Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Florida Bass transfer from one pond to another?

I have two lakes that are within 35 miles of each other. One of them has Florida bass and they are mostly stunted. The other has Northern bass that are in much better shape. The lake with the N. bass is 20 acres. I have been thinking about changing the genetic makeup of the lake containing N. bass by moving some of the stunted Fl bass to it. Now my question is if introducing stunted bass is a problem? My thought is that the problem with the stunted bass is a food deficiency not a genetic problem, so that this should accomplish my goal without causing a problem. Am I correct or am I missing something? Thanks.

Bill

You should be OK with the transfer. The stunted bass have lost growing time that they will never get back, but with more forage, they should restart their growth process.

One negative about tranferring fish from one pond to another is that you stand the chance of introducing some kind of disease into the new pond, or maybe some kind of parasite.

Some might say that keeping the transfer bass in a holding tank for a few days might help mitigate the negatives.

Thanks Sunil. I thought it would be OK. I am not worried about the loss of growing time since the real purpose would be to introduce some Florida bass genes into the gene pool. I don't think I would have any problem with parasites in that I believe that the fish in the Fl bass lake are healthy. Both lakes are spring fed and the water quality is very good. Thanks for your comments.

Since your goal is to enhance the gene pool the fact that the FLA's are stunted is most likely environmental, not genetic. I'd focus on slot males, bring as many as those as you can. they can service females galore and don't have that big of forage requirements. It would not hurt to dissect one, look for internal problems, especially in the digestive tract. I do the same thing all of the time. It takes time of course, but the investment of your time is well worth it.

How long has the lake with the stunted LMB been that way?

Are the fish in good condition ?

Fla. LMB are notoriously small. Its the females that are big.

I would start removing northern LMB from the lake to be stocked and replacing them with female Fla LMB.

The easy way to do that is have a pro electroshock both lakes removing and adding fish as noted above.

One thing to consider: I've read that when fish stunt, they become geneticaly more inclined to stunt in future generations. Meaning that if future generations undergo some hard times finding forage, their bodies may stop growing much easier as an adaptation they developed to cope with a lack of food. Not sure if that is totally true or not, maybe an expert has more info there.

I think it would take countless generations of environmental effects to influence any genetic changes.

I would not complicate this more than it has to be. It's a basic concept, moving FLA strain into another pond to change up and hopefully improve the genetics.

No electrofishing, no culling or selective harvesting. And if you want the biggest bang for the buck as far as genetic input per carrying capacity, you put in little males. You would also be helping out the stunted pond by removing the excessive slot males not needed there.

This is one thing I do a lot. I take my superior strain and spread it into many, many other stale or underperforming ponds. It may take a few generations, but normally I see results after first two crops.

I do this more than the farms as they want nothing to do with FLA strain. They will hybrid and triploid everything else. Especially carp, bg and trout. Stripers also. I just don't like most hybrids as they produce trash offspring. The FLA lmb crosses don't have that issue at all, they come out better long term and future generations.

Wow, very cool post Pond Frog!

Hey, where's those pics you were promising?

The lake with the Fl bass was stocked in 1992. It has had stunted bass since probably 1996. There are some very big bass in the lake, but as you would expect they are just about impossible to catch. I have caught two that were 9 lbs and we found one that was just under 14 lbs that was dying a couple of years ago. We have caught some in the 5-6 lb class as well. Some of the stunted fish actually look quite healthy and some of the small ones don't appear to be stunted. Kind of a mixed bag. One of the problems with that lake is that the only fish that normally can be caught are the little ones.

The larger lake with the Northern bass is old and was built in the 1960's. When I first bought it, the bass were rather small and I have harvested a lot of small fish since. I stocked threadfin shad 3 years ago and the bass have put on a good bit of weight. I first started removing all bass under 1 lb, then moved up to under 1.5 lbs, then had to move up to under 2 lbs because I wasn't catching hardly any removable fish. I have caught multiple 4, 5, and 6 lb bass as well as one 7 lb and one 8 lb.

I am not sure that I could identify smaller females from the males unless someone can give me a good method. My thought was to try to transfer enough Fl bass to make sure that I get a mixture of males and females. I wonder if I should also move some of the Northern bass from the big lake to the lake with the Florida bass just to mix up the gene pool in that lake?

I would not put anything in the supposed to be genetic pure FLA pond. You might regret that for a long time. Once the FLA get sexually mature, I had 8" breed this season, they begin to look different. The females start adding girth, if you get two fish different sexes side by side it is easier to tell. I'll also milk them in the Spring. That is a surefire way and I have no morts doing that.

I always keep as many ponds as I can with my pure strains for resource ponds. These are in a patrolled gated community on private property so no knuckleheads can screw me up and put bad or undesired fish in. They have remained single species ponds for over a decade now. They are one way ponds, fish come out, nothing goes in. Brood ponds. I wish I had more but I am experimenting with drawdown ponds now.

My fish are the same way, the larger fish get harder and harder to catch. They don't get that big by being easy to catch or stupid. So I just recruit new classes with larger numbers to hopefully boost my average weight and size average per fish caught. I pretty much adhere to Lusk's guidelines there. But in my humble opinion, it all starts with genetics.

PF quote "I would not put anything in the supposed to be genetic pure FLA pond." I would - more forage. But not any LMB - none. Keep it pure if possible.

From all the Fishery Scientists I know and who have developed , tested and written on F-1s (that is what you are shooting for to start) what works best for both size and aggressiveness (best genetics)is to cross male northerns with female Flas. Results in better size , more aggression and IIRC better survival and condition. I will dig out the studies.

I have not seen any info on whether the smaller Fla males can out compete the northern males for nest sites and mates but size often makes a difference in spawning.

True stunting (genetic condition or change) is now being recoginized to happen faster than we use to believe. Havng said that yours are not stunted genetically yet IMO but are just underfed.

The reason to use the shock boat is you can probably fix it all , including the LMB crowding in the Fla pond, in one afternoon. Plus you can pick and choose better if you see them all at once.