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#395313 12/20/14 07:52 AM
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2 acre Pond - NE Texas near Paris. 1 year old pond. Good supply of CNBG and large mouth bass. Good structure etc.. - I built it in. Bass are in the 12-15" range. Moved them from a buddy's pond from his culling program. Don't know the bloodline of those bass. Good, not great, catch program this past summer/fall.

Definitely have the mindset of wanting to grow some size, but what good is size if you can't catch them. I'm willing to spend some money to do what I need to do. What would you guys recommend as far as introducing some new bass this spring to get my bloodlines to be where the fish are more lure friendly over the life of the pond. And where would I get those?

Thanks

DB

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David I'm certainly not one of the experts here by any means, but I can share a couple of my observations. My LMB and now larger BG wise up fast. We all have stories of catching a fish more that once in either a day or in a period of a couple of days, but my experience with my little pond (1/4 acre) is that I can fish it hard one day, catch and release plenty of LMB, then not be able to buy a fish out of the pond for a week or so. I may have caught all the aggressive bass, I may have caught nearly all the bass, the "word may be out", it's hard to say.
My point is that LMB learn to avoid being caught. They do seem to forget the danger after a period of time. We know there are plenty of fish in the water as we can see them glowering at us. (What's the emoticon for a glowering LMB?)
How many of those cull LMB did you introduce? My guess is they would be the only catchables in your new pond? How much do they have to eat, i.e. are they hungry or well fed with CNBG? Could they all have wised up? I've fished a river for years with what looks like "flocks" of SMB crowding around my fly or lure-40 or more fish staring at the bait. A few will eventually take the fly; the others will try then to grab the fly from the caught fish's mouth. Once that fish is pulled from the water, the others go back to staring at the fly. It gets progressively harder to get the next one to fall for the ruse.
It certainly may make sense to add other genetic stock, given that your bass were culls in the first place. Why were they culled-simply too many in your buddy's pond, poor WR, some other reason?
You will get some expert advice soon. Keep us up to date on the progress of your fishery.

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Originally Posted By: DavidBiss
2 acre Pond - NE Texas near Paris. 1 year old pond. Good supply of CNBG and large mouth bass. Good structure etc.. - I built it in. Bass are in the 12-15" range. Moved them from a buddy's pond from his culling program. Don't know the bloodline of those bass. Good, not great, catch program this past summer/fall.

Definitely have the mindset of wanting to grow some size, but what good is size if you can't catch them. I'm willing to spend some money to do what I need to do. What would you guys recommend as far as introducing some new bass this spring to get my bloodlines to be where the fish are more lure friendly over the life of the pond. And where would I get those?

Thanks

DB

DB, our 2 acre pond is about 20 miles south of Paris, and even though my passion has been CNBG and HSB, it has changed to the the new Camelot Bell Florida LMB, recently provided by Overton Fisheries. This strain of Florida LMB has been developed over the past 7 or 8 years by selection of brood stock noted for fast growth, catchability and exceptional color markings marking ID easy.

Here is a link that may be helpful.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=377877#Post377877

Our approach has been to cull all LMB caught that do not have a fin clip, but if your present LMB are difficult to catch, electroshock may be necessary.
FireIsHot has been successful in this approach and is currently growing out fingerling CB LMB, as well as Highflyer.

Their experience is current and can provide helpful information.
I am excited about this program.

Good Luck,



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Original george #173 (22 June 2002)




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David Bliss....

I had Overton's place some adult northern largemouth bass in my pond this Fall exactly for that reason. Catch-abilty. Several studies show that northern largemouth bass are more likely to hit a lure. Northerns don't get as big, but they are easier to catch than the pure Florida strain Bass. I guess the F1 is a combo of the two, but I wanted some northerns because I am more concerned with me and guests catching fish vs trophy fish. You should consider getting some northern adult black bass stocked into your mix.

"The real eye opener was that the percentage of Floridas by shock was irrelevant to the catch rate on lures. In the lure group the winner, hands down, were the Northern bass. In other words both populations were there and saw the lures but an overwhelming majority of the fish that got caught (just as Dr. Garrett had said), were the Northern strain (native). Garrett had said that in one sampling only one fish out of 100 caught was a Florida."
http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/smart_bass.html


"Northern (native) largemouth bass can reach 10+ pounds
and they are much easier to catch than Florida largemouth bass"

http://sepond.com/fish-stocking/largemouth-bass

"We have good scientific information on this
topic, and the consensus is that Florida largemouth
bass are in fact more difficult to catch
than northern largemouth
"

http://sfrc.ufl.edu/allenlab/Popular%20Articles/18_DrMikeAllen_Nov_11.pdf[u][/u]


Fishing has never been about the fish....

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1 acre supports roughly 50-100 pounds of LMB per acre. So it may support 50 or so bass over 12"... Doesn't take much fishing pressure to make those bass smart. Only way to keep them catchable is to keep fishing pressure very light... I'd fish the pond less than 1x a week. I'd also aerate and have a feeding program to increase carrying capacity...

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Originally Posted By: DavidBiss
2 acre Pond - NE Texas near Paris. 1 year old pond. Good supply of CNBG and large mouth bass. Good structure etc.. - I built it in. Bass are in the 12-15" range. Moved them from a buddy's pond from his culling program. Don't know the bloodline of those bass. Good, not great, catch program this past summer/fall.

Definitely have the mindset of wanting to grow some size, but what good is size if you can't catch them. I'm willing to spend some money to do what I need to do. What would you guys recommend as far as introducing some new bass this spring to get my bloodlines to be where the fish are more lure friendly over the life of the pond. And where would I get those?

Thanks

DB


David, may I share my thoughts on “CATCHABILITY”?

I remember well the the first “bass” I ever caught - it was more than 80 years ago and I was fishing for “brim” with worms on a cane pole - ram out of worms and caught a LMB on a berry blossom.

I have fished for LMB my whole life until I discovered Striped bass and found them more “catchable” and more sport than LMB and never fished for them again until my son built “our” ponds - he is a hard core bass fisherman so we stocked LMB.

Since my passion was stripers, I stocked Hybrid Striped Bass and managed exclusively HSB and my som fished his “bass”.
He is a good fisherman with the skill and patience to catch pure Florida bass as well as others I know - so they are not all that difficult to catch.
Over pressured LMB become hook shy as CJ alludes to.
It just takes skill and patience to fish for them.

If you are wanting “catchable” fish for sport and table fare, I always recommend Hybrid Stripers - they outfight LMB any day of the week and you can grow them to 6 - 8 lbs easily in a 2 acre pond.

The reason I am now interested in LMB is due to the new catchable” strain now called Camelot Bell LMB.

Good luck with your program and Merry Christmas - off to church now.
George Glazener



N.E. Texas 2 acre and 1/4 acre ponds
Original george #173 (22 June 2002)




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I am voting with George1; HSB to catch fish. Two years ago I loaded up the family and we went down to central Indiana to visit my sister and her family. It is tradition during these visits for us to spend a day fishing and have a fish fry. We all headed over to the lake and set up along the shore armed with night crawlers, bobbers, lawn chairs, cooler, etc. During these outings, my job is usually to bait hooks and take off fish so I thought I would throw a chunk of chicken liver out on the bottom to see if I could catch a cc or two to add to the feast, thinking middle of a bright sunny day I would not get much action. On the first cast, as that liver settled towards the bottom..WHAM! A 10 inch HSB. I chuckled, baited up again and as the bait settled towards the bottom..WHAM! A 12 inch HSB. Now that got me scratching my head. Fishing for bass with chicken liver? Over the 3 hours we were there, I easily caught 30 to 40 HSB. Now they weren't monsters, the best fish was around 17 inches, but it sure was fun! Interesting too was they would not hit a night crawler, only the liver. Moral to the story I guess is that yes, HSB are easily caught but just like any other fish, it takes the right bait on the right day!


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Lots here - do a search for "catchability".

Buy PB mag. !!! Here is a free one on me.

There is more going on now but in the same line as this Cutting Edge article from PB mag.


THE CUTTING EDGE – SCIENCE REVIEW

By Eric West

Mixing Largemouth Bass sub-species, catchability and other questions

Mixing the two sub-species of largemouth bass (Florida - FLMB and Northern - NLMB ) to achieve the result of bigger fish while retaining good catch rates has been a goal of many a fisheries manager for years. Now we have another scientific point of light , titled Subspecies Composition of Angled and Electrofished Largemouth Bass in Texas Reservoirs , Dijar J. Lutz-Carrillo, and Spencer Dumont in Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeast Association of Fish and Wildlife. Agencies 66:75–81, 2012 Proc., to add more knowledge to the equation

The study’s results provide biologists with a provocative concept that, in southern waters (natural integrated zone of FLMB and NLMB), FLMB likely are more difficult to angle than NLMB, but the phenotype (genetic trait) of reduced angler susceptibility (catchability) is mitigated (reduced) by introgression (genetic mixing), even at low levels of NLMB genes

While many factors may function concurrently to determine angling susceptibility, including fishing pressure, naivety of individual fish, learned lure avoidance, and stress from catch and release , we now know that catchability is a genetic and heritable trait as was previously discussed in earlier Cutting Edge articles ( see Garrett (2002) and Philipp et al. (2009) ).
See the table 1 below from the study which provides some eye catching numbers. A few that quickly got my attention. Even when there were roughly twice as many NLMB in the survey as FLMB the cross population showed almost 50% Florida genetics. In one instance where there was roughly 15 times the number of NLMB as FLMB the cross population showed 29% Florida genetics. The number of crosses in the tests far out numbered either FLMB or NLMB. I bet if you look you can spot a few more.

Note that when pure FLMB were removed from the dataset numbers (leaving only crosses with high levels of FLMB genetic influence) the trait of reduced catchability disappeared. Stated differently the addition of only a small amount of NLMB genetics caused poor catchability to disappear.

One interesting aspect of this study is the incorporation of a substantial amount of information from unpublished Texas Parks and Wildlife Department studies.
Assuming the electrofished collections were a reflection of the true composition of the population these results suggest that FLMB were more difficult to angle than expected based on their frequency in the population and that NLMB were angled at expected rates. Thus, in a scenario where both subspecies exist in equal proportions, we would expect FLMB to be more difficult to angle relative to NLMB.

Electrofishing has been the preferred method for collecting non-biased samples of largemouth bass for genetics studies over the last three decades and while capture rates may differ among seasons and throughout the day, no bias in the collection of either subspecies has been observed in numerous studies. Additionally, one study reported that largemouth bass collected using rotenone and electofishing from impoundments exhibited no differences in genotype frequencies.




In two lakes fish with high levels of FLMB influence (crosses and FLMB) were collected at significantly greater rates by electrofishing than angling. However, when the pure FLMB were removed from the dataset (leaving only crosses with high levels of FLMB influence) these differences between gear types disappeared. This suggests that the initial differences between gear types was skewed by the disproportionate number of FLMB collected by electrofishing and that crosses, even with high levels of FLMB influence, were collected at expected rates. Therefore, if FLMB and crosses with high FLMB influence were present in equal proportions, it would be expect that FLMB would be more difficult to angle than the crosses.
The distribution of LMB subspecies and their crosses are not identical; however, habitat preferences and distributional patterns appear to be more similar between the subspecies in southern impoundments than elsewhere. This I suggest is because the southern region is where FLMB and NLMB naturally coexist and cross leaving high populations of crosses.
It appears that the introgressed fish( FLMB/ NLMB crosses of all % , F-1 through Fx predominate and trend toward greater FLMB gene expression (see trophy fish comment below) .
Trophy fish (≥13 lbs.) from introgressed populations are represented disproportionately as non-introgressed FLMB relative to the frequency of FLMB in the general population ( TPWD, unpublished data). Thus, in an appropriate environment, genetic composition appears to be a critical component of maximum size in largemouth bass. While most of the differences in growth and maximum size between these subspecies are likely due to intrinsic physiological differences, behavioral differences, such as reduced angling susceptibility, may also play a role. FLMB that are potentially less susceptible to angling would be removed from populations at reduced rates relative to non-introgressed NLMB or crosses, allowing a greater proportion of FLMB to reach an older age and greater size. However I recall TPWD data also showing many of the share-a-lunker fish were high FLMB percentage crosses.

Well we are now one step further along the road to understanding FLMB and NLMB and their crosses. While it is early in the process most fisheries scientists now agree that FLMB can grow larger and are harder to catch. This study is the first to show that with a few NLMB genes in the population (individual) that the dreaded trait of reduced catchability can be greatly diminished. This was suggested in some of the early studies but not isolated in crosses as has been done here. You might, if you are in the south (natural integrated area) , consider adding a few NLMB to your FLMB only waters to improve catchibility. At low rates the NLMB genes don’t seem to reduce growth and size in the crosses.


Last edited by ewest; 12/22/14 10:35 AM.















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Great Read - really appreciate the info -

Will get on board for early in the spring -

ewest - what do you think about the Camelot bell strain?

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Originally Posted By: ewest
the addition of only a small amount of NLMB genetics caused poor catchability to disappear. FLMB that are potentially less susceptible to angling would be removed from populations at reduced rates relative to non-introgressed NLMB or crosses, allowing a greater proportion of FLMB to reach an older age and greater size.
This study is the first to show that with a few NLMB genes in the population the dreaded trait of reduced catchability can be greatly diminished.

That is great info Eric...thank you.

Originally Posted By: ewest
consider adding a few NLMB to your FLMB only waters to improve catchibility.

it's amazing to stumble along like me & sometimes get lucky
with decisions that may result in what I want...lol


Fishing has never been about the fish....

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David Bliss....Eric can give you a better answer

I added some Camelot Bells to my pond.
I stocked small ones which probably ended up as meals for larger fish
the only thing I would do differently next time with
the Camelot Bells is try to stock larger version Camelot Bells.

Camelot Bells are a bit pricey...
and of course the adult Camelot Bells are even more pricey
But in my mind when Camelot Bells are involved
it's best to avoid predation "at all costs"...no pun intended.

I would be interested to hear George's opinion on such matters.


Fishing has never been about the fish....

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Originally Posted By: Zep
David Bliss....Eric can give you a better answer

I added some Camelot Bells to my pond.
I stocked small ones which probably ended up as meals for larger fish
the only thing I would do differently next time with
the Camelot Bells is try to stock larger version Camelot Bells.

Camelot Bells are a bit pricey...
and of course the adults CM are even more pricey
But in my mind when Camelot Bells are involved
it's best to avoid predation "at all costs"...no pun intended.

I would be interested to hear George's opinion on such matters.

Mark, I am with you all the way!
We all have our goals that seem to continually force us to adapt and change as we move forward. Between you, Al and Brian, y'all keep bouncing me back and forth like a ping pong ball.. grin

You know that my passion is HSB and CNBG - LMB has been my son's passion, but now that I am interested in the CB LMB strain gentics, I'm back on board with LMB.

I believe in order to have successful CB LMB program, the only feasible approach is to stock sizes large enough to escape predation, or grow them out in a small pond.
I was lucky to receive the first 8 CB jumpers out of Todd's first hatch - fin clipped for ID.

We are now removing all LMB under 16 inches and soon everything under 5 lbs if I can persuade son Jeff to go along - it's dufficult to cull big healthy, catchable Florida bass. So far more than 75
pure Florida LMB have been removed - personally I would like to remove everything but the original CB LMB stpckers.

I agree with you and Eric on adding native genetics to Florida LMB to improve "catchability.
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR -life is good!
George



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Original george #173 (22 June 2002)




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George,

Did you consider draining the pond to start fresh with only CB bass?

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Originally Posted By: salex
George,

Did you consider draining the pond to start fresh with only CB bass?

Hi Steve, draining the pond was and is always off the table ....water is more valuable than fish now that we have survived the devastating 2011 drought!
We are seriously looking at shocking the pond in the spring to remove more Florida LMB and observe growth of select CB. They are a lower priority for me than our HSB, my favorite sport fish for fly fishing.
The CB are for my hard core bass fisherman son Jeff....

IIRC, I recall your stocking a new lake with CB along with Floridas – are you able to distinguish growth differences between the species?

Thanks for your thoughts,
George



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George1

We can't hardly buy any rain around Oakwood. Maybee in the spring.


Pat

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Originally Posted By: Pat Williamson
George1

We can't hardly buy any rain around Oakwood. Maybee in the spring.


Pat


Pat,
I hope you're getting some much needed wet stuff this morning. Looks like the system's got you covered.
Charlie


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Charlie

My neighbor says its a very light rain- very welcome- 1/4" so far" need a lot more, at this point we will take anything



Pat W


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