Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking large mouth bass sexing

I have been looking to find out how to determine LMB sex when the spawn is over. Looking to pull out the males. Here is what I found and hope this is helpful to others.

How to distinguish a female bass.

#1 - A dead giveaway is to look at the gill plate. If they have lace around the edges, they are female.
#2 - Lift up the tail and take a look.
#3 - it's all about the money...female love expensive baits, if you catch one on an H&H spinner, strike King spinner bait, Bandit or Bomber crank bait, then most likely it is a male.
#4 - The males are the most likely the ones you are going to catch, you will notice the genitalia has been deleted after being associated with the female for an extended period of time.
#5 - The females are not going to put any thing in their mouth that doesn't belong there, so good luck catching one.
#6 - If a fish is skinny, probably a male. If they look like the "People in Walmart"... Female
#7 - If you catch them on spinner baits or jigs, most likely a female... they like skirts
#8 - Most bass caught are female... they can't keep their mouth shut.
#9 - If they have a bad attitude when in the boat... it's a female

I may not get any good answers after this but really, how does one determine the sex of a bass after the spawn or during the summer months? Any one have pictures?

Tracy

LOL

It's been my experience that expensive baits mostly catch men...fishermen.

All bets are off sexing off spawning season bass although the general consenus is the really large fish are females.

Tracy, I agree with Cecil.

Time is running out, or already has in some areas, but our females are wanting to explode, and we're actively fishing and fin clipping females. Their gravid state is about the best way to tell with my layman's eyes.

Anglers get out there and do your homework assignment. If you are interested in this topic, We really need to have anglers and pondmeisters take some pictures of the vents of pre-spawn and post-spawn largemouth(soon after spawned bass). LMbass can spawn as small as 10". These pictures will help us show the urogenital vent of post spawn female bass. Many are interested in stocking only male or female bass and the very best time to do this is immediately pre or post spawn.

For males there should be very little difference between pre and post spawn bass. Post spawn females should have a slightly enlarged urogenital pore due to egg laying. This should gradually return to normal shape within a week or two. Those in TX and far South will be very close to bass spawning - post spawn. In the northern IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, areas bass spawn will occur in early to mid May. Most mid-US areas somewhere in April.

Eager anglers, here is your chance to do some sexy pond work. Thanks in advance.

See this for more reading on this topic. PS Don't let the girls catch you reading and doing this stuff. LOL.

http://americansportfish.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&catid=18

Also, on the larger LMB, collect mouth gape size (width). Data is still needed.

That means you too AL!!

I caught my second Legacy LMB last week. It was most likely a 13"+- and had an extended belly, looking like it was full of eggs. But after looking closely I thought it may have been a fat male. And now after reading the post from Bill Cody with American Sportsfish notes, I think it may have been a female because the opening was red, But it looked round and not pear shaped. So, what do I know?? I always thought I could pick out a female, based on the size and shape of the lmb. Now I have doubts, especially when it come to yearling bass.

Tracy

In these confusing gender times I say you can't tell from looks alone.

In a recent study real experts (fisheries scientists ) tried to do a female only lake only to find out a couple years later they failed big time.

I'm convinced the only 100 percent way to sex any fish species is the presence of sex products such as milt or eggs during spawning season. I had a biologist, Bobby Glennon, that works for Malone and sons, tell me the same.

I have a pond now that was supposed to be all female yellow perch that now has yellow perch reproduction, that may have been due to sexing yellow perch off season, by their urogenital appearance -- even though I was extremely selective and planted only females -- that were textbook in appearance. However in all fairness, it may have also been due to a fish that jumped out of a cage when I was sorting! It only takes one male!

We already know there are bluegills known as "sneaker males" that disquise themselves as females to quickly make their way into a large male's spawning bed to fertilize eggs.

In the human species we have individual that could go either way as far as outward appearance. (Anybody remember Pat on Saturday Night Live?) Who's to say that doesn't happen in the animal kingdom?

Btw I will salvage all the female perch once again next spring and drain the pond down to virtually nothing and rotenone the puddles. Fortunately I have two small ponds I can hold the fish in until the pond refills! The bluegills won't be an issue as they are still all males.

I also have a well to fill the pond back up!

I am with Cecil on this. On fish that both sexes look similar, there is no way that I would say this one is male or female by looking at external characteristics alone.

I will be stocking 200 female LMB in a clients pond this late spring/early summer. It is an interesting project, as we are flying against the current thoughts of NOT stocking BG in a Northern pond a year before LMB are stocked..... FHM, GSH, BG, RES and YP were stocked in this pond last spring.

This will be managed as a trophy bass pond, and there will be plenty of food available for the LMB, in both live and pelleted form.

This pond is situated such that there is no surface water that can get to the pond that would have any fish in it. The overflow is designed so that it would take a biblical flood to have downstream water high enough so that fish could enter the pond that way. There is always a chance of a bucket stock, but that is 99.99999% impossible due to it's location.

So, I have to be 110% sure on the sex of the LMB. All the fish that were stocked have been hand sorted to ensure that no species were stocked that weren't supposed to be stocked, and the pond was sterilized before the first fish hit the water.

There is a kids fishing pond that is "upstream" of this one, but the only fish in that one that are different from the main pond are HBG and HSB.

I posted this photo before, but think it's good example of a fish that seems to have a male coloration, but was a female full of eggs. This was a taxidermy customer fish caught in stained waters.

Female BG can have that coloration in clear dark waters (stained). I would have questioned the male status of CB1's BG due to the shape and size of the opercular(gill)flap. It would be very interesting to see the males from that water body. My guess is their gill flaps are noticeably different than that of the femaleBG in the picture.

I'm sure Bill, but if not for the size of the ovaries I'll bet the average person might have pegged her as a male.

I've never seen such an orange breast in a female since.

And my immature males up to 8 inches do not have a significant ear lobe. Of course they spend part of their first year indoors in dimlight etc.

Yes Cecil you are correct. That is precisely why when one is sexing BG they need to pay close attention to details of the fish they are catching from THAT water body and not rely on specific info learned from another water body. BG stains and appearance can vary noticeably from lake to lake, pond to pond, or pond to lake. Nature is amazing how it can change and adjust from place to place DEPENDING on conditions.

Yup!

Cecil, if you remember when I was there and we were sorting, how gunshy I was about saying certain fish were female?

If it had one characteristic of a male BG, it went into the mixed pond.

Eric, that's funny and true.

Thinking back on it, I can see how LMB, especially those that live in ponds stocked with extreme forage levels, could make conformation based on body shape alone difficult at best.

esshup, Thanks for your response here And after reading these posts, I am wondering how you will determine the female sexed lmb? I do understand years of experience dealing with fish will put you ahead of the game but after reading this I am thinking some type of probe, inserted into the fish might be done, but possible injury could happen, I am guessing? And as Al pointed out, in a high forage pond the males can look like a female. One more thing, I was entertaining a client years ago and I was known locally as a very good lmb angler. His request was to catch a trophy lmb, he had never caught a large lmb. It was early June (Hot summer here) and so I suggested a night fishing trip on Lake Fork. He caught his largest lmb, a 7+#er, 27" long, looked like one solid piece of muscle. We took the fish into the marina, this lmb was "Not" poor in condition and we all decided it was a male, largest ever weighed at the marina. So point is even males can get big if there is plenty of food for them.

Tracy

Tracy, I will wait until the LMB are pre spawn here, and use a catheter. LMB up here typically spawn around the full moon in May.

Tracy, If it was June (and I presume post-spawn) what characteristics were used for everyone to agree upon that it was a male fish?

Very unusual for a male to be over 5 lbs.
at 1 males can be bigger than females .

Guys, This male was caught on Lake Fork in it hay days. Lots and Lots of big fish caught during that time. It was not uncommon back them for me to go out and catch 10 fish per day in the 5 to 9 lb range. Even in June, a post spawn. The spawning there usually took place in early March and ran through end of April. So we decided this was a male due to the looks of the fish. A 27"er would have been a bigger fish if it would have been a female. Lake fork fish were always short and fat, this fish was long and muscular (had shoulders). Like all have said here, it's hard to distinguish male verses female, but this fish looked like a male, and the marina(Minnow Bucket Marina) weighed big fish every day and even they thought it was a male. Lake Fork was monitored closely by the TP&W and worked hand and hand with the marinas and Texas A&M on many studies of big bass in Texas in the early 90's. The lake still holds the Texas record bass and has since that time. 18+lbs. California had bigger but Fork produced more on any given day. If I told of some of my fishing days then, many would think they were fish stories but they are still to day unbelievable.

Tracy

Was LF all Fla strain LMB. If so then a really strange event as Fla males are rarely over 3-4 lbs. They are small compared to Fla females and northern males and females.

Hal Schramm - PhD and noted fisheries biologist
But there’s still another downside to consider. Both sexes of the northern subspecies can grow to trophy size. Not so with Florida bass. The male Florida bass grows significantly slower than the female and seldom attains lengths over 20 inches. This puts an interesting twist on trophy management strategies when only half of the Florida bass will grow over 5 pounds.

I've taken in some large bass to mount that appeared to be males. However I believe they were old sterile females.