Thank you Bob for putting some dollar numbers on this subject. I use the term "subadult" to refer to fish that are young but big enough to survive predation in an existing fish population. For bass, I think this is in the 8-10" range, often available in the fall.
There are two issues here. The first is money. Some people have little or no money to spend on their lakes. That's fine. Like many people, I read this forum every day. I'm amassed by the amount of money people are spending on their lakes. It starts with building the lake which runs from the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Aerators, fish feeders, fertilizer and hiring lake managers all take money. Spending more money on fish will make sense to many people.
If people accept spending money on adding fish just as they spend money on feeding them, they give themselves a very powerful management tool.
We can replace year classes that have failed. We can manage stunted populations of panfish by adding more bass rather than killing everything in the lake. We can have a species of fish in our lakes that probably wouldn't naturally reproduce. We can establish fish populations in new lakes much faster.
For many reasons, private lake managers haven't used this management tool as much as they might. It is a tool that we all might want to consider.
