basslover says: ""Bluegill and shiners are cheap (at least around here).""
Cheap is a relative term. Cheap for one person may be pretty high for another on a low budget or “thin wallet”. For fun let's crunch some numbers. Just what are some costs of adult shiners or 4”-5” BG around the US? From what I know about prices around me, GS are costing around $40-$45 per pound. Some areas can get large shiners for less. With 4"-5"ers you get about 30-45 individuals per pound retail (1.00-1.30ea). I don’t really know what cheap shiners cost. But most pond owners will pay close to my estimated dollars for a gallon of large shiners. What are the bulk rates for adult shiners? I see in some areas of the country you can get shiners for $10/lb. Yey!
BG at 4"-5" are about 50 -65 cents ea up to $1.50 each retail (13-20/lb) from my local fish farms. Note Mean book reference weights were used for my calculations.
I'm factoring that the established pond has plenty of forage as it is, and supplemental feeding is happening as needed / wanted. I'm also factoring that the initial stocking ratio was 20 to 1 or higher, and that the forage were stocked first in each size range to build the forage base.
So from that initial stocking forward there is a large number of forage in the pond. In other words, the pond owner designed his / her pond to grow large LMB. As such, the financial cost for the forage is the original stocking price, plus any supplemental offerings.
Let’s assume the add-stock forage is utilized primarily by biggest bass at 4 lbs per pound of added weight gain. The remaining 5-6 lbs of forage used to gain that pound was grown in the pond with the bass. Let’s assume our example trophy bass gains 1.25 lbs each year. 1.25 lbs X 4 lbs = 5 lbs add-stock forage needed for each bass. Thus 5 lb X $40 shiners = $ 200 or as low as $50 (5lbX$10shiners) extra is needed for each trophy bass when it is using 4 lbs of added forage to keep growing at a trophy class rate. On the low side if only 1.5 lbs of add stock forage/yr/bass is needed to keep our big bass fat then the cost drops to $15-60/yr for each bass to supplementally feed them to maintain the trophy growth rate. The more big bass become crowded in a pond it is very likely more add-stock forage will be needed to keep all bass fat and growing to add at least 1-2 pounds per year.
Back to my earlier comment: “growing big bass costs money and when bass are big they are very valuable” in terms of years and the amount of forage it took for that LMB or any large predator to get to the big bass status.
In theory a 7 lb bass has in total eaten 60-70 lbs of food to get to that size (8.5-10lbs fish forage/ lb of gain). If its food was all bluegill, at a cost value of an average of $6.5-$10 per pound (Ave $0.50 ea X 13 or 20BG/lb X 60 total lbs consumed/7 lbs). Considering purchased BG as food, the value that the 7 lb bass ate was near $390-$600 (BG$6.50-$10/lb X 60-70 lbs). I think my math is fairly accurate. Comments?
See my note above about the initial stocking of forage fish. Bluegills breed like rodents (at least here in GA). So if the initial stocking had bluegills in various sizes and maturity there will be the continued breeding of 2-4 times per year upping the forage count in each of the sizes.
I also want to question if the idea that a LMB needs to eat 10 lbs of food to gain 1 lb still holds true? Was that number determined by what or which forage fish, in what geographic area of the USA, and what is known about the body of water (structure, cover, water quality, fishing pressure, etc.)? Which strain of LMB - northern, southern, F1, Tiger, CBLMB, etc.?
Perhaps the notion of 10 lb to gain 1 lb is long in the tooth, or doesn't apply to a body of water with trout as forage, etc.
Again, stressing these are all just thoughts and questions, not ruffling feathers.
