Quote:
Originally Posted by swpa19
Dang hdgb! And I thought Lake Marions claim to fame were the "RockFish"
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Ya i suppose it used to be but do to many years of drought in this area as well as the proliferation of Commarrant birds wintering here. The numbers of Rockfish (land locked striper) have dropped off alot. The size limit has dropped as well as the creel limit and they close all striper fishing all summer. Maybe down the road it will help. They simply are not what they use to be here.
The catfishing has been very good w/ some true monster being caught but even that has taken a hit as some charter boats intertaining guests take hundreds of pounds a day. Ya i did say hundreds of pounds of catfish. We also have commercial trot liners leaving hooks all over the lake harvesting an incredible number of these fish. Regs have restricted the taking of blue cats to one over 36in a day. personnally i don't keep any that big just take a pic and send em back to make more. The size of the lake system and lack of law enforcement people on it make it vertually impossible to enforce any regs anyway.
the interesting thing is that the reason the Blue cats are here is many years ago DNR traded some land locked striper from here for some Arkansas blue cats from there . You see originally striper would not breed in a lake , they simply would not proliferate on there own. But the striper here used to be sea run before they damned up the river. They adapted and went north farther up the congarree and wateree rivers from the lake to spawn. Over time these striper have been shipped all over the place to provide lakes with a sustainable landed locked striper population. All in all this lake system provides and incredibly diverse fish population. LM Bass, crappie, shell crackers, long nose gar, the aforementioned Blue cats, monster flathead cats , channel cats, and finally striper... all of which feed on a local population of white perch, thread fin shad, sea run herring and american shad comming up thru the fish ladder. I know TMI but there ya go ask a question get an answer
you da man hd! that is one nice fish! is a blue? I think the world record blue was caught about an hours drive from here in Alton Ill. a few years back.
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