Thanks, Shan! I sure appreciate the information.

It's VERY interesting that your bass crowd at 12-15 inches. Ours seem to crowd between 8 and 12 inches. I wonder if that has something to do with latitude and our shorter growing season.

I'll give your my "record" shocking example. We once sampled a pond, actually now on Ted Turner's big ranch in western SD, that had not been fished. We angled to mark the LMB (paper punch in soft dorsal fin), and recaptured by night electrofishing.

The population estimate for that 3-acre pond was just at 1200 fish. We sampled just over 400 by angling, and recaptured just under 400 by electrofishing. So, we handled a good portion of the total population.

The pond had just over 100 pounds/acre of LMB. The Wr values, of course, were near 80 (this was June, so they were probably about the peak for the year). We collected 306 8-inch and longer LMB per hour of electrofishing. That remains my all-time record. I was just sweeping the net back and forth. Who knows what we would have caught with two dippers!

Well, the point of this long story is this: not one of the LMB that we handled was 12 inches long. They were all shorter, and that was well over 700 fish. They got to age 7, and it must have been a tough life, because there were no older fish.

So, those are the types of fish that we can move around for corrective stockings. Lots of stunted LMB populations out in central and western SD. Thanks again for the feedback.

Dave

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From Bob Lusk: Dr. Dave Willis passed away January 13, 2014. He continues to be a key part of our Pond Boss family...and always will be.