20 Inches, 4.6pds - Mounting for the wall.
Pond record by 1.1 pounds!!!

Wasn't able to get great picture since I was by myself and darkness was falling. Best I could do with all the excitement.

This is what we believe to be the same fish, last year. 9-4-15 at 16 inches 2.6 pounds.

The marking on the gill is circled, this fish has same marking. Grew 4 inches and 2 pounds in just under a year.

those are big bass for WI!

Congratulations, that is really exciting. Can't wait until I'm doing the same thing!

Are you doing a replica mount or did you harvest the fish?

Congratulations on the record!!!

Very nice LMB...ecological conditions must be very good!

Harvested the Fish Helps my weight removal goal for the year.

And is getting mounted. It's been a ride growing the LMB to this size. Looking forward to having it on the wall. I am not sure of it's age yet, 4 or 5 is my guess.

If you are having the fish mounted, talk to the taxidermist and have him save the otolith for you. Take it to the Fisheries Dept. at UWSP and they should be able to give you an exact age.

Thanks for the heads up, the taxidermist is doing this for me now. I'll get them soon and let you know how it turns out.

1st I want to thank esshup for suggesting getting the fish aged! It changes everything!

I was unable to get hold of the correct person/people at UWSP so I went to a company that deals with Fish and pond management here in Wisconsin.

Fish was 21 year old.

This is amazing to me as we didn't believe we had LMB before 2010. Like I said this changes everything for us.

21 one years old is just 2 years shy of the longest lived wild LMB according to...

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Micropterus_salmoides/

Conditions must be right in your pond as they say 15 years in the average in the wild. Congrats!

21 years....could that be right?? How long is the average life of a lmb?? I always thought 8 years was old.

Flame, Northern LMB have a longer life since their hear rate slows in the winter, in the South 13 yr is ballpark typically.

Life of LMB will vary on numerous variables. A big one is latitude with northern fish usually living longer. I 'sort of' question the accuracy of the reading for the otolith. Maybe it was a slower growing male bass?
Age of LMB from the Common Pond Q&A Archives: LMB Management.
LMB Life Span
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96912#Post96912
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=22223#Post22223

This was a scale aging. And yes it was slow growing after age 4.

I'm also curious Bill. But, it was a Senior Citizen.

Aging of fish, especially old fish, using the scale method is inherent with errors which is why aging by the otolith method is more accurate and acceptable by the fish squeezer community.

21 years old seems wrong to me.

I agree Dave this was a Senior Citizen, and even if the aging was off by a year or 2 this was a very old bass and changes everything for our pond. Huge Eye opener!

I still have the scales, can anyone recommend somewhere else I can send them for aging?

TPWD grew out some fla bass from birth to death. 2 lived to 16 yrs when the project stopped. they have age & growth data on them and offspring.

Unfortunately, I missed the window to get the otolith from the fish and scales was my only option. By the time I read esshup message taxi was past that point.

nice badger fish!

what bait were you using?

Jerk bait, ghost color.

As I know it, one of the main problems of reading scales is the ring production is not always consistent based on water temp and diet and the reader has to be objective as possible and has to be sometimes subjective in counting the crossing over marks. Lot of age rings on a smaller bass of 21 yrs (4.6lbs-20 in) puts the annuli and ridges of the scale rings very close together and quite difficult to see the true "crossing over" marks. Sometimes there are false crossing over marks. When the Ohio DNR switched to reading otoliths instead of scales for walleye, it made a big difference in the aging results. The scale method was considered inaccurate.

Interesting....
Well as I said above, this aging changes everything for our pond. We had no idea there was LMB older then 6 years in the pond.

Certainly an old fish!!!

Wow! What do you attribute the sudden growth spurt of this old fish to?

GREAT Question Bill D.!
After getting the aging report back, I don't believe this is the same fish. What a problem to have right?