In the spring of 1999 I built my first pond. It was a 1/10 acre beauty with a maximum depth of 15 feet. I installed an aerator and had a source of fresh water that would go into this new pond, and then exit into an existing 1.5 acre pond on the land I had purchased. The water test for the newly installed well indicated that I had a high salinity. Since I was a huge fan on striped bass hybrids, it seemed a natural to acquire some for my new pond.
I first contacted Mike Freeze of Keo Fish Farms of Keo, Arkansas. He said that he had some carry overs from the previous year that averaged 5-6 inches. I was immediately arranging to get a hauling tank and a pickup. My brother-in-law and I made the 14-hour drive to Keo.
After arriving we were taken to their facility and found that the striped bass hybrids were being held in raceways. The raceways held thousand of fish from the previous year. Our fish were netted about fifty at a time and placed in our tank and put on pure O2. It was explained to us that the fish would be in better condition having been held in raceways because this precluded the need for seining, which I can tell you from experience, beats the living daylights out of fish, especially small ones.
After the long drive home, all of the fish were placed alive into the new pond. We didn't have a single mortality in transport. I was excited.
Although I knew that it would be several weeks before the water temperature got warm enough for feeding, I went out to check on the fish just the same. Can you imagine how disappointed I was when every trip out I would see several of the hybrids lazily finning about, covered with a green fungus, especially on their tails. It made me physically ill to see ten, then twenty, then thirty dead and dying fish. There was even a time that I figured I was losing them all because maybe the rest were just sinking to the bottom.
When the water finally warmed into the fifties I started a hand feeding program. It almost killed me to watch the pellets silently drifting without any fish coming up. I actually felt like quite a failure, but then, just like magic, the water temp got to 54 and the fish lit up like an M-80!
It turns out that after two growing seasons and some meticulous record keeping that I had lost about 10% of the fish. Really not that bad.
In the fall of 1999 I got a call from one of our local biologists who said that he had a present for me. One of the display fish at the State Fair needed a new home. It was an eight-pound hybrid that he felt would not survive in their over-wintering ponds. I was happy to accept his offer. I truly was not very optimistic about this fish learning to eat pellets. Once again, I was wrong. Apparently even adult striped bass hybrids learn from their little buddies about the joys of pellet eating. This individual fish grew almost three pounds per year! Fifteen pounds plus is a possibility for top end growth. I've done it. I could always tell when this fish came to eat. The boil created with each feeding was the size of a manhole cover. When this fish died it was aged at eight years. I really think that striped bass hybrids can live to even nine or ten years under the right circumstances. This may not be the case in Texas, however. The warmer wintertime water probably keeps the clock ticking on a hybrid's lifespan. Also, I believe that if the hybrid is forced to occupy water in the summer that exceeds 82 degrees creates stress on the fish that may lead to a shortened lifespan. Surface temp isn't probably the key, more likely what the temperature of the coolest water in the pond that holds adequate oxygen levels.
I think that the answer to these questions lies in us, the pondmeisters. If we continue to care about issues like this we'll know more than any researchers.
