Thread: yellow bass question.

Sounds like a question for the ag&fc group.....

In Louisiana you could get a ticket for wanton waste if you kill them & throw them away. I have a friend that fishes Lake Fork in Texas & he talked me into trying some. They don't have as much of the red meat on the filets as a white bass, I caught some on a deep clear lake here locally & they eat pretty darn good fresh!!!

while un hooking, take your pliers n pull out both eyes. no blood,but they will have to get tough or die !!

Yellow bass are a native specie in Oklahoma and can be found in the Red River and any waterway that feeds it. I do not believe that they are an invasive specie. They do cross with white bass sometimes to produce a hybrid. I may still hold 3 world records on a yellow bass/white bass hybrid in Oklahoma caught in 1991 in the Kiamichi River. A 2 pound 5 ounce fish.

The SCOURGE of crappie fishing. I hate em! Talk about ruin a good crappie lake. I here some folks eat em. Not me.

Are they still bad on Clear lake? Few years back they got real bad.

yes yellow bass are bad at clear lake. They school though and they seem to stay right on the bottom. We always catch 20 or so in a afternoon of fishing. I think Im going to start thinning them out. No more catch and release.

Although yellow bass are native to Arkansas (Arkansas River and some other rivers) they are not native to most bodies of water (lakes) and can become a nuisance. As some have noted there are not a creel limit for them. However, throwing them on the bank or sticking a knife in one is kind of a grey area. The AGFC consider them a moderate nuisance in the Aquatic Nuisance Species Plan. However there is nothing currently in the game code that exempts them from the wanton waste rule. So in other words, some game wardens may write you a ticket and some may not. J have been told by the captain of Enforcement in the central Arkansas area that he understands they are unwelcome and he will remind his subordinates of this. For now I recommend that you not dispose of them in the two ways listed above. I am sure this issue will be brought up in the future and we will have more resolution. If you do dispose of yellow bass, I would not advertise it. I wish this were a better answer but it is all I could come up with.