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Resource managers regularly hear negative comments from bass fishermen about the stocking of striped bass, northern pike and other toothy predators.
Are those fears justified? It's an issue that has remained on the front burner for decades inside the fisheries management community.
Is it possible for other predatory species to coexist peacefully alongside the various species of black bass?
In most cases, such intertwined relationships are not only possible but quite common, according to experts. Fish populations interact in three ways: direct predation, competition for nesting or space, and competition for food.
While toothy predators can and do eat young bass, members of the black bass family don't usually make the most popular dinner items. Sure, aggressive predators will eat anything. But adult members of the black bass family have rather intimidating spines and are difficult to swallow. Moreover, they are tougher to catch than many other food sources.
For example, muskellunge and northern pike prefer to prey upon soft-rayed fish such as suckers and chubs, while stripers concentrate on shad and shiners. These coveted prey species don't have sharp spines and are shaped for easy swallowing.
Space and nesting competition is usually minor between bass and other top-of-the-line predators because habitat overlap is not all that common. Differential timing of nesting periods also helps to avoid conflicts.
The competition for food, however, is an entirely different matter under hostile conditions.
In any aquatic ecosystem, a balance between prey and predators is vital to the overall health of the system. Each lake must produce enough forage to feed all of the predator species living there. Conflicts are most likely to arise during times when forage is scarce.
Usually a reliable food source, shad populations typically decline sharply every three or four years, creating a void in the food supply. When this happens, competition for remaining food sources becomes intense. Since forage species like shad and certain shiner species are cyclic, a forage shortage is likely to be widespread when it occurs.
Because striped bass and hybrid bass (sometimes referred to as "wipers") and black bass all depend on shad as a primary food source, conflicts are more likely to arise between these species than among others.
One such conflict occurred at Norris Reservoir in Tennessee during the early 1990s. Bass fishermen insisted that striped bass were eating all of the reservoir's black bass and thus were heavily impacting Norris' black bass populations. Arguments, brawls and all sorts of negative interactions between angry angler groups surfaced during the controversy.
As the smoke cleared, dietary studies revealed that very few black bass were being consumed by stripers. Studies also proved that habitat use between the two species was dissimilar, so the issue boiled down to food sources.
Stripers and black bass shared common food sources, particularly shad. Problems arose during years when shad populations decreased, because food supplies diminished to levels that were inadequate to satisfy both black bass and striper populations. Both species fed on different prey items when those items were available, but these secondary food sources weren't enough to carry either species without partial diets of shad.
Throughout the country, minor skirmishes between muskie/pike and bass anglers have surfaced as well. But these isolated battles don't seem nearly as explosive as the Norris conflict. Since muskie/pike don't share many food resources with bass, conflicts seem to be on a smaller scale.
The goal of fisheries management is to balance the ratio of predators to available forage within a water body in order to keep competition between black bass and other species at a healthy level.
State or federal fisheries agencies rarely overstock predator species to a point where bass populations are annihilated. Contrary to gossip down at the tackle shop, fisheries management agencies strive to produce quality bass fisheries. After all, many state fish and wildlife agencies rely heavily on license dollars, so they need quality fisheries to attract anglers.
Many lakes offer a combination of great bass fishing and first rate muskie, pike or striper fisheries. Lake Cumberland or Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia quickly come to mind in the South, while up North countless lakes combine fabulous smallmouth fishing with fine muskie/pike angling.
In some cases, bass actually benefit from some new fish introductions. For instance, top predators have proven effective in reducing the numbers of small bass in lakes that have been plagued by stunted bass populations. Poor forage and too many small bass prevent any bass from reaching trophy size in these lakes. Due to a lack of suitable forage, some predators can actually thin out a stunted bass population, and the result becomes a vastly improved bass fishery.
Problems arise, however, when "armchair biologists" enter the picture. Believing they are performing a beneficial service, they illegally transfer large predators to a fishery that doesn't need them, damaging a fishery's balance to the point of collapse.
Biologists remain the ones most qualified to determine which species and how many of them to stock. That's why states have laws prohibiting the stocking and movement of fish into public waters.
When a lake features proper balance between forage and predators, numerous gamefish can coexist in tranquility, offering additional angling opportunities.