Originally Posted By: gr8texan
Now it is easy. Anything of any size isn't a Florida. The one I caught was not that dark green as the other fish. Don't know how long that will be easy to tell. For now, everything over 12" has to really make a case for throwing it back in the water. Less than 10% make it back in. The Florida were put in this May/June at 2".

I have a lot of long big mouth small belly fish. I am guessing they were here before I started. For now I am just letting a lot of people catch fish and take them home. I don't think it is possible for us to take too many 2+ lb fish out of the lake right now. Am I wrong on this?

I was catching so many fish to throw out that my thumb recognition on my iPhone wouldn't work. That's a good sign.


You are probably right about removing the 2# fish. Take some length and weight measurements and look up the relative weight chart if you want to be sure. For 12 acres though you might need to remove 50# *per acre* to get things back where you want, and then 20-30# per acre per year after that. See if you can get a real management professional to advise you.

Your existing fish will eat a LOT of the 2" Florida stockers though. If you're serious about introducing FL genetics then you'd need much bigger stockers.

Last edited by Bocomo; 09/07/17 01:42 PM.
Our old pond project (updated 4/11/17)
+Donate ('17)