Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose is there any places you can get female only bass?

I’m building a new 1.5 acre pond and wanting to produce the biggest bass I can years down the road. I live in Indiana and was wondering is there any places that would stock female bass only ? I know down south there is a bunch of places that have tiger bass but can’t find any fisheries around Indiana that have them. Is there any place I can get female only tiger bass stocked in my pond in southern Indiana?

It is not likely that you will source to producer of them. The kind of fish you need would be very expensive to produce. What suppliers want to sell is 2" fingerlings where they can be produced at low cost in numbers as high as 70,000 per acre. The acreage required to produce the fish you need isn't economical for them. You need fish that have grown up on BG forage in the 12 to 14 in range. You may need approach the problem from a different angle.

There are good documents available online that describe how to identify females. The straw method is very reliable but not perfect. It is worth noting that your identification does not have to be perfect to work. However, to work the pond condition must be one where the bluegill are so populous in the 3 to 4 in BG so as to prevent successful spawns of LMB. So you might want to establish the BG population first adding the female LMB later.

To source the LMB you may consider helping another pond owner with culling. Another potential means might be a small pond that you can stock and harvest for the fish you need. In a female only pond you don't need a forage pond so if have another small pond, preferably downstream and drainable, you could grow your own females and even focus on F1 genetics if desired.

There is a caveat to female only. The LMB have plenty to eat and are few in number. The fishing will seem much slower than you may be used to. But the effort for a trophy will be greatly reduced and the ultimate weights will be much greater than otherwise possible.

Female only bass for stocking is a wishful "pipe dream" and something discussed but not a very feasible or practical thing to obtain; - at least buying them from a Midwestern fish farm unless as jpsdad says you do figure out how to it yourself. Let's see what others have to say about this.

It would be excellent if the unique pond owner here has done it and can comment how successful he has been. Dave Beasley from Solitude Lake Management has written a couple articles in PBoss magazine about using female only LMB for a trophy bass pond. Beasley rarely adds comments to this Forum. However you can read his articles to learn more about the challenges or contact him at Solitude Lake Management.

Jul-Aug 2017: A YOUNG FISHERY WITH A BRIGHT FUTURE. PART 2. RESULTS AFTER THREE YEARS OF MANAGEMET. Dave Beasley describes using a renovated 6 acre pond for growing big bass. Produced bass of up to 4.2 lb in 3 years in this southeast central US pond.

Jan-Feb 2018 - BUILDING THE FISHING POND OF YOUR DREAMS Part II. Beasley described how LM bass females were used to grow a trophy bass fishery.

Realistically, If you want big bass it will be more feasible to work with mixed sex LMB and focus intently on harvesting the males.

Our Pond Boss, Bob Lusk to my knowledge has not discussed this female only bass stocking concept in the PB magazine. This is likely because of the difficulty of doing it and not being able to obtain female only LMB. In today's pond world is not practical. Maybe Lusk will see this or I can get him to comment on this topic.

If your reason for 'female only LMB' is to grow big bass in Indiana,,, then forget the female LMB idea and concentrate on using HSB as your apex predator. Read all about them here what they can do for you and how to manage a pond with them.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92629#Post92629

They are readily available, they don't reproduce thus you have better control of producing forage fish, they eat pellets so when forage is not ideal you keep HSB growing optimally, they grow bigger than LMB, grow faster than LMB, fight harder than LMB, and once you live with them for 4-6 years you will ever wonder why you were infatuated with LMB 'aka green carp'.

Even the experts get the attempt wrong. It can be done but is very difficult.

American Sportfish promotes single sex LMB and they may ship...I've personally held two tigers grown in Lincoln, NE that both exceeded 12# [and both were state records]. Imagine they'd flourish in IN, too, considering your latitude. Regardless of whether they ship or not driving for fish is nothing new - I've driven to IN and back to NE for good YP genetics. Guess it depends on how serious one is at achieving their goals.

The cold tolerance for F-1 LMB is still an open question. Northern IN may be to cold for top line results. It depends on location , parent sourcing and adaptation.