Smallmouth Bass are just about the most fun fish to catch that I know of!

They fight hard and just do not give up.

I'm getting envious of the reports about them coming from just about every other lake in Oklahoma and nearby surrounding states. Tenkiller, Eufaula, Keystone, Skiatook and others regularly have reports of Smallmouths weighing in at over five pounds. Just across our borders, we have lakes such as Beaver, Table Rock, Stockton, Bull Shoals and others with great Smallmouth populations. We at Grand are surrounded by Smallmouth lakes, yet we don't have any. Are we being discriminated against? And if so, why?

I've asked people, such as Gene Gilliland with the State Wildlife Department, and here is the answer they give as to why they don't stock the lake strain of Smallmouth in Grand. The answer I get is that they don't know if the lake strain will mix with or hurt the river strain, mostly up in the Elk River.

These are fish that are hardly ever caught by a boater on Grand, since we can't generally get to them by boat. On limited occasions where the lake has a big flood, a boat may get to them, but this is rare. 

A couple of years ago a jet boat did weigh in a limit at a tournament, but they had to have a jet boat to get to them. I have heard about maybe 3 or 4 Smallmouths being caught in tournaments over the course of a whole year.

My point is that these river strain Smallmouths rarely travel into the lake and aren't really part of the fish population in Grand Lake. They add basically nothing to the recreational value of Grand.

I know that on Tenkiller they had the river strain of Smallmouth before they were introduced to the main lake. Did the stocking of the lake strain hurt the river fish? On lakes such as Table Rock, Bull Shoals and Beaver they had a native river strain before the lakes and I think these fish still are in the rivers above the lakes. 

What is different about Grand? I've asked some so-called experts if the introduction of the lake strain of Smallmouth would adversely affect any existing fish we presently have and the answer was "no". The Black Bass and Smallmouth compete mostly in different areas for food, and as most of you know, we don't seem to have a shortage of shad for them to eat.

I would like to get other opinions about the introduction of Smallmouth Bass into Grand Lake. If you'd like to share your opinions publicly, and perhaps have them appear in this site, we can probably do that (but keep it clean, you never know who might be reading these pages!).

Send me an email with your thoughts.