Willard is ice free

[wiperhunter2]

I never had a problem launching..... in the North marina at least.[] I'm glad to hear you got your shoulder fixed, hope your recovery goes good.
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[Tin-Can]

Curt, you gonna try WB this weekend ? I'm taking my boat in tomorrow for some servicing and minor repairs, then getting my truck serviced. But thought I might head to WB once the truck is done and try some bank tangling again. Weather forecast is for partly cloudy and high 40's to low 50's for Fri-Sun. I may try on Saturday also. Same general area as before.
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[wiperhunter2]

Yea, I'm not sure which day but likely Sat. I think it is suppose to be windy tomorrow.
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[Fin-S-Fish]

One additional problem with the latter year's wiper plants was genetics. The fish in the 90's were obviously the result of a hybrid utilizing a female striper and male white bass. This results in bigger fry and better survival rate, further, the wipers ended up having much much better girth from my empirical observations. Many of the latter wipers seemed to be male striper, and female white bass. Even the coloring was quite distinct, hybrids that were the result of female white bass had less broken lateral stripes whereas the results of female striper parent had numerous broken lateral stripes. I've seen many of the recent ones with few broken stripes, they get big to 22 inches easy but only about 4 and half lbs with a few exceptional fish here and there. The former strain was 4 lbs at 18 to 19 inches. But aside from size, so few are planted I no longer bother to fish willard much from shore. UL is much better for eyes so I stay over there lol.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]Yep. The numbers (and fishing) used to be a lot better. In previous years I had many days of multiple wipers...from my tube. I don't think I have caught more than one or two per trip the last couple of years...and most days I have to rely on the kitties to avoid the smell of skunk.

Like yourself, I have done a bit of research on the various factors involved in hybridizing stripers and white bass. It is surprising the genetic differences in using male x female or female x male crosses. It seems there are also potential negative results from delayed fertilization...or wide temperature variations at the times of fertilization and incubation. And, on Willard Bay there can be wide swings of temperature, turbidity, food availability, predation from other species, etc. at the time of planting. Poor little wiperettes have gotta be tough, fast and lucky to survive to hand size.
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