags into striped bass. Angler participation will be requested in the upcoming future. Many thanks to anglers who attempted to help catch stripers on Feb 26th. Two fish were tagged from that event, but it was tough fishing for most anglers that day.


Gill netting surveys conducted at the end of February indicated that striped bass were still occupying the main reservoir and in particular just off the Sheriff’s Station / Operation Headquarters point, as well as just west and north of the marina boom line in the channel.

Preliminary observations of diet and aging data indicate that stripers are eating threadfin shad almost exclusively while white bass and largemouth bass are eating both threadfin shad and crayfish. We expect that diet composition will shift during the summer season.

For more information, contact Marianne Meding, AGFD Research Branch, email: MMeding@azgfd.gov
 
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