Toney,

That was an amazing post. I really enjoyed it. I used to post regularly on this site, but haven't in a while. I had to chime in because Toney's thread was that good. I am not striper fishermen and not as well versed as you. I know you are on the water many more hours than myself. I am a bass fishermen and not biologist or a politician. I agree that biologists need to make the decisions. I do agree.

Would I rather see Norris turn into the ultimate SM fishery? Yes. Do I think that the only fish that should swim in the waters is a SM? No. I don't know the history on Norris and stocking. We all know Striper's are not a native fish, but definitely provides fun and economic advantages for a lot of people. With all this considered, I understand that the studies don't say that stripers eat SM, LG, spots, crappie, bluegill, or walleye. I am a firm believer in scientific based research. From my limited understanding, Stripers are eating machines. I think they would have to be to get so big. All these fish live in a confined area with limited food supply (the good ole "food web" from freshman year of high school biology class). I don't know the in's and out's of the life cycle of all the shad, however I believe that stripers do indeed effect the food chain and the balance of the lake. I used to catch stripers while fishing for bass in the spring and winter. Were they 40lb's no. They were 3-7 lber's. They are up there for a reason to eat. Does the non-native
Stripers shake up the balance of the lake? Probably not if managed properly. Which fish is on the top of the food chain? Usually it is the more aggressive fish I think. As I understand it, I think that is the problem with our spotted bass population. It is my belief that the 40 lb. stripers aren't on the bottom of the food chain. How many big smallmouth do you catch when are stripper fishing? I know that different seasons produce different patterns and the fish may not be linked all the time.

So where I am I going with this, Norris is a highland resevoir that is lacking in a lot of cover, structure, spawning areas, etc.. We need to be concerned with keeping the population of forage fish at a healthy level, which in turn keeps the gamefish healthy. This is a dynamic ecosystem. I think the stripers probably have an indirect effect on other fish even if they don't indeed eat gamefish. On the other hand, I would welcome a genetic strand of stripers that would eat small spotted bass - they don't eat gamefish unfortunately. This overlap, whether it is small or large, the striper population probably does have an effect on the other gamefish to some compacity if they were over-stocked. I think the biologists would have recommended restocking at higher levels if this wasn't the case. They haven't. The fish kill of '03 may have been nature rebalancing the situation at hand? I know it mainly effected the big stripers. Why? Did it effect the other gamefish? Unfortunately, I don't have time to research the situation to figure everything out.

I don't know what other people are experiencing, but I can say the fishing for LG especially has been better in the past couple years. I think the LG are a real fragile fish in Norris, but at least they can spawn unlike the Stripers. Have other people experienced better fishing, bigger fish or am I just learning how to fish finally?

Again I am not saying one way or another that I am right, but I am looking for other point of views to spark some debate. I know this can be a hot topic and I have tried to be considerate of everyone. As fishermen, we should be conservationists because with the pressure and lack of water. We need to protect our resources. We don't need to fight amongst ourselves because we need to stick together.

These are my two cents even though the may only be worth that amount.