Page 40 - 2020 May/June Outdoor Oklahoma

SHANNON BREWER/OSU

Student researcher Andrew Miller sutures a sedated Neosho smallmouth bass after implanting a radio transmitter. The trailing white antenna can
be seen extending from the fish’s belly.
If you’ve caught one, you’re not ing-edge research into the where-
hearing anything new. You know abouts of smallmouth bass in select
the “arrowy rush” that Henshall Oklahoma streams, that in the end
spoke of. And if you’re a licensed can improve a strain of bronzeback
angler, take heart in knowing unique to the area — and make fish-
that you are helping pay for lead- ing all the better.
Dr. Shannon Brewer, an associ-
SHANNON BREWER/OSU University, led research into how
ate professor at Oklahoma State

the bass behaves through the
year. Brewer and graduate student
Andrew Miller monitored a strain
of bronzebacks found only in the
spring-fed streams in the Ozark
highlands near where Oklahoma,
Missouri and Arkansas converge.
The fish is known as Neosho small-
mouth bass, and it has an affinity
for flowing water.
This habitat and behavior research
on smallmouth bass that swim in
After their recovery from sedation and surgery, these Neosho smallmouth bass were released
back into the streams where they were captured. Oklahoma’s Elk River and tributar-

38 OUTDOOR OKLAHOMA