Alabama Bass Are Going to Make Smallmouth Bass Extinct...

In this episode of the Serious Angler Podcast, we sit down with Jason Henegar, Fisheries Division Chief for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), to discuss a growing crisis in our southern fisheries: the invasion of the Alabama Bass. Often illegally transplanted into new waters, these Alabama-strain spotted bass are wreaking havoc on native smallmouth bass populations through rapid hybridization.

Jason breaks down the science behind this alarming trend, explaining how these hybrids (often called "meanmouths") are literally breeding purebred smallmouth out of existence in world-class waters across the Tennessee River system, including Fort Loudon-Tellico and Parksville Lake. We dive deep into what this means for the future of tournament bass fishing, the looming threat to legendary fisheries like Dale Hollow, and the drastic regulation changes the TWRA is implementing to manage the fallout.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:00

All right. Welcome back to the Series Angler Podcast, everyone, and welcome back to another segment of the Real Biology. As always, we're joined by our fisheries biologist aficionado, which I'm going to coin him now going forth, Mr. Steven Barden. And as always, I'm your host, Bailey Igbra. And Steve, we're back with uh finally somewhat of a consistent schedule, somewhat I say, as I'm about to derail that the next three weeks, but uh we got an awesome, awesome episode coming up today.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

We have an awesome episode. We go straight to the top of Tennessee. Uh you know, Jason Hinniger is the fish chief. And we're gonna talk a lot about we're gonna talk about a lot about his role and what he does and how he motivates a team. And man, I I say it during the episode, but I mean it. If you could have somebody in a leadership position of your company, um of the agency you're working for, whatever it is, somebody who is willing to say, uh, we need that floor swept, let me grab a broom and do it, or we need these fish stocked, let me grab in the hatchery truck and go with you and and help without um being very controlling. That is Jason. You know, I got to spend a week with him, myself, Gene Gilland. Uh we got to spend a week in Tennessee talking about their black bass management plan. That's something that your buddy Alex Rudd, do you call Alex a buddy?

SPEAKER_09 1:24

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Okay. Yeah, well, he'll he'll love this then. Your buddy Alex Rudd was a part of putting together, Ot Defoe was a part of putting it together. Um, I got to spend a week with Jason. And following that, that week of watching him as a leader, seeing how he allowed the staff to really conduct the meeting. He was there, he was participating, but he wasn't taking charge. That's the kind of leader we all want. And it gives me a lot of confidence in what's happening in Tennessee because he's letting the experts do what the experts do. And whenever in Tennessee we talk about experts, we mean people like Bill Dance. We mean people like Ot Defoe. We mean people like Alex Rudd. We also mean the agency staff. Uh and I got to spend a lot of time with the agency staff. And it's a young group of biologists mixed in with some veteran biologists that just understand fisheries management and are willing to say, yeah, that is how we used to do it. But these new ideas seem like they're gonna be excellent. So let's adapt and add those to our fisheries program. Jason's gonna cover just like a sprinkle of that. We're gonna have continual episodes about this Tennessee thing as it develops and the Black Bass plan develops. So I look forward to this uh because it is gonna force you and I to be on a consistent schedule. Uh, because people are gonna want updates.

SPEAKER_09 2:52

Oh, yeah.

unknown 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:53

Uh I think we should get right into it and uh save some of it for the outro of some some mumbo jumbo because this is an awesome episode with Jason. Great conversation. And uh yeah, I think Steve, let's just get right into it.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_09 3:08

All right, folks, and that's gonna do it for today's show. Like we said, this was an awesome one with Jason uh speaking on multiple things. Well, this is gonna be you've heard it multiple times on this show. You're gonna hear it a lot more on the conversation about Alabama bass and the importance of why this is such a repeated topic. Um, but talking about you know his story, which is an awesome one that we always I think just in any lane of of life is hearing the story of somebody working from the very ground up to the very top, and not only getting to the top, but doing an incredible job at the top.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

And uh we spoken of man, Jason's follow-through. Uh, so we we recorded that episode. You guys saw if you're watching on YouTube, I was in the truck. We were we're in the middle of a busy work week. Jason takes time to record that, steps out of meetings, spends an hour with us. Before I got home, I had text messages and an email from Jason talking about how much fun he had on the episode, how he enjoyed the opportunity to talk to our audience and asked if he can do it again. That's the kind of leader we need.

SPEAKER_09 4:18

There we go. We'll just take Jason on here. So you can you can take a backseat, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Oh, I'm taking a sabbatical, huh?

SPEAKER_09 4:24

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Go go dive with tarpon. We're gonna we're gonna have Jason on for a while.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

All right. Well, I will let you know, Bailey, while you're gone chasing fish in South Carolina and California, I'm gonna go chase fish in Puerto Rico. I hate you so much. I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and catch Florida bass, uh peacock bass, and a tarpid. So we'll see whose trip was better on the next episode when we actually are.

SPEAKER_09 4:56

I already know what it's gonna be like. Yeah, you better send me pictures from that. All I'm gonna give you back is a cypress tree that I'm stuck on. That's that's about it. Cypress trees and gators, man. You'll get that in return. I hope hopefully you'll actually come through with the fish pictures.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Hopefully. Um still vetting out some guides to figure out who I'm gonna go with while I'm in Puerto Rico, but I'm looking forward to that trip. Um, you know, that's what's tough about you, you kind of mentioned it. It's it's tough to schedule all the podcasts. And if if you're a biologist that just loves fishing, it's it's also tough because you gotta find time to actually go fishing. I mean, it's there's not many days that people ask me, like, hey, do you get to fish much? And my answer is always like, not as much as I want. Like, my staff gets to fish more than I do. I these opportunities are hard to get. I envy the fact that you're going to Clear Lake, and you get you get the dedicated time in the schedule to go and compete, but also to fun fish. And I mean, you guys had the boys' trip, uh Alex and and who all came up?

SPEAKER_09 6:06

That was just Louie and Alex. Yeah, they came up and we spent I think it was six days straight on the water.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Creating content, catching smallmouth. Oh, yeah. So jealous.

SPEAKER_09 6:16

Catching PBs, catching a bunch of bass, and the boys gorge themselves on uh wings and ice cream. The only thing that New York is good at making.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Yeah, it was weird because we're trying to schedule podcast episodes, and I never got an invite to just come.

SPEAKER_09 6:33

Yeah, that's because it's an always an open invitation for you, man. We got a guest room. I mean, it it's not diving with tarpon, but we can go catch some smallmouth.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

I mean, just saying.

SPEAKER_09 6:43

Yeah, just come on up. You don't need an invite, just just call me and be like, hey, I'll be there in 20 minutes. All right, yeah, we'll get the guest room ready.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

Yeah, you'll be like, I'm in Clear Lake, California.

SPEAKER_07 6:54

All right, let me fly home real quick.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

We don't have the sponsors for that.

SPEAKER_09 7:01

No, no, no, no. But great episode today. Uh, great next episode coming up with Preston from South Carolina, so folks have that to look forward to. But uh anything else for the folks, Steve, before we wrap this sucker up?

SPEAKER_04 7:14

Nope, we're gonna keep bringing consistent content. Bailey and I are knocking out episodes this week, and we are excited to bring all the guests we have and QA coming up.

SPEAKER_09 7:25

There we go. You heard it here. Appreciate y'all as always for tuning in. We'll see you guys on the next one. All right, folks, and we are joined by Jason Henniger from Tennessee, and uh, we have an awesome show for you guys. Jason, man, appreciate you taking the time and uh chatting with us. Unfortunate Steve's here, but appreciate you uh coming here and dropping some knowledge on us.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No problem at all. Really enjoyed the opportunity and and looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Thank you. Well, this is uh kind of cool for us, Jason. We have never had the opportunity. We've had a lot of biologists across a ton of states. Uh, we've never had anybody from Tennessee, nor have we had a fish chief. Uh so this is this is gonna be a fun one for us. And you know, everybody knows Bailey and I don't really plan things, we don't we don't really have an outline of where we're gonna go, but you and I texted just a little bit, and I was like, I I have a vision for the show that at least we could tell the story of uh and I hope this doesn't offend you. Whenever I think about you, I think of a guy that has literally held every position from janitor to chief. Like, you're the guy, you're the poster child for if you want to make your way old school up the levels uh and do a little bit of everything, you're the guy. So give my our audience just like a little history, a little Jason history, the the path that it took to get there.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

So you're you're pretty well, pretty much correct on that. I've started volunteering straight out of high school with Tennessee Wildlife Resources. And so I've done everything from cleaning the bathrooms and mowing the yard and cleaning fish raceways, uh running krill, to now uh essentially running the show as the chief here in in Tennessee. So uh I think that helps me a lot uh with the field staff because they know I'm not gonna ask them to do something I haven't done in the past or wouldn't be willing to do uh even now as the chief of fishery. So you're as if you called me um on a day, I could be out in the field electrofishing some of the Bill Dance signature lakes or stocking fish. Uh I have been known to go jump in a hatchery truck and go stock fish if if we need that during the free fishing week, trying to prepare for the all those events. So yeah, I I kind of do it all.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Man, it's hard to be the young dumb leader.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah. Just because I'm setting in a lot of the meetings here in Nashville uh for budget and other things doesn't mean that I can't go out and and run krill and and electrofish and do all the other stuff too. So and truly enjoy doing those things still.

SPEAKER_09 10:13

I'll say it probably beats being stuck in a conference room.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

Yeah, absolutely. So, Jason, um, you mentioned the buildance signature lakes. Do you want to tell us what that is? Like how did it come together and what the plan for the entire state on the build dance stuff is? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

So the idea of the build dance signature lake started, I guess, back in 2008, when they were looking to mimic a Robert Trent Jones golf trail for fishing, and it was going to be across the state of Tennessee, and it was it was really a program that was way too big. We really couldn't do anything with something that large. Uh, they were looking at a lot of different water bodies, uh, a lot of the reservoirs, and they were expecting us to do some pretty intensive management on some of the reservoirs that just wasn't realistic. So uh at that time it was more just a feasibility study, and so that study was um awarded to Bill Dance management team, and they did a feasibility study on the Signature Lakes program. It was really large program, a lot of different water bodies, and that study essentially went to tourism for them to promote and uh maybe get some funding and move forward on. And of course, in that 2008 to 2010 time frame, we had the economic downturn, housing crash, and so budgets got really tight during that that period, and that idea essentially went to die on the shelves of tourism. So after COVID, the first year of COVID, Tennessee Wildlife Resources saw a big bump in license sales, and so with that we saw the a resurgence of people going outside, fishing and hunting. License sales went up. So um they uh tourism saw that as they were looking through and trying to come up with ideas of how we capitalize on people moving back outside for recreation, and they looked at that project, came back to TWRA, and also brought uh state parks in and decided we were going to do a partnership across the three agencies and really develop a program that was feasible and doable. So we settled on eight small lakes that range in size from 26 acres to a thousand acres that we would intensively manage with habitat, forage stockings, new regulations that really kind of push those fisheries to develop into quality fishing, not just for bass, but for also uh bluegill, red ear, catfish. And then we've got a couple small lakes that we're managing for first fish or family fishing, just really trying to get that catch rate build up with feeders and stocking of bluegill and catfish, trying to promote that first fish experience to try to hook people on fishing, and then we've got 10 large reservoirs that we are focusing on access areas, trying to build those out and supply the amenities that people want in kind of a tournament venue or a destination venue. If somebody's coming from out of state to fish, a new reservoir, they want a lighted parking area, nice bathrooms, picnic area, maybe a campground or lodging close. Um, so we pick 10 of those access areas on reservoirs across the state and really put some money and time into developing those. And then the third part of that is a tournament series that a third-party vendor is actually running for us. Um and that's the Build Dance Giant Bass Open, and they'll have eight to ten events a year at some of those access areas on those buildance signature lakes and kind of promote the fishing and the access area and the the program. And so far we've seen a really good success with that tournament series. We're I think last year we pulled in people from 27 different states that came into that, and we were averaging two to three hundred boats per event at those uh those tournaments. So and we've got a part of that tournament is we have an adult division and a youth division, and they do not compete against each other, they they compete on their own and have hourly payouts, and so we've seen a lot of the the high school age kids, college-age kids really take off and and compete in that youth event. We've seen father-daughter, um, father-son, mother-daughter, uh, husband and wife fish these events. So it's really brought out a different group of people to fish uh than you see in your normal club events where it's just buddies getting together and fishing for the weekend. So it's really been good to see kind of that growth in fishing.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Absolutely. And it's I mean, it's kind of lucky, I guess, that Bill Dance. I I mean, gosh, I think he's probably the most recognizable angler in the world. Um and and you know, being there, lending his namesake to it, pushing for these things. I mean, Bailey, did Bailey have you ever watched Bill Dance fishing?

SPEAKER_09 15:59

Yeah, that was my childhood, man. Just peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast and Bill Dance. That was my childhood.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Bill Dance called America to fish. Yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Well, I was concerned that Bailey was too young and so everything hadn't migrated to the internet yet. Okay, so but you know, when you watch Bill Dance's shows, they weren't all bass fishing. And I love the fact that you incorporate catfish and bluegill. I mean, a lot of our audience is bass-centric here, but I love that it has the other species involved in it.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, and these lakes are anything from uh, like I said, a thousand-acre lake that you can run a bass tournament on, a small bass tournament, and you've got 21-foot uh bass boats running around to uh 26 acres where it's a flat bottom boat and a trolling motor, and you're going and catching uh 10, 11-inch red ear and bluegill and five, six, seven-pound channel catfish. So yeah, we've we've got a wide variety of opportunities for for anglers across that that buildance signature series program.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

So I've got it, I've got an idea. Just hit me. At every tournament, there has to be a blooper award for the guy that did the stupidest thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah. Uh there's I think there's a um there's some type of award that they give, but it's not the blooper. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to promote that to the tournament organizer organizers, so they'll we've got to do that. You're you're correct. There needs to be a blooper event.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

We gotta have a little compilation video. You know, the guy that couldn't get his his boat back on the trailer correctly.

SPEAKER_09 17:42

Yeah, I mean, hey, that's a concrete idea right there. Get GoPro to put some funding behind it and have everyone filming so that none of the embarrassment goes unfilmed, and then at the end you show it to everybody.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

That is a great idea.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

I think Bill would approve.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

I know he would.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

He's never seen a joke he didn't want to play on somebody.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah. Yeah, they're he's a wonderful guy, too. He just he's a we couldn't name a program and and develop a program after a better person. He really is a just he is the exact same in-person as he is on TV. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_09 18:22

That's great to hear. Real quick, I I don't I I understand, like obviously, this is a very spontaneous question for you, and you might not have the the answer in front of you, but you mentioned that you had the uptick in license sales and starting all this stuff. Uh, do you happen to know if a lot of that was in-state or was a lot of that percentage of uptick from out-of-state anglers coming to Tennessee?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Well, I think the initial uptick that spurred the Bill Dance program was due to COVID. And a lot of that was just in-state uh because of the restrictions on travel and and uh gatherings and things like things like that. People could hunt and fish and and go and enjoy the outdoors during that time. And Tennesseans did that in in mass. Uh there was camping went through the roof, uh, hunting and fishing license sales. I think we experienced about a $10 million increase uh during that 2020, 2021 uh time frame. So there was definitely a lot of monies being spent in in camping and and travel and and things like that. So I know the state uh experienced that uptick and wanted to do something with that money to promote uh tourism and and people uh getting outdoors.

SPEAKER_09 19:37

So yeah, I'm always getting curious about that because like from I've been spoiled in my travels being able to fish all over the country, and I've always noticed Tennessee and like Texas, Florida a little bit, always have like the most diverse license plates at boat ramps. You never know what states you're gonna see, especially Tennessee, but it's cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

No, we've uh for instance the Bill Dance Signature Lake program. Uh, we've got a uh state park lake, Fall Creek Falls, uh, there in Middle Tennessee, and we don't have a really good pre-data, but the second year it was in the program, we did a krill survey, and uh we estimated that there was four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars went into the local economy just from the fishing that occurred on that lake in an eight-month period. So we didn't even do the the winter krill, it was just that spring, summer, fall. And so we're redoing that krill survey this year, and I'm really excited to see if that was an e if we get an increase or not, because fishing has improved greatly in the last two years up there. So um it's really gonna be nice to see if that that increases show the benefit of this program and what we're doing.

SPEAKER_08 20:54

So yeah. Well, speaking of fishing improvement, and you got a new state record this year.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

We did. We did. And and when Gabe Keene uh caught that first one in in 2015, we we were expecting one the next two, three weeks, or even the month after that, and then it just kept going and going and going. So um, but this one's a little different in that um we started stocking Nickajack about 10 years ago. And so this fish is is it takes us about 10 years to grow those double-digit fish, 10 to 12 years. Um so, and it came back as a pure Florida, which it more than likely came from one of those original stockings there from our hatchery. So we may uh see some increases in size over the next couple years, either in those pure fish or those hybrids uh as they come on over the next uh five, six years. So hopefully we'll see another one break that state. Record fairly soon. We won't have to wait another uh 10 years for that to happen.

SPEAKER_09 22:05

So that was it.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

But it it's been really exciting to see that. Great angler. He's been wonderful to work with on that state record and was very patient. We had to definitely had to run that through and and make sure the genetics was right on that. We're experiencing a lot of issues with Alabama bass and hybridization. We just wanted to make sure, cross all our T's and dot all our I's, make sure that there wasn't any hybrid influence there. So but it did come back pure Florida.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

So that's awesome. So let's um Jason, let's dive into two topics simultaneously. You can kind of pick and choose which which one you want to start with first. The Florida bass stocking is one of those topics, and the introduction of Alabama bass and why we feel like that will be negative would be the other topic. We definitely got to cover both. So which one do you want to start with?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

We can start with the Florida bass stocking.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Okay. Give give us like the broadest history of the state of Tennessee and the introduction of Florida's and what results have have you guys concretely seen? Like what are we what are we sure works in Tennessee?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Okay. So Florida Bass uh the Florida Bass stockings started in and around Chickamauga Lake. There was a there's a long history there. You can can go back and do lots of Google searches and things to to uh find that history, um lot of history with TVA and and those sit that system. Um Chickamauga Lake was going through kind of a down period um in that late 90s, early 2000s, um, and there was a lot of people looking for answers. Uh, Chickamauga had been a really good bass fishery for a long time. Uh the vegetation kind of disappeared from that system. You'll you'll hear all kinds of different thoughts on why that was, but um, we we know across the Tennessee River system uh that uh wet winters can have a huge impact on the amount of vegetation throughout the Tennessee system. Uh we see it a lot of times uh in Kentucky Lake, but as you go down the Tennessee River, then the magnitude of water that's coming through that system just increases uh exponentially. So if you have a wet winter and that vegetation's died back and you get a large flows through there in the winter, early spring, that can scour out a lot of that vegetation and leave it void for a long time. It takes a while for it to come back. And so Chickamauga was going through one of those down periods with vegetation. The fishery had kind of gone down, uh, wasn't producing the big fish that it had in the past. And so a lot of people was looking for answers there. And at that time, uh genetics was a fairly young uh field. We didn't know a whole lot. We were still running a lot of alizyme uh uh work. We didn't we hadn't dove into genetics like we do now. I mean, we were looking at performance markers and and parentage and a lot of different things now with the genetics capabilities we have. That time it was very coarse, and so you were really just saying whether they were Florida or Northern or some type of integrade. And so um we were looking at introducing Florida bass to change the genetics there and try to introduce some of the trophy potential uh there in Chickamauga. So after we started um introducing some Florida bass uh with the help of one of the local fishing clubs down there, they had purchased some fish from American Sport Fish at that time. I was a grad student at Tennessee Tech, and that was one of my projects was to go down there and tag those fish with uh OTC, oxy tetracycline, so that we could track that over time and uh figure out our stocked fish versus uh anything that was produced naturally. So uh we stocked those fish and and it was just the perfect storm with habitat and water water uh patterns and everything else, and that really turned into a wonderful program, grew a lot of big fish, and we're still seeing the benefits of that introduction of Florida genes into Chickamauga Lake. So about 10 years ago, with the success of Chickamauga and the state record, um our commission wanted to expand that program to some other lakes, and we we decided that the best areas would be along that Tennessee River. So we expanded the program to Watts Bar, Nickajack, Fort Loudoun, and so we started stocking those reservoirs, and we're now in the process of of looking at kind of how those stockings have changed that that population as well. So we've done a lot of genetic studies on Chickamauga. Uh most of the fish that we see out of Chickamauga are a F1 or an FX hybrid, so it is that uh first generation or or back crosses of that Florida uh northern cross. Uh, we don't see a lot of pure Floridas in that system. Um we have looked at a small sample of eight-pound and larger fish in Chickamauga, and about 16% of that sample were pure Floridas. Um a study that Tennessee Tech did uh there at Chickamauga, they collected over 700 samples. Uh they were looking at um northern hybrid Florida fish. Uh was there a partition in habitat use? Was the Florida fish staying out deeper making and harder to catch? So they used electrofishing and tournament results to collect those 700 samples to try to get a better idea of if if there was any partitioning there. Um, of that 700 samples, we only had six that were pure Florida, and the largest one in that sample was about 16 inches, so we weren't seeing that large a growth from those pure Florida fish. So um it just I think those fish are if we have those large pure Florida fish in our system, uh, they're out there where we can't reach them and they're not biting a lot of anglers' hooks. So uh we feel like that what we're getting is that Florida gene influence into our populations. Uh this pure Florida fish in Nickajack is kind of an anomaly at it growing to that state record size. So uh we're we're definitely looking uh to more samples in that area and and see if there's a difference in survival of those fish in in Nickajack versus Chickamauga and some of the other other lakes. So but we've seen great success in improvement of our our bass fisheries in Chickamauga, whether that's all due to the genetic influence. I think a lot of it plays with the habitat. Uh we've seen great increases in Chickamauga and habitat over the years with the vegetation and water pattern, water flow patterns uh have stabilized a little bit with TVA uh with their new operation plan. And so I think it was the perfect storm for us to stock those fish and then succeed uh there in Chickamauga, and we're trying to expand that out uh into that Tennessee system.

SPEAKER_09 30:09

So you mentioned something there if you don't mind me asking. You said a uh FX hybrid.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yep. That's that's simply the back crosses after that first uh hybridization. So you'll have the the pure northern pure Florida that will create your F1. A lot of times that's where you see the best growth and hybrid vigor, and then the FX is those uh subsequent uh crosses with that FX or uh and a pure Florida or or another hybrid, that gives you a little bit different genetic makeup throughout uh multiple generations. So we do see that some of those FXs still have a a um improved growth rate over the northern fish, but it's not quite what an F F1 would uh produce. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 31:03

That's I've never heard FX before, and that sounds so bad.

SPEAKER_07 31:06

So badass for F1's more uh I mean both of them sound sick, honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Yeah, for us, FX sounds like a mutt, but um yeah, it reminds me of hey, that's it's like a skeeter. FX also, yeah. So you've got that side of it, Jason, where we're saying, you know, these Florida bass have a better trophy potential in some areas, southern parts of Tennessee, but then Tennessee is also known because of the world record smallmouth. Yeah, so we we have another side of this coin where Florida bass are non-native, they're being added because of this trophy potential, but then there's another non-native in the Alabama bass, and we want to avoid it. And do you want to explain to the audience why it's so important kind of to minimize the spread of the Alabama bass and definitely don't let anglers move them themselves?

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah, yeah, we're definitely seeing some major issues there. Uh when we when we introduced uh Florida bass into Tennessee, the genetic thought was that Florida bass was a subspecies of largemouth bass. And what we were doing was essentially changing the genetics of our population here in Tennessee, and we know that our population experiences about an 8% Florida allele in their makeup anyway. So we look at what we consider a Tennessee bass would be 92% northern, 8% Florida. So it was already an integrate in our mind with the the old genetic techniques. Now we're seeing genetic techniques get a little better, and they're starting to tease out some of these things, and and they're actually calling Florida bass a species now. So essentially, we've done a hybridization between species, and we're seeing that uh with the introduction of Alabama bass and smallmouth. The problem there is that we're liable to lose smallmouth bass in the state of Tennessee altogether if we continue to move Alabama bass around, and this hybridization between Alabama bass and smallmouth continues to occur. We're seeing it kind of on that lower Tennessee River system, Chickamauga, um, Watts Bar. There was some fish moved into Watts Bar, and we're still a little bit early into that hybridization there, those fish integrating into that population, and we can we can kind of see that on an embayment uh basis there. We know that there were two or three embavements where those fish were introduced, and they're still localized there, but they're starting to spread pretty quickly across the the reservoir. Um, and what the problems that Alabama bass cause is one, they just simply outcompete smallmouth for resources, both habitat and forage, so it really makes it hard for those fish to to recruit each year, and then they hybridize with smallmouth, so you lose that pure gene uh for smallmouth in your reservoir, and then they they'll just flat prey on the offspring of smallmouth. So eventually what they do, they're just reducing the numbers of your your smallmouth altogether until they take over. So we're seeing a lot of problems with identification of spotted bass, smallmouth, and so people can can look at that fish, they know it's a hybrid, but they don't know what to call it. So it it makes it impossible for us to manage for trophy smallmouth if people don't know what a trophy, what a smallmouth is. So uh the tournaments, uh, a lot of anglers and our law enforcement ran into a lot of issues with identification of these fish. How do you write a ticket if you've got a 18-inch minimum size limit on smallmouth? How do you how do you ride a ticket on a fish that you don't know if it's a smallmouth or not? So we had to back up in our our thoughts and and our management on some of these. And uh two years ago we moved our regulation to a black bass regulation instead of a smallmouth regulation. So we're managing black bass on Fort Loudoun, Tellico, Watts Bar, all under a black bass regulation. So it's 15 inches. Any black bass over 15 inches can be brought into a tournament or harvested. Um, and then on Chickamauga and Nickajack, we've had that potential for trophy smallmouth for so long below those dams that we want to try to maximize that. So we we tried to play with that regulation a little bit so that we could uh prolong those those large smallmouth as long as we could, but also allow some harvest or some pressure on those small fish that more than likely are hybrids. So we want to try to take those out of the system, knowing that we can't get them all out, but at least put a little more pressure on them, try to provide that trophy smallmouth fishery as long as we can there.

SPEAKER_09 36:27

So yeah. Well, and to to add to your point, like even some of the best and most avid anglers have a difficult time. We saw it at the classic, you know, with Dakota e-bears fishers. Dude, it's hard. Some of those, like, look at it.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yeah, uh, I lost five dollars on identification of one of those fish. Uh, we had uh Tom Miles from Tennessee Tech, he's running all our genetics on uh Florida bass, largemouth, and also Alabama bass, smallmouth, uh just trying to identify those species as well as our percentages of uh Florida and northern largemouth. But uh he took some fin clips and he had a fish that they were looking at. He was up on the truck taking those clips, and I was down on the floor and I looked up and he had a fish that he identified as smallmouth, and I looked at it like, whoa, wait a minute, hand me that fish a minute. And so I looked at it and I showed some guys what I thought was the hybridized the traits of that hybrid, and they agreed and everything, and and I said, take a clip on that fish and mark it down as Jason's fish, and I'll pay you five dollars if it's not a hybrid. And it came back as a pure smallmouth. So as many of us that I've seen, and I we just can't get it right, so we can't expect expect the public to do that if if we can as fish biologists.

SPEAKER_09 37:57

So yeah, I don't even think about that point of view from with that issue from like yeah, with especially with the different length limits of keeping species. That's uh that smart just to change it to black bass. I didn't even think about that. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

It definitely took some uh took a tool out of our our uh toolbox to manage for trophy smallmouth when when all this started.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

So yeah. Well, I was wondering what did Tom find for Dakota's fish? Do we have that genetic record?

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Dakota's fish was a essentially 50-50 smallmouth uh Alabama bass, so it was a true F1 hybrid of uh Alabama bass and smallmouth, so and that fish uh is in the display tank at Bass Pro Shop in Kodak, and we're looking to develop uh an education program around that fish to show people that hey, we're gonna lose smallmouth. Yes, this is a really quality fish, seven and a half pound, but it this is gonna be short-lived. Uh we've seen it uh case after case across Georgia, North Carolina, and uh when these things are introduced, uh you've got about 10 years, and then they start overpopulating and they've taken over at that point, they start overpopulating, and you end up with a bunch of small amount uh small spotted bass. So yeah.

SPEAKER_09 39:31

That's the duration from like the moment you start seeing Alabama bass to the full takeover is 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

In some of those uh reservoirs, those smaller reservoirs in Georgia and North Carolina, that seems to be about the the time frame. We've got larger systems uh that they're in here. We may see that prolong a little bit longer. Like I said, Watts Bar for years we saw it just it was localized to certain embayments. Now we're starting to see it spread out a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 39:59

So and Jason, do you guys have a confirmed case study where you go these anglers or this tournament organization or anything like that moved these fish into the system?

SPEAKER_01 40:17

We don't. We've heard a lot of rumors um that these fish were moved by anglers. Uh there was some bragging being done uh amongst angling groups that they move these fish, look how great it is, and it is for right now, but I think it's gonna be uh short-lived that it we continue to see the the large fish that we do right now.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

So right. I I spent the week with Jason and a lot of his team last week uh in Tennessee, and and one of your team members, Pat Black, said something that has stuck in my mind, and I needed to say it uh on this on this podcast to Bailey, because I think it will be the way you can teach this to anglers. Pat was talking about the introduction of a species being just like making Kool-Aid. And if you have blue Kool-Aid and you have red Kool-Aid, and they're separate, they're blue and they're red Kool-Aid. But the second you put some blue Kool-Aid into red Kool-Aid or red Kool-Aid into blue Kool-Aid, you make purple. And there's no way to get the purple, the red back out of the purple, and the blue back out of the purple. And you could add more blue or you could add more red, but it's always just purple. Yeah. Once it's done, it's done. And there's no filtering it out, there's no way to get it. So we look at we look at Dakota's fish and we go, seven pound small mouth, great. Then we check the genetics, we go, seven pound hybrid, mean mouth, whatever you want to call it. Not good. That that's purple, and it's gonna be purple forever. And it the state can't can't unpurpolize that.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

You can change the hue of that purple, but it's always purple. So right now we're we're at a really nice shade of purple with these seven, six, seven pound hybrids, but we're gonna end up with a really diluted color of purple when we get 10 years out, and we've got a bunch of small Alabama bass hybrids with spotted bass and and smallmouth, and we can't get any growth out of them because we got too many.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

So it's even tougher on you guys because your state fish is smallmouth.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yes. Yes. For us to lose the heritage of smallmouth fishing in the state of Tennessee will be a tragedy. It we have people come to the state of Tennessee, especially to the Del Hollows, the South Holston Lakes, and Watauga to fish for smallmouth bass, where it's wonderful fishing. You we hear of people averaging 100 fish days for Del Hollow. They may a lot of them may be in that slot, but you you have a really good chance of catching one over 21 inches uh if you fish up there in the spring or fall and catch a hundred fish and that are three to five pounds. That's that's a wonderful trip.

SPEAKER_09 43:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Sounds like a terrible. To lose that would be would be horrible.

SPEAKER_09 43:16

What is your message to to anglers that are currently in Tennessee or visiting Tennessee and they catch uh an Alabama bass? Like, is it throw it on? I mean, I've seen people throw them on the bank. Like, what is what is your instruction, I guess, to them when they ask you, like, hey, what should we do about it?

SPEAKER_01 43:31

If they want to harvest those fish and take them home and eat them, we we are definitely behind that. Uh like Steven said, we can't get those fish out. We're not going to be able to change the Kool-Aid's purple now. Yeah. So taking them out's not going to change anything, but if they want to take them, we definitely uh support them taking those fish and harvest them. Um maybe on some small level it make will help make a difference or help. uh prolong that takeover if we can take some of those fish out. Um but really the the message is enjoy it while you can because it's gonna we've lost it now and the real message to take home there is don't move these things anywhere else. We've got some waters that are protected and we do not want these things moved outside of where they are now and so if if you want to protect smallmouth bass fishing in the state of Tennessee do not move these fish and we're really trying to get the message across that no movement of any fish uh is legal in the state of Tennessee. You cannot stock public waters and so that's what we essentially consider it when you put those five fish in your live well in Wattsbar and lock back through to uh Fort Loudon or Telico you're stocking those those waters with the fish you took out of Wattsbar.

SPEAKER_04 45:03

So really and truly those fish need to go back to Wattsbar if you if you caught them there take the time to take them back at the end of the day put them where they belong yeah that's extremely difficult with tournament fishing right you know tournament fishing and you know if the organization is doing a locking event then it it gets tough. So I mean I I think I definitely hear what you're saying Jason like this is a two-part um solution and it's never going to fix the problem but it's it's education is number one and number two is self-policing from anglers to other anglers and organizations.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

We got to build better management practices we can't we can't rely on the state to fix this one because they they just can't yeah well speaking of uh kind of all of black bass you said you moved all the regulation to all black bass let's talk a little bit about um the event that you held last week and uh the team that you've put together and maybe start before last week go back to the original committee the original plan and and what kind of the future looks like for Tennessee so in Tennessee we've had a largemouth bass management plan and that kind of guided that started when we started with the introduction of uh Florida bass and some of those stockings we came up with a black a largemouth bass management plan and that's probably 30 years old or more and then we've got a smallmouth bass management plan and that's geared more towards smallmouth bass uh in our rivers and streams it really looked at the growth rates and kind of the harvest and and what proper regulations would be for those populations. It looked a little bit at the differences in growth rates between reservoir smallmouth and rivers and streams smallmouth but it kind of stopped there. And so uh when I started with the agency uh in 2008 um it was really I really understood that that to manage black bass we needed to kind of manage the suite of black bass across the state and not just smallmouth and largemouth but but real really everything and then with the introduction of Alabama bass that's kind of added a whole new twist to how we manage black bass in Tennessee. So I took over two years ago as the chief of fisheries and one of the the goals I had was to look at black bass management across the state and um how each one of these reservoirs or rivers and streams kind of acts and and how do we move forward um all together in black bass management. And so I used tournament fish a little bit in some club tournaments and things so I have some experience with with uh bass fishing tournaments and and things so I really wanted to draw on uh I hear all the time from anglers well why don't you do this or or why can't we do this on our reservoir? And I really wanted to answer some of those questions. So if we could put together a statewide black bass management plan and really look at how we do things across the state maybe we could get that education out of why we do things certain ways on some reservoirs and certain ways on others and really dive into how we we manage bass. We've got a lot of different regulations across the state and some of them are warranted and some of them are not so to make things easier let's look at the whole picture and and come up with the best way to manage moving forward.

SPEAKER_09 49:01

So in preparing to do some of that we had seen that Arkansas had come up with a black bass management plan and uh we knew those guys pretty well had worked with them quite a bit and so we called them and talked to Vic Dicenzo and he uh was game for coming over and helping us out uh was really just volunteering his time to come over and help us get to the the place we wanted to be in black bass management so we started that process and in that process we developed a stakeholder advisory committee that's made up of 18 anglers or um stakeholders in the black bass world in Tennessee we've got uh a couple ladies from tourism uh county tourism agencies they really bring in a lot of fishing tournaments to their area and uh really rely on that for economic development uh in their area so we we've got a couple ladies that that are doing that we have um a couple of the boat manufacturers here in Tennessee they provided representatives to sit on that committee we've got the uh conservation and high school and college uh tournament director for BASS that sets on that committee and then we just really went out and looked for influencers in the black bass world we've got Alex Rudd that's a podcaster in East Tennessee terrible we've got uh Caleb Bell he's a guide on Chickamauga really good good guy uh really good in the the trophy bass uh fishing world right now uh we've got some creek fishermen kayak fishermen in west tennessee uh we've got a uh small club tournament uh director from real foot lake which is way on the west corner uh we've got a um radio host from northeast tennessee the Bristol area so we really reached out and found a diversity of folks a wide variety of folks that bass fish across the state of Tennessee and really got some good feedback from them from that stakeholder advisory committee and they came up with a lot of the the issues and the goals uh for managing black bass in the state of Tennessee and then Stephen you talked about last week that was our third meeting of our technical advisory committee and that's the group that we put together to come up with the strategies and and the way we manage bass to meet those goals and and try to address the issues that were brought up by the stakeholders so and that group's made up of of a lot of different professionals we've got some LE our law enforcement folks uh from TWRA on that that group we had Steven uh from MLF and his uh affiliations with small lake management uh we've had gene gillin from bas their conservation director for many years uh as part of that group and then a lot of the biologists from across the state uh TVA uh different group so we had a really good time last week and I think a lot of good conversations a lot of good ideas were thrown around and I think we've got a really good way forward uh with with management here I was just gonna make fun of Rudd uh but I'm glad to hear the the crew you have there and uh hearing Caleb's on there too Caleb's hell of a hell of a human being and one of our favorite guests here because he's well you want when you want to have a definition of a a a fishing nerd Caleb is is the picture of the definition but uh what you guys are doing there when uh Rudd was telling me that that was being formed that that was it almost made me jealous that my state doesn't have something like that. That that is really cool what you guys have working on.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

We would definitely promote it uh to other states it's been it's been a great opportunity for us and a lot of good relationships formed in those committees that I think will will serve everyone really well moving forward. Thank you yeah there's a ton of energy in the room a lot of a lot of wonderful ideas uh and the staff in Tennessee I've I work with a lot of states and the staff in Tennessee they're young and energetic uh they they're not looking at this going how do we manage all these different systems and all these different types of fish and all these angular goals and all these issues and they're not overwhelmed they're seeing like each one of these friction points and they're saying yes let's find 50 ways to make this work for us and I think that you know whenever I I think about the conversation we've already had today in 20 years from now the opportunity is either Tennessee is known for trophy smallmouth trophy Florida bass outstanding fishing across the board as it has been in the past or we fail with this Alabama bass thing and now we're looking at these stunned spotted bass and some of the things that were coming out of that that meeting may not address the Alabama bass issue completely but it may be able to utilize that as a way to engage some new anglers educate people and just continue the diversity that is bass fishing in Tennessee right now I think I think we've got we've been blessed with a really good staff here really my whole career I've been here uh 20 years going on 20 years now and we've always been blessed with really good staff that are willing to put in the work to make the fishery better. They always are striving to make things better and a lot of us are fishermen too. I mean we we want to go out there and we want to catch uh really quality fish um and enjoy being out in the outdoors and and being on the the wonderful waters that we have in Tennessee we've got everything from uh mountain streams for brook trout to big reservoirs in west tennessee for big catfish and and trophy bass and Mississippi River we've got really got it all and so uh we all enjoy that and we want to make it the best we can and uh we're looking for new ways to do it I think everybody is is looking to we're not putting ourselves in a box and that's uh hopefully something I try to promote is always be thinking outside the box we may not be able to do it today but 10 years from now we may have the technology to do things differently so yeah love it love it all right jason I got a couple more things for you I know yeah we've been going we're notorious for making the long show so it is what it is I I think we would be we would be failing this audience if we didn't start with a little bit of history of Jason um you know you you're talking about all these great things that have happened in Tennessee uh at some point you were bit by the fishing bug and then the fisheries management bug and let's just work through kind of the history of how did you go from just an angler to fish chief so I'm just I'm a hillbilly from east Tennessee I was uh born and raised in in Carter County uh probably just about as far east as you can get there in the mountains grew up on Watauga South Holston uh Boone reservoirs uh fished Douglas and Cherokee a couple times a year and just kind of grew up in a fishing family uh my mom learned to fish and and loved to fish she probably had as much or or not if not more influence on me becoming a fisherman uh as my dad did my dad would take us but my mom would get up and take me and my brother during the summers to uh base mountain state park and they let kids fish on Wednesday morning and Saturday mornings and she would wake us up haul us 30 45 minutes over to to that lake and let us fish and she would sit there and watch us and so that kind of spurred the fishing bug in me and the more I the more I fished the more I wanted to learn about how things worked and why regulations were what they were and so I was able to make contact with TWRA when I was a in high school uh finishing up high school going into college and um got to volunteer with some really good guys that didn't think twice about taking me along to stock trout or uh run krill on some of the local reservoirs and teach me kind of what went into fish management. So I learned uh really early that's kind of what I wanted to do. Um I'm not a traditional fisheries student. I got my uh bachelor's degree at East Tennessee State University. It's not known for wildlife uh fishery and fisheries management it's more uh geared toward medical uh the biology departments there is is geared toward uh the medical field um doctors and nurses and and physical therapists so I took all the conservation biology courses I could and then moved over and they had a natural resource management program in geography at the time and um it was more based on computer mapping GIS the early days of GIS and so really dug into it and my last semester there one of the uh kind of the famous fisheries biologist the fisheries management biologist uh Dr. Phil Batoli at Tennessee Tech had a a project on the Southholston Tellwater and it was looking at doing uh red surveys for brown trout uh that were naturally reproducing on the Southholston tellwater and so I hired on with him and worked uh for him about three months uh got to meet all the grad students and really uh developed a relationship with him and the grad students and they took me to a couple of the AFS meetings uh over the next year or so and when I graduated at ETSU I called Dr. Patoli and said hey uh you got any grad positions open he said nope don't have any grad positions but I do have a a uh technician position open if you're willing to move to Cookville for six months and be a technician work on boats help these students uh collect their data he said we'll see where it goes from there and so uh I did that and three years later I have my master's degree and so it it turned into a degree and while I was there I worked on 15 different fisheries projects so kind of learned anything and everything to do with fish management during that time and then uh took a job in Texas for Texas Parks and Wildlife up in the canyon office and we managed the fisheries in 57 counties up there at the time in that northeast northwest district and uh really enjoyed my time out there was managing um mostly uh small reservoirs water supply reservoirs for bass bluegill catfish a little bit of walleye and uh then the opportunity came available to to take the rivers and streams coordinator uh back here at TWRA in in Nashville and I was able to uh hire on for that position and that started my career here at TWRA so I was rivers and streams coordinator for about eight years uh then moved to assistant chief for six years and now chief for the last two so that's uh it's kind of the Jason story in fish management but uh have been able to work on a lot of different projects uh a lot of bass projects um we did some uh barotrauma studies on smallmouth bass in South Holston Lake uh when this was before uh the um forward-facing sonar kind of had kicked off when people were still look using down scan and running their ping speed up real high to essentially real-time fish uh with the uh jig and minnow technique or the D'Amiki rig I think is what it was called at that point um and so we we were looking at smallmouth that were caught 30 40 feet deep and were they surviving that uh barotrauma possibly so um just really enjoyed a lot of the different projects over over the years of of uh my career do you remember what you found from that study if you remember off hand uh we did we didn't find during that time of year uh with the cold water uh we didn't really have a lot of mortality uh from that there at Southholston now uh some other areas you you could have that we see a lot of problems with salgar and walleye uh during that if they're caught real deep uh we'll have uh quite a bit of influence and mortality from the bear trauma but with the smallmouth we really weren't seeing a whole lot there wow you said you uh grew up around that Wataga area and I have to say that is one of the most beautiful lakes I've ever been to yeah place is awesome it's it is and and it fishes really well it's hard it fishes hard there's a it's very crit clear very clear water uh lots of bait fish you've got uh gizzard thread fin and and L wives there and so there's a lot of bait it's hard to compete with that natural bait but there's some really really nice fish that are caught in that area yeah heck yeah one of the constant themes we get uh as questions Jason on the show is about how to get involved how to contact my biologist how to volunteer your story starts with volunteer so give me from the fish chief's perspective the audience right now those high school anglers other professionals that want to be involved at TWRA what's what's your opinion how how can they get started on that path it's really through that volunteer uh vol being able to register as a volunteer uh probably is easier now than it's ever been we used to as a state agency we used to have to drop our volunteer list every January 1 and start over and now they can sign up for multiple years it's simply contacting the local biologist if you see if you're part of a fishing club um just reach out to that local biologist your regional biologist and make that connection they love to come out and talk to angling groups and meet people just really people don't need to hesitate to go ahead and try to to make that contact they can call the regional office uh they can call the Nashville office or the the headquarters try to make those contacts email it's easy to find people's email now and just ask hey can I volunteer what projects do you have do you have habitat projects a lot of states are working on habitat projects right now and they love to get volunteers out to help put those things together and uh cleanup days a lot of trash cleanup days I know it's not the the most sexy thing to do to get out there and pick up a bunch of trash but it needs to be done and a lot of groups are are doing those now and just make those connections because as a the chief of a a state agency we get all kinds of requests how do I get a job with TWRA how do I I mean I can give you the the blanket An answer of you got to go to school for this, and and once you get out of school, you start applying for these jobs. But really, the people that that make a difference and are really competing for these jobs have that volunteer experience. They've got that in-the-field um experience of how to do this job just because they've gone out and volunteered their time to build habitat, to go electrofishing, uh run a gill net. Um there's there's that you can't replace that a lot of times with uh a master's degree or something else. You've got that uh connection with those biologists. Uh that's the bigger thing. When I after I volunteered, when I came back and they saw my application, they knew the name, they could put a face with that name, and they knew kind of how I worked and what I did, and and that's hard to to replace with any information on a application. So I would definitely I promote volunteer hours more than anybody. So that's that's how I got started, and I really truly believe that that's that's the way we find the the diamond in the rough is through those volunteer days.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:21

Heck yeah, that's awesome. So we heard it from the top. We heard it. Contact his biologists, contact the regional offices, make the calls, make the emails, be a pain in their side, say, I want to, I want to join, I want to do habitat work, I want to get on the electro fishing boat. Um if you're a high school angler, you're a college angler, uh, you're getting your degree, whatever it is, make repetitive phone calls and work hard while you're there. That is helpful, yeah. Very helpful. But make make those phone calls, make those connections. Uh, Jason, the last thing I have uh in this one is gonna put you on the spot, and I feel bad for not giving you a heads up sooner. Um, like I said, our our audience is is primarily anglers, but also fisheries professionals. And I think this is a rare opportunity. We have a fish chief. Could you give me um from the fish chief's perspective, two fisheries professionals and two anglers, is there a message that each one of those groups you want to convey to each one of those groups from the fish chief? Uh whether it's about Tennessee, whether it's just about you know going through the process, I think, I think whenever I think about fisheries professionals and the fish chief, there's it feels like there's a disconnect, right? Like it feels like there's a gap because you're in Nashville, they're in the water. What is your message to those fisheries professionals? The same thing for anglers.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Yeah. I think my message to the anglers is that most of these fisheries biologists would rather be in the water. Uh, a lot of them fish, a lot of them want to be out there fishing, and it's just the demands of life, the demands of the job takes us away from that. We we got into this profession because we love to fish. Um and most students will tell you, I got into fisheries because I love fish. I'm I'm excited about learning about fish and things like that, but the job actually is managing people. Uh regulations manage people and their harvest rates and their the uh the size of fish they can take home. We're managing people as fisheries managers. Uh we collect data through Krill and through a lot of things on people and the pressure on our on our resources that people put on them. So we're managing people. We love fish, but we're managing people. So I think that uh I think that's the message to the professional. If you're getting into this because you love fish, yeah, you get to to go and sample fish some of the time, but a lot of the things you're doing, you're managing people, and you've got to be able to communicate with people. Uh, the other thing I would say to professionals is yes, you have the data, but a lot of times the right regulation is not just based on the data. You've got to look at the social aspects that surround that fishery as well. And you've got to come up with the best regulation that gets you where you want to be and changes that data the way you want to change the data. If you want bigger fish, a lot of times it's not just a simple answer based on that data. You've got to come up with a regulation that's social socially acceptable to the fishermen. I mean, these fisheries are made up of fish, habitat, and people, so you got to manage all aspects of that. Um to the anglers, Jason, do what?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:55

So, no, that's a wonderful point. And you go back to what you said about just being simply able to ID the fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Yep. Yeah, that's it's that that a lot of times is is that's part of it. And if we can have all the data in the world that shows us the growth rates and and all that, but if we can't identify the fish, we can't manage for a trophy fishery. So we gotta kind of back up and look at what we have and and where we want to go and come up with the best regulation that does that. Um to the fishermen, uh really just communicate with your biologist. I know uh a lot of times it's it's hard to communicate what you're seeing on the lake to what the data shows that the the biologist has, but we're all looking to make the fishery the best we can make it. And so we got to work together and we got to communicate. So just take the time, be patient, and understand that uh we've we've got to work together to try to to make all these fisheries the best we can make them. We're we're not striving to to have a bunch of small fish in our lakes and and rivers across the state. So we want to see that success. But with that success also comes um a lot more fishing pressure a lot of times, and it it changes the the dynamic. These are dynamic systems that are always changing, and and success also brings a brings about that change.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:30

So love that. Okay, absolutely outstanding. Yeah, uh I I will tell you, Jason, um as a leader, you know, somebody who's willing to get to get dirty, get in the field, lead next to your staff. Uh I look up to that. That's something that I try to strive to do for our our company as well. But also, your ability to convey these messages in just this short conversation, you've you've got a wonderful knowledge base, but you're able to articulate it in the right way. That I mean, Bailey and I get it 100%. This audience is gonna get it. We're a lot of us are probably looking at this going, this is the guy I wanted to work for. Whenever I thought I was gonna be a fisheries professional, like Jason is the guy. So uh last thing. The new last thing is where do people go if they want to sign up for uh open opportunities in Tennessee and and move to the state and come work for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:33

Uh they would go to the the state webs website. Uh they moved everything to our uh tennessee.gov uh website. Um, and then you would look for uh employment opportunities there. Um also we we advertise a lot of our our openings through AFS, through uh Texas AM, their job site. Uh we try to get those positions out to the fisheries world as much as possible. So um we're we've like I like you said we've got a really good staff. We've got a young staff right now. Uh we just went through a period of retirement. A lot of times with fisheries divisions, you'll have these periods of retirement and a lot of hiring, and then we'll go. Um there won't be a lot of positions open for a while. Uh, we're probably looking at a three to five year period where we're not going to have a lot of positions, and then we'll start having some more openings. But we're pretty well staffed up right now, but uh definitely want people to contact us. We want those volunteers. We want we've got some internship programs through uh University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Um and so look for those around the January, December, January time frame for any students that are interested in that. Um so yeah, that those would be the two places, internships and uh just the Tennessee.gov uh employment opportunities webpage and and keep an eye out on any of the AFS and and university sites for job openings.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:18

Jason, it's been awesome to to get you on here and talk to you, man. This has been a this has been an absolute pleasure. I know uh I I have I've heard you come highly recommended, obviously not just with Steve, but through Alex as well. And uh for for good reason, man. Looking forward to continuing conversations.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

Yeah, you you scooped me before Alex did. We've tried and tried to do a a podcast, and it just hasn't worked out either his schedule or my schedule. And so you can call him and say, hey, I got Jason before you did.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:46

Oh, I'm gonna call him right after this and rub it in his face. I guarantee you that. But for real, it has been a play. I learned a lot today.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

Thank you. Guys did a great job. I enjoyed it. Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:00

Yeah, well, Jason, uh, definitely thank you for being a guest. Thank you for your leadership, your friendship. Uh, can't wait to uh to go to our next uh technical advisory committee meeting. Who thought you'd ever say that?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:15

Looking forward to work.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

All right, brother. We've got some of the greatest jobs uh ever in the in the fisheries world. So gotta enjoy that work.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:26

Absolutely. Show it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:28

Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:29

All right, folks, and that's gonna do it for today's show. Like we said, this was an awesome one with Jason. Uh speaking on multiple things. Well, this is gonna be you've heard it multiple times on this show. You're gonna hear it a lot more on the conversation about Alabama bass and the importance of why this is such a repeated topic. Um, but talking about you know his story, which is an awesome one that we always, I think, just in any lane of life is hearing the story of somebody working from the very ground up to the very top, and not only getting to the top, but doing an incredible job at the top.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:03

And uh we spoken of man, Jason's follow-through. Uh, so we we recorded that episode. You guys saw if you're watching on YouTube, I was in the truck. We were we're in the middle of a busy work week. Jason takes time to record that, steps out of meetings, spends an hour with us. Before I got home, I had text messages and an email from Jason talking about how much fun he had on the episode, how he enjoyed the opportunity to talk to our audience and asked if he can do it again. That's the kind of leader we need.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:40

There we go. We'll just take Jason on here. So you can you can take a back seat, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:44

Oh, I'm taking a sabbatical, huh?

SPEAKER_09 1:17:46

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Go go dive with tarpon. We're gonna we're gonna have Jason on for a while.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:52

All right. Well, I will let you know, Bailey. While you're gone chasing fish in South Carolina and California, I'm gonna go chase fish in Puerto Rico. I hate you so much. I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and catch Florida bass, uh Peacock bass, and a tarpon. So we'll see whose trip was better on the next episode when we actually are.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:17

I already know what it's gonna be like. Yeah, you better send me pictures from that. All I'm gonna give you back is a cypress tree that I'm stuck on. That's that's about it. Cypress trees and gators, man. You'll get that in return. I hope hopefully you'll actually come through with the fish pictures.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:33

Hopefully. Um still vetting out some guides to figure out who I'm gonna go with while I'm in Puerto Rico, but I'm looking forward to that trip. Um, you know, that's what's tough about you, you kind of mentioned it. It's it's tough to schedule all the podcasts. And if if you're a biologist that just loves fishing, it's it's also tough because you gotta find time to actually go fishing. I mean, it's there's not many days that people ask me, like, hey, do you get to fish much? And my answer is always like, not as much as I want. Like, my staff gets to fish more than I do. I these opportunities are hard to get. I envy the fact that you're going to Clear Lake, and you get you get the dedicated time in the schedule to go and compete, but also to fun fish. And I mean, you guys had the boys' trip, uh Alex and and who who all came up?

SPEAKER_09 1:19:28

That was just Louie and and Alex. Yeah, they came up and we spent I think it was six days straight on the water.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:34

Creating content, catching smallmouth. Oh, yeah. So jealous.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:38

Catching PBs, catching a bunch of bass, and the boys gorge themselves on uh wings and ice cream. The only thing that New York is good at making.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:47

Yeah, it was weird because we're trying to schedule podcast episodes, and I never got an invite to just come.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:54

Yeah, that it's because it's always an open invitation for you, man. We got a guest room. I mean, it's not diving with tarpon, but we can go catch some smallmouth.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:03

I mean, just saying.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:05

Yeah, just come on up. You don't need an invite, just just call me, be like, hey, I'll be there in 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:10

All right, yeah, we'll get the guest room ready. Yeah, you'll be like, I'm in Clear Lake, California.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:16

All right, let me fly home real quick.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:20

We don't have the sponsors for that.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:22

No.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:23

No, no, no. But great episode today. Uh, great next episode coming up with Preston from South Carolina, so folks have that to look forward to. But uh, anything else for the folks, Steve, before we wrap this sucker up?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:36

Nope, we're gonna keep bringing consistent content. Bailey and I are knocking out episodes this week, and we are excited to bring all the guests we have and QA coming up.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:47

Here we go. You heard it here. Appreciate y'all as always for tuning in, and we'll see you guys on the next one.