Today was a good day fishing for my grandson who does not fish much but we did a little fishing today. Here is a pic of his best.

Dang Tracy, those are beautiful fish. You think hybrid striped would do in my pond with 6 inch visibility most of the time? Did you weigh the lmb? the colors are beautiful and looks very chunky!!

Tracy - you are growing some nice LMB & HSB in Texas. Any idea how old that HSB was to your best guess.

Those are nice looking. I'm sure it was a profound grandpa moment for ya.

Thanks guys for your nice comments. I have had a lot of help here to get these fish where I wanted. Many thanks to Bill Cody and Eric, Al, Todd Overton and Bob Lusk along with other's here. Bill C., I started adding the HSB 4 yrs ago at 10" size. Over the past 4 yrs I have purchased and ladder stocked many different sizes so I am not sure which group this fish came from. I will say this is not the largest in the pond based on what we have caught and released. I think the hsb have done well in this pond. I had left my scales in the side by side so did not weigh this one. After catching the lmb we went back to the shoreline and got the scales. Flame the lmb weighed 7lb 1oz. It looked really healthy.

Flame, I am not sure about your pond but I have had some pretty bad looking water visibility for about one year out of the past 5 yrs. And the HSB continued to grow. Like you, and being a good fisherman at one time, I learned dirty water bothered the fisherman more than it bothered the fish. Your cnbg and lmb seemed to have done well so why not the hsb?

Rs, thanks, It was a good time spent with him. He never cared for fishing much, so for him to catch trophy fish was good.

They look great ! Been feasting on shad and tilapia +. The LMB does not look old so likely some bigger ones in the lake.

FA around the edges ? Water looks good !!

Wow those fish look very beautiful and healthful!
Congrats!

Well done Tracy

Good job Tracy ! Beautiful fish

I'm not big on fishing either. It's more about the time spent with who ever I'm fishing with. When it's good fishing it a great bonus. Makes me want some HSB even more. I would to watch one of my kids hook into 1 of those.

Yes Eric, I do have quite abet of FA around the pond right now. It always seems to show up in the winter months. If you look at the shoreline in the pics there is APW that has died back for winter and that is where most of the FA is growing on top of it. And if you look at the clear water near the pier you will see Bushy Pondweed just under the waters surface. I added 10 GP this past spring to control the bushy pond weed. Hoping they don't eliminate the APW that I like.

Congrats Tracy. I love the dark color of the LMB.

Here are TGW's pics:

Sunil, Thank you so much for bringing the pic's into the light. I am sure you realized how weak I am at posting pic's. The good thing about that is I would have been flooding the forum with pic's from the past five yrs if I had your ability to post them up. Thanks again.

TGW, it's fairly easy to do.

1) Click on one of the links you provided in the original post.

2) Once the image comes up, right click on it, and then click on "Copy Image Location."

3) Paste that into a 'reply' box on this thread.

4) Add this right before the text: [IMG]

5) Add this right after the text: [/IMG]

That'll make the pic appear in the thread.

Thanks Sunil, I must have been born in the Mo., the show me state. Montana was birth place and I am pretty dumb founded when it comes to such things. But thanks again