Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Yellow bass

Yellow bass is a small panfish that, once introduced to a lake, can completely take over the fish population within a few years. These fish are able to reproduce when they reach five to six inches and aggressively feed on the eggs of nest laying fish, like largemouth bass and bluegills. They will also eat the newly hatched larvae of those species as well as crappies.

"I have seen a school of yellow bass follow a female crappie and feed on her eggs as she deposits them," said Chris Larson, fisheries biologist at Cold Springs, near Atlantic.

Yellow bass can get so numerous in a system that no other fish can grow. They negatively impact other species through competition or even direct predation. Yellows can get so thick, in fact, that the food in the system cannot support their own population, causing the yellow bass to become stunted, rarely getting to angler acceptable size of 8 inches.

Larson has seen first hand how yellow bass can destroy a lake. He eradicated the entire fish population at Lake Anita last fall to get rid of yellow bass. The lake has been restocked with largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie and channel catfish. Unfortunately, it will take a few years for the fish to grow large enough before anglers will return. Before yellow bass took over Lake Anita, the lake had an estimated impact of $750,000 each year to the state and local economy.

"The only way I know how to manage yellow bass is at the bottom of a Rotenone barrel," Larson said. "And you will basically lose your fishery for a couple of years."

At Lake Icaria, largemouth bass are outnumbered 2,000 to 1. "At those numbers, largemouth bass can't protect a nest to get a spawn off. Bluegills face the same problem," Sobotka said. Sobotka has surveyed Icaria and estimates there are 392 largemouth bass, 668 walleye, 12,600 bluegill, and 784,000 yellow bass.

"Domination doesn't do justice to describe what yellow bass do to these southern Iowa lakes," Sobotka said. "It's worse than domination."

Sobotka and Larson have been talking with neighboring states to see what they are trying to address the yellow bass problem. Nebraska tried over-stocking largemouth bass in affected lakes and all they found was skinny largemouth bass and no impact on yellow bass.

Larson and Sobotka have studied predator species - largemouth bass, walleye, channel catfish - and although these fish are eating a few yellow bass, they are looking elsewhere for the primary food sources. A stomach analysis of more than 200 largemouth bass at Viking Lake this past summer reveled that largemouth bass do not feed effectively on yellow bass. In fact no, yellow bass were consumed by largemouth bass even though they are the dominant prey species in the lake.

Part of the problem may be that yellow bass and these predators do not frequent the same habitats in a lake. Another may be the spiny make up of the yellows. Or another may be the fish simply don't like the taste of them. Whatever the reason is, predator stockings is not the answer.

So far, there is no solution other than total renovation