BASS HAUL - Bridgeport becoming a hotbed of hybrid stripers.

.BY BOB HOOD STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

BRIDGEPORT - John Bryan stood at the console of his fishing boat here one day last week and searched in all directions across Lake Bridgeport's rippling surface, straining to see the white puffs of feathers that have become signals of explosive hybrid striped bass activity.

For Bryan, a former sheriff's deputy in Young, Archer and Baylor counties who a few years ago turned his attention to being a fishing guide on Possum Kingdom Lake and his hometown waters of Lakes Graham and Eddleman, the hybrid striped bass action at Bridgeport has been a blessing.

With Possum Kingdom's striped bass fishery cut drastically by a golden algae fish kill that took place more than a year ago, and with Graham and Eddleman not producing large catches of hybrids, Bryan feels fortunate to have "discovered" Lake Bridgeport and its lightly tapped resource of hybrid stripers.

Although the sea gulls that have been leading Bryan and his customers to great catches within the past few weeks have slacked off in helping the anglers find schools of feeding hvbrids, Bryan has continued to stay on top of the sand bass-striped bass crosses that are ranked among the hardest-fighting fish in freshwater lakes.

In recent weeks, Bryan's report card has been full of straight A's. Although the hybrids are beginning to change their feeding patterns with the arrival of spring, he has managed to catch more of them than just about anybody else on the lake.

"I've made about 10 trips here within the past two weeks, and on most of those trips we have caught 30 to 35 hybrids up to nine pounds on every trip," Bryan said. "And the sand bass are really something. We are catching 40 to 50 sandies [along with the hybrids] on every trip, too, and none of them are small. I've been trying to encourage my customers to keep the sand bass and release the hybrids because the sandies reproduce so fast."

Bryan began to notice a change in the hybrids' patterns about a week ago when the scores of gulls which were following the schools of feeding fish suddenly began spending more time sitting on the water or flying as individual "scouts."

The inactivity encouraged Bryan to begin looking at other possible places where the hybrids might be concentrating, and it didn't take long for him to locate them in exceptionally deep water near a steep drop-off.

"I found them in water 40 to 60 feet deep, and we just anchored up over them like we used to do at PK and really had a blast," Bryan said. "I took light rods along, and the biggest we had only weighed seven pounds, but I think we can go back over there soon and break the lake record. One guy caught a 12-pounder that would have broken the lake record [10.2 pounds], but he didn't know what he had and didn't enter it for a record."

Although Bryan would love to see Possum Kingdom rebound from the golden algae kill that caused many fishing guides like himself to seek other waters on which to make a living, he said Lake Bridgeport has helped him realize the great fisheries that are available.

A friend, Ken Williams, first turned Bryan on to Lake Bridgeport. "Ken fished a [largemouth] bass tournament at Bridgeport last year and told me I should go up there and take a look at it," Bryan said. "I thought it was just another Lake Graham, a small lake, but I went there out of necessity. I've got to make a living. So I went to Bridgeport, and I really was surprised how large it is and how great the hybrid fishing is."'

One of the biggest problems Bryan said he sees in the Bridgeport hybrid fishery is the tendency of some anglers to keep undersized hybrids, sterile fish which do not reproduce and whose numbers are dependent upon restocking efforts by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

The minimum size limit on hybrid stripers is 18 inches and because the fish sometimes looks similar to the sand bass parent on one side of its genes, uneducated anglers often keep hybrids that are actually sand bass, which have a 10-inch minimum size limit.

Nevertheless, the hybrid fishery at Bridgeport is healthy, and Bryan is looking forward to when the fish's main source of food threadfin shad - begins to reproduce in the lake.

"When the threadfin shad begin spawning, I think we are going to see some of the most fantastic top-water action you can imagine," Bryan said. "I just can't wait to get into those fish with Pencil Poppers and Zara Spooks."

Bob Hood, (817) 390-7760 blhood@star-telegram.com

This article was originally published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and is reproduced iwth permission from Bob Hood.