Good morning!

After doing some reading and research, I found your forum. It is busting with knowledge and am really excited to start to manage my 35 acre lake!

My lake has a good population of bass 2-4lbs. Forage from all sizes, with points, weeds, trees, beaver dams, maid habitat and xmas tree habitat!

We take about 100 lbs of fish out per year to manage the population and the 2-4lb bass population, in my opinion, reflects a healthy fishery.

Unfortunately, very rarely do fish get over 4lbs, and it's been years since there has been a fish over 5lbs caught.

I am wanting to stock F1 Toger bass to change that. From reading, it sounds like I need to stock about 40 fingerling bass, per acre to have an impact. To buy about 1400 fingerling, it would be about $1500.

My question is, can I do this over a 3-5 year span or do I need to do the stocking in 1 fail swoop? I cannot find much information about that process.

If any of my understanding is incorrect pleas let me know! Thank you all very much!i

I am not an expert but I believe your F1 bass do not do any better than northern bass in NE. Too far north. Also with 2 to 4 lb. bass in your pond you would be better to stock 140 ten to twelve inch fish than 1400 small fish that would more than likely turn into fish food for the larger fish. Just repeating what I have read on this sight, some one with more experience will let you know what to do. Where in NE are you at, that may also mater on the fish you can use.

hunter is correct,

Remember a bass that is 4 lbs I bet is around 20 inches and a 3 pounder is about 18. So those said bass can eat a fish like a bass in the 6 or 7 inch range easy. You would need larger bass. You may want to consider just putting in some F1 bass if they actually do better where your from to mix it up a little. If you already have a good population of 2 to 4 pound bass you do NOT need to go off of a recommended amount per acre cause you already have a lot of bass in there!!

My bet is you have to many bass. Catch about a dozen of them 3 to 4 pound bass and get some relative weights on them and see where they stand.

Sorry I keep talking about RW's but it's a hugh tool in knowing where your bass are and where you need to go with them!!!

There are some RW charts for bass in the archive section here. Print one out take a tape measure with you and a scale and see where you stand.

If the bass your catching are 90 percent or under then you have one of 2 things possibly wrong.

1. Too many bass,
2. Not enough forage for said bass.

My bet is on number 1. 100 lbs of fish per year I bet is not enough on a 35 acre lake.... I'm am not sure but lets see what others have to say.

RC

Too many LMB/not enough forage are really two sides of the same coin. I'm no pro, but bet you the experts would recommend checking the relative weights of the LMB, and if as expected they are low, take out a LOT.

At the same time, probably would do whatever necessary to increase BG and other forage. Feeding program, fertilizing, habitat enhancement, whatever fits your budget.

You don't need F-1 bass to get 6 to 8 pounds, northern LMB will do that if well fed. I'm not entirely sure F-1s would thrive that far north, anyway. Be sure to check this out before spending big bucks on F-1s.

I would skip the F-1s and focus on managing the existing population. You should probably be removing 500 lbs of LMB per year. Gather as much info on the population status of all fish in the lake and go from there.

Oh wow! Thank you guys. I'll have to look into overall management. I do love the 2-4lbrs, but I'd love to turn it into a trophy fishery.

Shorty do you catch a lot of 12 and 13 inch bass? You need to start keeping them if you do. More of them. I kinda figured 100 lbs was a little shy. Ewest knows his stuff so if he says maybe closer to 500 lbs I would bet he's pretty close to right on.

Plus what do you consider a Trophy? Up north where I lived if we caught a LMB over 5 pounds that was something!! An 8 pounder would be SWEET!!!!!!!! I'm sure you could get into that 6 to 8 range but it sounds like you got some balancing out to do first and 35 acres is not no little job!!! Have a party and get some folks over there and have a all you can eat LMB fish fry!!! lol....

Good Luck man,

RC

Shorty, how old is your lake?