Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Why HSB and not Stripers?

Why does everyone use Hybrids and not regular stripers in ponds?

I thought "stripers" were a salt water fish and "hybrids" are freshwater.

I truly dunno!

I think striped bass can live in freshwater, but I don't have any experience with them, so I could be wrong. My guess would be that stripers could easily get too large for the average pond.

I suppose with the hybrids you get a bonus predator that you can be fairly certain won't spawn. That could explain their popularity.

Stripers can live in freshwater but need water with a higher salinity to spawn. They also have to spawn in rivers where the water is flowing so that the eggs stay off of the bottom.

IIRC HSB do better in ponds that get too warm in the Summer for Stripers. Think how george et al. avoid fishing for HSB in the hottest weather, and use fancy resuscitation methods for HSB caught from warmer water. Stripers would have an even harder time of it under these conditions.

Striped bass were stocked into Kiser Lake in Champaign, Co. Ohio. It's not far from my place and I have fished it many times. The DNR stocked it with HSB for years but started stocking pure stripers a couple of years ago...for breeding stock I heard. Kiser lake is pretty typical for our area. Mostly 5-6' with Max depth around 12', surrounded with lilly pads, weedy and fertile. Saugeye stocking wasn't successful and was discontinued. HSB have done extremely well. I had a friend who covered the bottom of his truck bed with 3lb to 10lbers in one evening. It's interesting to me that saugeyes didn't do well but the expect the pure stipers to. There is 1 fish per day 26" size limit on pure stripers in this lake.

Ryan, ODNR wanted a small lake that was chock full of shad to use so they could easily catch true stripers to use for the HSB egg fertilization at the hatcheries, this is why the lake was used, shallow, full of bait fish,easy to recapture and since it is used for that purpose, it gets a "double stocking" just like Clear fork with muskies, and CJ for Walleyes, The state also stocked a ton of Golden Shiners as well to help supplement them.
Weather they do well or not, isnt the issue, with the heavy stocking to make it easy to procure them its easier then to raise them as brood stock, just using a small lake as a hatchery pond. This also makes the state look like a good guy and when they over stock lakes, it not always for the publics purpose. I have a bunch of friends who have in the past or still work with DNR so know this as a fact.

Salmonid

I think the main reason they aren't normally stocked in ponds is that there aren't many that could support very many of these monsters.

Here's some freshwater ones
http://www.lakecumberlandstripers.com/client_photos.html

Guys it is also about what is avaialble. HSB are producded mainly for food fish market in non gov't hatcheries. Not many commericial hatcheries that sell stripers to private pond stockers, so availability is limited.

This guy has true Stripers

http://www.delmarvaaquatics.com/

Mike thanks I had found this same guy about two years when trying to find client stripers to help control gizzard shad populaiotns. It seemed the fish were only avaialable certain time of the year and the travel cost was going to be too much for client to fit the bill since only client wanting them.

This kinda proves my point there are but a few producers and difficult for most pondowners across the country to have a supplier near by vs. hsb this will many times make them cost prohibative.

He is near where I live. I haven't actually bought fish from him yet. I have no need for true stripers as my pond is pretty small. He told me he has some right now though and just shipped a bunch to Texas.

Stripers can and will sucessfully reproduce in impoundments.
They'll often "migrate" to the head end/inflow of the lake to spawn.I do not know in how small of an impoundment they can spawn, but not a problem in some of the larger lakes.

Used to also see some hybrids in fairly brakish water, when they were stocked in rivers here.
We used male white bass to produce ours, and had to drive a pretty good distance to get them.

And in regards to striper eggs and bouyancy, I've noticed some fuuny things. MOST of the fertilized eggs from mid and upper Chesapeake Bay brood will sink. This makes skimming of dead eggs a breeze: Shut off incoming flow,and any air, let them settle,then skim the dead eggs off the surface, as they float.
When done, turn flow (air and H2O) back on,. stir the bottom to get the eggs back in suspension, and you're good to go.

Eggs from the lower Bay tend to be more neutrally bouyant, and this skimming technique doesn't work near as well.

I read that the eggs of Striped Bass must stay suspended in the water column for 48 hours in order to hatch. If they sink to the bottom, they will suffocate. This is why the bass spawned in rivers.

There are only a very few impoundments where striped bass can naturally reproduce. David is right, striped bass eggs are just a little heavier than water, so they tend to not completely sink but kind of bounce along the bottom. When the current dies, the eggs sink and silt up and die.

So you basically need a river running into an impoundment that is long enough to support striped bass spawning far enough up river to allow the eggs to then float downstream long enough to hatch. Not many impooundments out there like that. Striped bass can and will thrive in complete freshwater and can and will spawn in complete freshwater.

Hybrid stripers are more tolerant of higher water temperatures and lower DO. Just like sub adult striped bass are tolerant of the same conditions. It seems that once striped bass get over about 8 lbs they become much less tolerant to high water temps and low DO. Even large hybrid stripers prefer cooler waters with higher DOs.

Ponds are stocked with HSB over striped bass because HSB are more tolerant of higher water temps and low DO. In order to have a successful striped bass fishery, you need a lake that is going to have a classic "two story" fishery. This requires a rather large body of water, far beyond the average and not so average pond owner...

Lake Texoma is one of the best striped bass lakes in the country for numbers if not for size.
They are very sensitive to our hot Texas/Okla summers with high water temps and low DO, and is not unusual to have summer fish kills.

Spawns are very prolific even in drought periods with little or no curreent to suspend the eggs,and my conclusion due to higher density water due to high salt water content in the Red River, resulting in improved suspension of eggs.

Definitely a good possibility, that is why striped bass don't need as lengthy a river when they spawn in brackish water areas, the eggs suspend easier in the higher salt content waters.