# cool smallmouth stuff



## oldstinkyguy (Mar 28, 2010)

With the river muddy as heck I've been doing some reading instead of fishing. I found this interesting stuff it's from a study on rivers in Virginia. Here's the link
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/forecasts-and-reports/smallmouth-bass-rivers-report.pdf
Considering the horrible water levels we keep experiencing on a weekly basis so far this year it's not very encouraging...


"After years of sampling and data analysis, our staff has determined that good fishing for smallmouth bass is directly linked to river flows, usually in the month of June. That is, if June flows deviate significantly from average, chances are that newly spawned bass will suffer a high degree of mortality. By examining recruitment and growth data, we can estimate how good fishing will be for smallies several years after their birth."




"In the past 10 years, we have aged almost 10,000 smallmouth bass from Age 0 (young-of-year) to Age 17. On average, it takes at least five years to attain 12 inches and 16 years to reach 20 inches. Fish length really slows after nine years, and after that they begin to put on more weight. If you think about the smallmouth bass survival and couple it with age information, there are really just a handful of trophy size smallmouth bass swimming in a river at any given time. Thats another reason why recruitment is very critical from year to year."

Total annual adult SMB survival is 65% when our study rivers are averaged.In real numbers, if 1,000 young smallmouth bass are subject to a 35% natural death rate, by the time they reach 14 inches, only 116 are available to catch.


Few SMBs over 20 inches were collected, so with the small sample number, scores are meaningless for this size group.


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## 9Left (Jun 23, 2012)

Cool read stinky..thanks for posting....
P.S......I was at fisherman's quarters the other day (in Dayton)..and saw your book was there...I picked upa copy....loved it...nicely written, good pics, and just plain good book to read...thanks for your time in writing it...


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## gibson330usa (May 15, 2012)

Good Info OSG, I guess we'll have to stick to the muskie dinners and C & R all the SMB's.


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## Lostleader (Apr 19, 2013)

That is an awesome read, makes you think about how old a SMB really is and why we should practice CPR.

Handle your fish with care fellas, I want my SMB to all be legally able to drive.


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## streamstalker (Jul 8, 2005)

Last year the flows got abnormally high the first couple weeks of July. I bet that had to be hard on the fry too. Possibly there are places where the smallies simply won't spawn this year. It sure has been a tough year to figure them out.


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## oldstinkyguy (Mar 28, 2010)

Yesterday was the summer solstice 

Crazy thought... So it's been shown in tracking studies that smb begin to move from their summer haunts towards their wintering holes within about a week of the autumnal equinox regardless of water temp. (they just might not bite well till the water cools off) So could the summer solstice be a trigger for smb movements from the spawning grounds to where they will spend the summer? The timings just about right. It's been my experience that smb's are hard to catch when they first start to move just before they go on their feeding binge as the water drops into the 50's in the fall. remember all those threads last fall about "wheres this fall bite I've been hearing about?" Kind of like the "postspawn funk" as smallies begin to move to summer haunts. Not that it changes anything really, just something to think about.


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## Dandrews (Oct 10, 2010)

16 years to reach 20 inches, I thought it might be something like that; something to think about. Can&#8217;t do anything about the weather but I&#8217;ve heard Al Linder say several times &#8220;Smallmouth for the fun, walleye for the table&#8221;. If you&#8217;re interested in big smallmouth in our region, better practice C-n-R.
Not likely that any 2014 young of year is going to see its first birthday let alone its sixteenth.

There&#8217;s a study of Indian Creek in Butler County where all the subject nests were destroyed by floods

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/22886/v082n5_266.pdf?sequence=1

Now before anybody goes to hit up the smallmouth on Indian Creek, it might not be worth the trouble. It&#8217;s tiny, most of it&#8217;s on private property, your average farmer out there will not be happy to see you and they aren&#8217;t shy about letting you know.
...and it's too small for a kayak.


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## Crawdude (Feb 6, 2013)

Dandrews said:


> 16 years to reach 20 inches, I thought it might be something like that; something to think about.


I think if more people knew this statistic they'd be more apt to release smallmouth bass.

Has any thought ever been put toward managing some of our rivers as trophy smallmouth streams? Possibly creating slot limits, single barbless hook C&R only areas, sections off limits to fishing during spawning etc?


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## [email protected] (May 29, 2014)

How old do you think the bottom fish is in this picture?  We obviously have a lot of big mature smallmouths in the great Miami river in the Hamilton, Ohio area. Caught these the next day. I'm guessing 10 to 15 years old ? P.S. they all went back in the river to get bigger.


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## strongto (Apr 1, 2013)

[email protected] said:


> How old do you think the bottom fish is in this picture?  We obviously have a lot of big mature smallmouths in the great Miami river in the Hamilton, Ohio area. Caught these the next day. I'm guessing 10 to 15 years old ? P.S. they all went back in the river to get bigger.



They all went back but its doubtful many if any survived after being strung up


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

Kudos on releasing the fish.


Skip the stringer next time.


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## streamstalker (Jul 8, 2005)

Yeah, Bob, thanks for releasing them, but I've got to say that logic only dictates that they would have a better chance of surviving if you snapped individual pics and returned them immediately. It's not as dramatic, but a stringer isn't exactly a livewell. Honestly, I don't like to see them stored in the livewell for the big shot at the end of the day.

More importantly, if those were caught recently, they may have been down to business guarding fry. If you pulled them off the nest and didn't release them, their fry likely were cleaned up pretty quickly.

Good job on the smallies! You obviously know what you are doing.


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## Mason52 (Aug 21, 2009)

Crawdude said:


> Has any thought ever been put toward managing some of our rivers as trophy smallmouth streams? Possibly creating slot limits, single barbless hook C&R only areas, sections off limits to fishing during spawning etc?



The Stillwater river had a 15 inch size limit for quite a few years. I think they removed it because they weren't seeing any improvement in size. I think most people release bass and most game fish anymore.


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## oldstinkyguy (Mar 28, 2010)

Mason52 said:


> The Stillwater river had a 15 inch size limit for quite a few years. I think they removed it because they weren't seeing any improvement in size. I think most people release bass and most game fish anymore.


 I think no matter what the regulations your never going to have more than just a very very few 20 inchers. But you sure could make a lot more 12 to 16 inch fish if it was catch and release only on smallmouth bass. I've seen three or four guys already this year keeping smallmouth bass. 



montagc said:


> Guys, he already got raked over the coals on the stringer issue in another thread a ways back, same pics. Can we give him a pass this time please?


He obviously knows this time, he's just trolling, better to ignore him.


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## Crawdude (Feb 6, 2013)

oldstinkyguy said:


> I think no matter what the regulations your never going to have more than just a very very few 20 inchers. But you sure could make a lot more 12 to 16 inch fish if it was catch and release only on smallmouth bass. I've seen three or four guys already this year keeping smallmouth bass.



More catchable mid-size fish might motivate novice anglers get into the sport, and then hone their skills going after the elusive 20"er. (Like myself)

I've also seen people keep smallies. In all cases they were not targeting bass. They were just incidental catches by well intentioned people. Internet trolls aside, I bet most people would release smallmouth if it was the rule and they knew the sound reasoning behind the rule.



Sent from my iPhone using Ohub Campfire


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## Cat Mangler (Mar 25, 2012)

Definitely a lot of good info to consider, and makes the plethora of 12 inchers ive been plagued by this year much less embarrassing. Did not realize it took that long to get that size. And with as productive as I've heard Virginia are, the odds in sw Ohio are possibly less of a survival rate. Guess im not so crazy for jumping with joy over anything over 16"! Superb info Steve, thanks!


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## Crawdude (Feb 6, 2013)

montagc said:


> I think the Virginia streams in the posted report run cooler than ours based on the fact that a lot of them support trout populations, and thus may have a shorter growing season even though they are further south. I read a report on the WWR that showed that it takes about 6 years for a smallie to hit 14", maybe 4.5 years to reach 12". Roughly 11% of the 131 smallies sampled were over 12". So of those 11% or 14 fish, how many do you think actually get to 14"+ in those next couple years, then 16"+ in the years after that? Not too many.
> 
> So, a 16" around here is definitely a trophy CM, and an old fish. Fish Ohio lengths for smallies are skewed because of that large puddle north of Cleveland.


Wow, cool statistic. That really outlines how special those bigger fish are.


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## Klinger (Nov 15, 2006)

The SM catch & release organization that I belong to regularly fishes the Stillwater watershed and the GMR from Dayton north. Just about every outing at least one or more smallies are caught in the 16-18 inch range. However, a 20 incher is extremely rare. Someone might get one for the entire season that stretches from April to November. To put that in to perspective, that is about 800 fishing hours per season with, maybe, one 20" being landed.


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## [email protected] (May 29, 2014)

strongto said:


> They all went back but its doubtful many if any survived after being strung up


I'm sure they all survived, better than in a live well. Look at that white water behind me, full of oxygen ! You can see them flipping on the stringer full of life and energy, healthy ! Oh...And the question was ,"HOW OLD DO YOU THINK THEY ARE? ", not how doubtful you are.


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## oldstinkyguy (Mar 28, 2010)

Yeah I should take my own advice and ignore. But who knows maybe I'll reach someone else.

Here is a direct quote from this study
*Physiological Impacts of catch and release angling practices on largemouth and smallmouth bass

*Retention: stringers, fish baskets, keep nets

We examined injury and short term mortality
of 313 adult smallmouth bass on Lake Erie over a
range of water temperatures (10.621.8°C; Cooke
and Hogle 2000). Lure-caught fish were retained
by one of six methods for three to five hours; metal
stringer through lip, metal stringer through gill
arch, cord through lip, cord through gill arch, wire
fish basket, and nylon keepnet. Fish were then
transferred to a holding pen, and their survival over
a 48 h period was estimated relative to control fish.
Control fish exhibited very little mortality (3%) and
had negligible physical injury across all sampling
periods (Figure 4). Most (95%) fish retained experienced
some form of injury or mortality. In general,
injury and mortality increased with increasing
water temperatures, particularly when water
temperatures exceeded 21.8°C. Survival and injury
varied among retention gears, but gill damage or
fungal lesions associated with abrasion, and the
cumulative stress of angling and retention appeared
to be the precursor to most deaths. These
results suggest that even at low temperatures, significant
injury can occur in response to retention.
At higher temperatures, these injuries often result
in death. We suggest that the use of these gears
should be restricted for only those fish that will be
harvested and should not be used for temporarily
retaining fish prior to release.


Here is the link, there is a lot more interesting reading

http://www.fecpl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2002/05/C-and-R-LMB-SMB-MS.pdf


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

You're missing the point Bob. Nobody cares if you have a stringer full of 20" smallmouth. Nobody cares how old they are.

All we care about is your blatant disregard for the bass. If you kept them all, perhaps you'd have some ground to stand on. More power to ya. I'll admit a stringer through the mouth like that is not going to be the end of the fish... hopefully....but it still makes absolutely zero sense other than your hero shot you got yourself there.


Congratulations!


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## deltaoscar (Apr 4, 2009)

Thanks for posting that report OSG, I always had a sneaking suspicion that putting fish on a stringer was not conducive to their continued well being, even when released several hours later. Turns out I was right.

Any idea if staring directly at the sun has any ill effects?


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## Orville Wrong (Mar 20, 2014)

Really interesting stuff. 

I didn't keep full records until this year, and I don't always measure small fish, but I've caught 58 SMB this year in Butler, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, and Warren Counties. The median is squarely at 12", with the average probably a bit higher (I've never caught any smaller than 6" I'm certain, but I don't have measurements to compute a true average). 

I designate everything 15" or longer "large" for smallmouths, as fish that length have seemed to historically represent the top 25% of fish I catch in SW Ohio rivers (11"-15" I call medium, and everything else is small). So far this year, 22.4% (13), of the smallmouths I've caught were 15" or longer, 55.1% (32) have been medium, and the remaining 22.4% (again 13) were small.

I've kept exactly zero, but had one medium fish killed by a swallowed tube jig. I have only seen three anglers keeping SMB, maybe 20 of them total, with one certain 17" specimen among them on the Twin.


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