How Do Freshwater Fish Get From Lake To Lake? 2024
wuchr20 reply :
I know that man times bass will be stocked and/or with trout. However, I know that for a fact that some of the lakes that I fish in are not stocked. How do bass or other freshwater fish get from lake to lake?
gulfcaptain reply :
Nature finds a way. Run off from other bodies of water, there is the notion that birds may transplant fish eggs stuck to their feathers or feet. And then there is a 5 gal bucket from someone that decides to catch fish from somewhere else and transplant them to a new spot.
geo g reply :
I have heard the bird thing too. I think its much more likely the guy with the bucket. In south Florida all our waterways are connected to a large water pumping system called the South Florida Water Management System. Almost all waters are connected to the system by culvert pipes. We have bass, turtles, snakes, and gators everywhere because of it. I have seen gators in the most congested neighborhood backyards. Keep a close eye on your pets, and young children, if you live on the water.
Dogmatic reply :
As an example of a way fish can get from one body of water to another...I fish a pond, former sand pit, that was stocked with LMB, and Crappie. Long story short, river over two miles away floods, and the pond now has SMB,Striper,Musky, and some Walleye.
Paul Roberts reply :
Originally -glacial melt waters explain fish distributions. More recently -flooding, and humans. If you were to research old stocking records you'd be shocked at what has been tried and how much of it there has been over the decades, even centuries probably. Then there's unofficial me and Joe stocking. Birds doing the stocking is almost certainly a myth.
scaleface reply :
Tornadoes , LOL Like on the film Sharknado . After reading the snake thread , I'd like too see Snakenado with flying Water Moccasins. .
WRB reply :
Within the natural range of native fish, the fish have been in those waterways longer than man has.
Where fish are not native they get introduced by man.
Tom
J Francho reply :
I love the bird story.
BrownBear reply :
On 4/24/2015 at 7:17 PM, scaleface said:Tornadoes , LOL Like on the film Sharknado . After reading the snake thread , I'd like too see Snakenado with flying Water Moccasins. .
No...lol.
MassBass reply :
Smallmouth bass were stocked all over extensively, carried allover the country in freight trains and stocked.
J Francho reply :
Yep, largemouth too. You can find pics of them carrying the fish in big milk tins. Pretty wild!
WRB reply :
Book of Black Bass, Dr Henshall is a good history of how bass were transplanted across the country.
Tom
the reel ess reply :
The same way snakeheads and flying carp got where they are in the US.
A-Jay reply :
First the Mommy fish loves the Daddy Fish . . . . . .
Then the Baby fishes come . . . .
A-Jay
midgastumpjumper reply :
small fish can swim through small flows of water. if a fish is introduced to a watershed it will likely eventually find its way to most creeks, lakes, rivers, etc in the watershed
Master Bait'r reply :
It's a conspiracy I tells ya. Rapala does it while we sleep.
G8RBob reply :
I have wondered the same thing, but have no good answer. All I know is, if you build a new retention pond in Florida, connected to nothing, you will have fish, turtles and gators within a year. I have seen a six foot gator show up in a new retention pond, with a six foot chain link fence totally surrounding the pond, within weeks of completion. Who knows?
RoLo reply :
"How Do Fish Get From Lake To Lake?"
Well, you won't be seeing that anymore, my aerator burned out 
hatrix reply :
My grandfather dug a goldfish pond for my grandmother and eventually bluegills turned up. It was in the middle of the backyard with no other water anywhere around it. Also frogs showed up and painted turtles but I believe the turtles were put there later. How they got there exactly is a mystery but they found a way.
scaleface reply :
On 4/29/2015 at 5:51 AM, hatrix said:My grandfather dug a goldfish pond for my grandmother and eventually bluegills turned up. It was in the middle of the backyard with no other water anywhere around it. Also frogs showed up and painted turtles but I believe the turtles were put there later. How they got there exactly is a mystery but they found a way.
Kids playing a joke. You never know what the kids in my neighborhood are up to. A big fake bullfrog turned up at one guys pond. It looked real except the size . LOL
Bruce424 reply :
Don't forget about flooding. Lake or rivers close to each other.
Karma reply :
A few years back we had a pond dug in one of the fields near an area prone to flooding on my family farm in Tennessee. That section of the field would become swampy and hold a few inches of water after a big rain, we dug the pond in hopes of fixing that problem. The pond is approx 50 yards wide and 150 yards long and 8 feet or so deep, so it is pretty nice. We never stocked it, and it has bass and bluegill in it now.
The nearest pond is 1/4 mile away. No idea where they came from and no one can access the pond except for family members. It can be seen from almost all of our houses (mine being the only exception 
) , so no trespassers have been fishing it. We have no idea where they came from.... but we sure like eating them.
the reel ess reply :
There are ponds upstream of rivers all over the place. Heavy rains will cause small fish to flow over the standpipe/spillway. If you fish behind it, you'll see fish you know aren't supposed to be in a tiny stream. If its a big enough flow, those fish are heading downstream to whatever river or lake is below. Dig a pond and see if crawfish don't appear.
Wateree Lake in SC was not stocked with blue catfish or white perch, but they're there in spades. It has become a trophy blue cat fishery. White perch had displaced white bass completely. About 15 years ago they had flood water going over all the dams in the river chain. My dad and I caught more than 60 white perch, white bass and stripers on one trip. I asked the DNR guy what was stocked in Wateree in the last 20 years. Only stripers were.Therefore, white perch were placed there and the white bass we caught that day, and haven't since, came over the dam(s). That's my hypothesis, anyway.
greentrout reply :
You live in a city with creeks and bayous and when there is heavy rain with swollen creeks and bayous, not to mention subdivisions with stocked lakes and ponds, things get all shook up.
The Old School Basser...
Bluebasser86 reply :
Flooding is how a lot of fish move around. That's how the whole Asian carp mess got started.
chitura reply :
When I used to bank fish, you would see herons and egrets with weeds and eggs of some kind attached to their legs where they were wading, then fly to another lake.
Bankbeater reply :
Gar got into one of the city lakes when the river flooded a few years back. DNR got them out by shocking the water. Made a bunch of fisherman very happy.
*Hootie reply :
On 4/25/2015 at 12:45 AM, J Francho said:I love the bird story.
I've been hearing that bird story for over 50 yrs...lol.
Hootie
RoLo reply :
Bucket Brigade
boostr reply :
The fish fairy...
NathanW reply :
When my dad built our childhood home he also built us a man made pond. The only water it connected to was runoff and stormwater from our driveway. About 23 year later there are largemouth, mudfish, bluegill, yellow perch, goldfish, and some other types of minnows that live in it. The only fish that were ever planted were our goldfish when we got sick of cleaning their tanks. Its pretty wild that nature finds its way.
bigbill reply :
We have an old bass hatchery here. It's been shut down for many years.
So bass aren't native here.
Ok now we had a recent complex of buildings build here about ten years ago. My wife went to the gym there about eight years ago. There was a water drainage pond there. She seen movement in the water. The next trip she fed them bread. She told me and I fished there. Plenty of dinks. We fished there a few times every year and seen the bass and sunfish grow. The last trip I was there the bass were 3lbers.
There was always ducks there. I believe the fish eggs are transported by ducks on there legs or they eat fish eggs.
The place had no fish in the beginning.
Neil McCauley reply :
lo n slo reply :
On 8/31/2015 at 10:16 AM, the reel ess said:There are ponds upstream of rivers all over the place. Heavy rains will cause small fish to flow over the standpipe/spillway. If you fish behind it, you'll see fish you know aren't supposed to be in a tiny stream. If its a big enough flow, those fish are heading downstream to whatever river or lake is below. Dig a pond and see if crawfish don't appear.
Wateree Lake in SC was not stocked with blue catfish or white perch, but they're there in spades. It has become a trophy blue cat fishery. White perch had displaced white bass completely. About 15 years ago they had flood water going over all the dams in the river chain. My dad and I caught more than 60 white perch, white bass and stripers on one trip. I asked the DNR guy what was stocked in Wateree in the last 20 years. Only stripers were.Therefore, white perch were placed there and the white bass we caught that day, and haven't since, came over the dam(s). That's my hypothesis, anyway.
Spotted bass from Lake Norman are showing up in Lake Davidson. The only thing connecting each body of water are two overflow culverts under I-77. There are weeks in April when you can catch as many of them as you want.
Mainebass1984 reply :
On 9/1/2015 at 5:59 AM, bigbill said:There was always ducks there. I believe the fish eggs are transported by ducks on there legs or they eat fish eggs.
The place had no fish in the beginning.
The notion that birds can transport fish eggs is a myth. The eggs would certainly die moments after they leave the water. Ducks do not eat fish eggs either
Outside of their natural range a fish species is spread directly or indirectly by man.
Fish stocking has been occurring in this country for over 150 years. Many many fish and fish species have been stocked all over this country.
Fish have been stocked from the hatchery that I work at since 1891. We still have some of the old stocking slips. Just about every species of game fish you can think about has been stocked at some point.
Unfortunately there are far more bucket biologists today that think they know what is best for a body of water that decide it is ok for them to move fish from pond to pond. Bucket biologists are the single biggest threat to introduce invasive species.
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