Sounds like good news Frank. Looks like it might be time to catch some of the smaller lmb. A Mepps spinner or those type of smaller baits should work well this time of the year for thinning the herd if you decide to go that way.
Did you fin clip your Northern lmb or do anything to determine which lmb are the Florida's or Northern's? Do you know what the larger lmb are?
Good suggestion re Mepps, Tracy. We did give a neighbor about a dozen underperforming LMB and one unlucky tilapia, but I'm sure Justin will recommend taking out lots more bass in the 10 to 14 inch range. Once they hit 15 inches the LMB seem to do better, I guess plenty of suitable forage fit into their mouth.
Justin could identify Northern vs Florida bass just by markings, which is better than I can do. He seemed to think it was a mixed population, with some of the bigguns Fla and some Northern. Of course, likely many of the 2018 Y0 LMB are F1s, which is fine by me.
No fin clipping, didn't think of it. Too excited about being on the water and seeing all those fish. Found a lunker hotspot, too!
A competent net man would have caught twice as many fish as I did. Oh well. At least my forage fish seem to be reproducing & thriving. Last year that wasn't happening.
