I have read and read and read some more about which system or philosophy produces the best trophy largemouth bass. So, give me your best scenario with the ultimate pond for big bass. You have a 3 three acre lake located in Georgia. I'm ready to stock it so give me your best setup. Thanks pond bass.

Call Greg Grimes :-)

What she said!

Grimes has achieved some initial LMB growth rates that really have not been touched by anyone as of yet, if I recall correctly.

Part of the plan is going way, way, heavy on the initial forage stockings.

Damn. Saw Georgia and was coming on to say exactly that. Quick draw there Sue!

For trophy LMB.

In a new pond with good water and cover and no fish. Spring add crawfish and frogs , then 2 weeks later add 2000 2-3 inch BG/CNBG per acre , and 100 5 inch BG/CNBG per acre , and 100 lbs FH and either 100 adult RES or 500 2-3 inch RES. 2 weeks later , assuming a plankton bloom then add 1 load of TShad. If not then 500 adult GShiners. In the fall add 100 6 inch Fla LMB females(no males). Replace 15 Fla LMB females each year after year 2. Feed and if needed fertilize. Keep good water quality. Limit fishing for LMB - 0 the first year, then limit LMB fishing to 500 man hours a year. No LMB harvest.

Two great ideas in five posts. If you don't do one or the other your chances of reaching the goal you ourlined in your post are greatly reduced. For assured success go with Greg.

Wow, I'm still trying to process the info. Question: What's the growth rate and results from such stocking strategy? I thought that Florida bass got difficult to catch except on live bait. Is this a pond that you can't keep any bass?

Let me rephrase, what is the best for LMB and Putting a few on the dinner table?

What does FH, and RES stand for?

What about F-1 LMB or a combination of both F-1 and Florida bass and if possible what would be a stocking ratio?

I would like to keep the aggressiveness and catchability with occasionally putting a few in a deep fryer.

Does the old standard still apply for fertilization rates and removing 30-35 lbs. of bass per acre? Or is there a new strategy?

Who is Gregg Grimes and how do you get in contact with him?

Go here and tell him PB sent you

http://www.lakework.com/


Commonly Used Acronyms (Abbreviations)
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92442#Post92442

What I provided above for you was for a trophy LMB lake. Your goal is the key. Trophy LMB lakes have fewer LMB of bigger size with limited fishing to avoid the catchability problem. You get a few big bites. In that case catch and eat a few of the BG. A 3 acre trophy LMB pond with 100 8 lb LMB will have 266 lbs of predators per acre and 800 total lbs of predators. To keep them at 8 lbs they will each need 10 lbs of forage a year or 1000 lbs of BG , shad , shiners etc. To get to 9 lbs they will need twice that amount.

You can , and many of us do , have a balanced pond with LMB reproduction. But know in advance that while you can have a couple trophies in the mix keeping balance in a LMB/BG pond is like balancing on a knife edge. Their normal condition is to revert to the mean and be either LMB crowded or BG crowded.

I personally harvest all Bass caught under 16" after year 3 (12" from year 2 to 3).
Read this quote From MSU and you can see how they come about the 35# removed from fertilized ponds.
Producing big bass requires a commitment to proper harvest of bass. Do not harvest bass the first two years after stocking. Beginning in year three, harvest 15 (30 for fertilized ponds) pounds of bass per acre each year that are less than 12 inches. Removing these small bass reduces competition with remaining bass, providing more food for those that remain. Also, remove 5 pounds (10 for fertilized ponds) of bass per acre that are 12 to 15 inches each year. Release all bass over 15 inches unless you harvested them as trophies. Harvest bream as desired. Important: Supplying additional food alone will not produce trophy bass. Bass harvest must occur consistently! The biggest mistake in bass management is catch and release of all bass. Small bass need to be harvested to allow more food for fast growth of intermediate-sized bass.



http://msucares.com/wildfish/fisheries/farmpond/management/trophy_bass.html

Hi Travis-
Great project, great thread.

This is absolutely true-I think there's less mystery about how to grow some really big bass than how to maintain the fishery the way you want it. If you're really committed to and enjoy harvisting bass, a trophy pond with reproducing fish will work. But back off even a little on the harvest, and you'll severely stress the forage base with smaller bass. The number of "help! small bass/big bluegill" theads on here is not a coincidence. And if you're fishing/harvesting lot, some of your fish will doubtless become hookshy. I don't have any answers here, just some more food for thought. I'd definitely conribute to the chorus recommending Greg's input on this, keep reading and you can at least have a good list of questions to discuss with him.

Tums Wes Neal from MS State wrote that 3 years ago. He has spoken at several PB conventions as have his students. Good people.

It is good info but since that time several studies have shown better results with stocking more fish to start. 3000 + BG per acre if it will be a reproducing LMB pond. I like more forage sources added in like TShad , craws , frogs and GShiners. Note my suggestion was 2000 + some adult spawning BG as well in a non-reproducing LMB pond.

Ewest, I agree about stocking more. I have been doing high numbers (up to 5K per acre) since the 90's. I was more posting that about the harvesting question Travis had.
Edit I have had limited contact with those at MSU and felt they where like what you are saying.

Thanks for the response. Fishermen and fisherwomen are good people. What about a combination of F1 and florida bass. Your right I have to find the right balance but I also have to say I have "kidos" , so needless to say we make sacrifices.

How about a F1/ Florida bass combo with a 30/ 1 ratio. With all the extras, some crawdad, CNBG/RES, FH? Can I get a happy medium for me and the family. Any suggestions on this? Thanks.

I created depth, structure and habitat for each species. Emphasizing humps, flats , ledges. Should all this play a positive effect on there predator / prey relationship. How does this work in relation to the increased stocking rates?

When ewest wrote about the stocking info., the 100 Florida LMB that he recommended stocking were ALL female - I believe that's why he said no LMB harvest and limit the man hours fishing.

If the LMB stocked aren't 100% single sex, then it'll be a job keeping it on the knife edge.

That's what is so great about this forum. We're on the cutting edge of pond management. Who'd have thought 10 years ago that pond data that was only 3 years old is now out of date?

What about thick brush of the yoy BG? Otherwise those listed structures are just ambush points.

That just means that you won't have to keep adding forage fish on a yearly basis. In my pond, due to the fluctuating water level, I find that the LMB can be much more successful predators when there is no cover for the forage fish to hide in. I am struggling to keep the LMB in balance and have a sufficient forage base. The goal for my pond this year is to rectify that situation by incerasing the cover available for forage fish to hide in at all water depths.

Here is my plan for a 2.5 acre trophy LMB pond.

Add as much cover/habitat as possible including rip rap (crawfish), pea gravel (BG nesting), Xmas trees (BG & GSH fry), pallets (FHM nesting), brush piles, laydowns, etc..(LMB hangouts).

Aerate.

Feed.

Fertilize.


Fall:
25 pounds FHM
25 pounds GSH
1000 papershell crayfish
1000 grass shrimp

Following Spring:
2000 5"-7" BG
1000 3"-5" BG
1000 3-5" RES

Following Spring (1 yr after BG/RES stocking):
100 F1 Tiger LMB fingerlings
100 Northern Gorilla LMB fingerlings

With this plan you should your LMB survival rate should be 80-90% (Thanks Greg!).

Harvast males only heavily the next spring. You will be able to tell the males/females apart during spawning season. If you catch a female clip the fins. If you catch the same female again remove it. Harvast about 80 LMB total, say 60 males and 20 females. This leaves you with about 100 LMB, 30 males and 70 females.

Second LMB year continue to harvast all males, twice caught females and any fish under 12".

By LMB year three spring you should have about 40 females up to 5 pounds each. Keep harvasting small LMB and larger males.

Thats my plan after lots of PondBoss research.

Thoughts?

Sounds good. My only question is why remove the Female LMB if caught twice?

Thanks guys. Feel free to submit email. Greg@lakework.com or matt@lakework.com. I can email stocking plan etc. I'm out of town until next week. Thanks and good luck.

In a way, it all depends on whether you want great fish or great fishing. I would do too much forage, all female bass, and restrict my fishing to twice a year.

I would remove the twice caught females in case they get hook shy. That way I leave the large forage for females that are not hook shy. I'm probably overstocking anyways for a trophy LMB pond. That is why I will need to harvast so much. I (and kids and friends) want to be able to fish it fairly heavily. The other route of stocking only females would not work well for us

Had to do it j/k
once bitten twice shy

I am gonna put some christmas trees for the brush for the bream to hide. What about my F1/ florida relationship? You were correct. It is hard to have both. I want a catchable pond for our family enjoyment. I also want a lunker to peel a little drag .

I would think that the bass that got caught twice would be the aggressive one and the bass not caught yet the worthless one....

Also in terms of hookshyness, the most hookshy fish I have observed are fish that regularly interact with humans and have been caught alot when young. they will still bite, but not when they are looking right at you...

Just to consider in the mix, the comments about not putting too much fishing pressure on the pond are more for lure fishing. Live bait fishing may still continue to yield results (ie/ live bait fishing with a bluegill).

Sunil, you would like saltwater fishing with big live baits!!

You are right but you can't harvast a fish you can't catch. And considering you can only keep 50-100 lbs/acre of preditors per acre, the pond will be maxed out if you don't harvast some of the larger females. if you have 50 5lb females thats 250 lbs of preditors which is already the max in a 2.5 acre pond. And thats not counting the 2nd, 3rd, etc generation LMB. So if you harvast the females on the second catch there are two benefits: 1. you get to catch the female twice. 2. you make room for the remaining females to grow even larger. That is, I will have to harvast some big females because there is just not the pond capacity available to put them back. So I have to harvast the ones I catch twice. The hard to catch females will grow large and be the true trophies in the pond after 5 years or so. I just have to catch them eventually. Nobody said trophy fishing was easy . Keeping tabs on what I catch and thier weight ratio is essential in a trophy LMB plan and changing the plan accordingly will be key.

Lots of ponds will carry much more then 100lbs. per acre of predators.

I still disagree on the removing of the females caught twice as determining which of the females to remove, also I think you will find that out too.. Ken is correct that you can manipulate the amount of lbs of predators per acre pretty easily...nature may only support on average 100 lbs of predator or less, but managing a trophy largemouth pond isnt natural in and of itself...

Here is something to think about....
At Bass Pro Shops in East Peoria they have several double digit largemouth bass, about 50 other largemouth in the 3-8 lb range along with trophy specimens of several other species of fish all living in a 10' deep pond no more than 40 feet wide and 20 feet long....

calculated at lbs of predators per acre your probably talking 35,000+ lbs of predators per acre (someone with good math could probably figure that out that exact number pretty quick)....if you can really think about what it takes to pull that off, then you can really start to think outside the box of conventional natural pond mgmt....We arent talking about natural situations when we are talking about instensively managing for trophy specimens or producing more lbs of fish per acre, so why limit ourselves to conventional natural approaches to management...

so what really is your limiting factors when it comes to growing more lbs of trophy fish?

Guys Nate is right. Don't harvest the LMB that bite. Harvest the ones that don't using a shock boat. Tag the ones you catch and when you shock take out the no tag fish and the ones that look skinny.

Notice that the goal is changing from a trophy LMB pond to a balanced pond with good genetics. 2 entirely different things. My plan was for a trophy pond with no LMB harvest.

Nate ask "so what really is your limiting factors when it comes to growing more lbs of trophy fish?"

That may be the easiest question on this thread - answer is - knowledge. Once you have that you can do amazing things with water.

Now dont be trying to get into my outside the box territory.
Answer is habitat aka physical enviroment surrounding a specis population. All the genetics and know how can not get you there without it.

I completely agree n8ly! Like ewest said, fin clip or tag the ones that you catch, and use a shock boat to remove the others.

If you use numbered floy tags, you can identify each individual fish, and could keep a log as to what you caught it on, length, weight, etc. When the fish slows down it's growth or stops growing, replace it.

WOW!! This is good stuff. I hope to be asking similar questions regarding a 10acre pond very soon. Keep it going guys.

Really great post. I love these posts. Greg and Eric are all over the super-saturation of prey to grow big LMB. I've had a female only pond and it's a great way to control predators.

Eric, one question that I'm sure others have that is beyond me at this point. You recommended 100 6" female Floridas.. how are you accurately (100%) sexing 6" LMB? you'd have to 100% in this situation with 100 of them.