Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

Plans for a fall and winter drawdown (1955-56) were carried out on Nimrod, a turbid, flood control lake. The surface acreage was reduced from approximately 3,600 acres to 700 acres. Commercial fishermen removed over 200,000 pounds of rough fish most of which were smallmouth buffalo. Following the drawdown and subsequent filling, the water cleared up and remained clear. An increase in the number and size of young black bass and white bass was recorded with a resultant decrease in the number of young channel catfish, carp, drum and buffalo. Larger numbers of young sunfish and minnows were noted. The fish population, as tabulated by weight, showed a marked change in that the edible forage species (buffalo, drum, etc.) were reduced approximately one-half and the non edible forage species (shad, minnows, etc.) were increased approximately three times. Boat dock operators reported improved sport fishing, especially for small white crappie.

Commercial fishing experiments with 1 1/4- to 1 5/8-inch-bar mesh trammel nets were conducted in fourteen tidal streams of Alabama during 1953 and 1954. The primary objective of these studies was to determine the percentages of the various species of fish taken with small mesh trammel nets in the tidal streams during the months of October through March. A total of 26 sets with trammel nets were made in the streams studied. A total of 65,839 fish, turtles and crabs weighing 56,129.01 pounds was caught during the period of the experiments. Freshwater game fish which included crappie, bluegill, shellcracker, largemouth bass, pickerel, warmouth and yellow bass made up 0.75 percent of this total weight. Speckled trout comprised 3.21 percent and all other commercial and rough species made up 96.04 percent of the total weight.

Although the literature shows several instances where warmwater fishes have been affected by recognizable disease organisms, the problem of warmwater fish diseases has received little notice by investigators. Evidence collected in fish cultural activity at the Marion, Alabama, Station indicates that disease may be an important factor in the successful propagation of bluegill fingerlings and also to some extent in that of largemouth black bass. A case of gill disease among blugills is described and other evidence regarding unexplained mortality among both bluegills and largemouth black bass is discussed. The need for a comprehensive study of the problem of warmwater fish diseases is emphasized.

Four similar one-quarter-acre ponds were stocked with 1,500 bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus Rafinesque, and 100 largemouth black bass, Micropterus salmoides (Lacepede), fingerlings per acre in the spring of 1950. Two of the ponds were enclosed with board fences and stocked with slider turtles, Pseudemys scripta scripta (Schoepff) at the rate of 100 per acre. The four experimental ponds were fertilized and managed identically. The ponds were drained in the fall of 1950, and the average yield of fish in the ponds containing turtles was compared to that in the control ponds. It was found that the average yield of fish in the ponds containing slider turtles was approximately 258 pounds per acre while in the control ponds it was 264 pounds per acre. The contents of 58 slider turtle stomachs that were trapped from various ponds in Central Alabama were analyzed and it was found that the food consisted of approximately 80 percent vegetable matter and 20 percent animal matter.