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| From the
1999 Southern Division of the American Fisheries Society Midyear Meeting held in
Chattanooga, Tennessee. |
Evaluation of a Pilot Largemouth
Bass Micropterus salmoides Stocking Program using Radio Telemetry
Jason G. Freund and Kyle J. Hartman Wildlife and
Fisheries Program Division of Forestry West Virginia University 322 Percival Hall P.O. Box
6125 Morgantown West Virginia 26501-6125 Voice 304- 293-2941 x2417 FAX 304-293-2441 E-Mail
jfreund@wvu.edu
Keywords: largemouth bass, radio telemetry, Ohio
River, stocking, embayments
Due to the perceived long-term reduction in the quality
of the largemouth bass fishery in the Ohio River, many angling organizations are pressing
the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources to stock largemouth bass in the Ohio
River. Radio telemetry was used to analyze the success of a pilot largemouth bass (Micropterus
salmoides) stocking in embayments of the Ohio River. Six adult largemouth bass
obtained from a hatchery were implanted with 8-gram radio transmitters. Twenty adult
largemouth bass captured through electrofishing and bass tournaments in the Belleville
Pool of the Ohio River were fitted with radio transmitters of two percent or less of their
body weight. The Belleville Pool is a 70.5-km navigation pool formed by the Belleville
Lock and is bordered by the states of Ohio and West Virginia. Due to the size of the Ohio
River, stocking sufficient numbers of bass to produce what anglers would perceive, as a
"quality" fishery is not feasible. Therefore fish were stocked into smaller
embayments of the Ohio River and mortality, habitat preference, and seasonal movement were
compared between the wild and stocked fish. In this paper, we discuss and compare these
parameters between wild and stocked fish in light of the criteria that for a stocking
program to be successful mortality of stocked bass should not be significantly greater
than wild bass mortality and stocked bass must contribute to the spawn.
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