Smallmouth bass aren’t native to Lake Texoma’s considerable watershed. Oklahoma’s native smallmouth bass are in the Ozark hills in the eastern part of the state. But if you’ve been following the GEICO Bassmaster BASSfest presented by Choctaw Casino, you know there have been some healthy smallmouths caught in Lake Texoma this week.
“This was the first lake in Oklahoma that had smallmouth bass imported into it, beginning in 1980,” said Gene Gilliland, the B.A.S.S. conservation director. “These fish were brought in from Tennessee, lakes like Dale Hollow, Percy Priest and Cumberland.
“The native smallmouths are very much a stream fish. When Broken Bow and Tenkiller and those lakes in eastern Oklahoma were built, smallmouth bass never really developed in those reservoirs. The stream fish didn’t adapt.
“The Tennessee smallmouths have a slightly different genetic makeup that’s more adaptable to a big reservoir.”
Gilliland is steeped in the fishing history of Lake Texoma. He grew up in Gainesville, Texas, fishing that end of the lake, then worked for many years as a fisheries biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, often participating in various studies of Texoma.
One study in particular will be interesting to bass anglers.
“Everybody thinks smallmouth bass eat crawfish,” Gilliland said. “One of the things we found out here is that about 75 percent of their diet is shad. Crawfish are very seasonal, but shad are there all the time.
“In fact, smallmouth bass in Texoma eat almost as many bugs as they do crawfish, primarily mayfly larvae. We would get four- or five-pound smallmouth that were just absolutely packed full of mayflies. They’re very opportunistic. When there’s a mayfly hatch going on, they take advantage of it.”