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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,355 Likes: 118
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,355 Likes: 118 |
I have a strong opinion of "tiger bass." It's a marketing ploy. Here's the flaw...let's go ahead and make the assumption this cross is an excellent fish, grows fast, gets big. Then what? It cannot reproduce the same as itself. Think about it. If it's a cross between Florida and native strains of bass, this intergrade carries the genes of both parents. While hybrid vigor may certainly impose great results from this first cross, what happens generations beyond the first? If one of these fish crosses with another, what do you get? A mixed gene pool, that's what. Stay with the "aggressive" concept of fish. Aggressive fish crossed with a different strain of aggressive fish...what do you get? Aggression is a genetic behavior...but the odds of reproducing aggressive fish are not high. Aggressive fish are hand selected, but generation after generation, fish hatcheries still hand select aggressive fish from their stocks. I called a well known producer of bass on feed. I asked what percentage of their baby bass are aggressive enough to take feed, early on. He said, even after fifteen years of hand selection of aggressive bass, he still has the same numbers of offspring taking feed. 75-85%. That's the same numbers as when they started this game, years ago. If an aggressive female bass lays 20,000 eggs, how many of those eggs will become aggressive little bassies? The same odds momma had. Toss in an "aggressive" daddy, and the odds are still similar, because his milt has the same odds. So, out of the 20,000 babies, will the most aggressive survive? Hmmmm....who knows? The little tots may just be eaten by their aggressive mommy, all things being equal in a "normal" pond or lake environment. For the quest of growing huge largemouth bass, stick with the tried and true. Known genetics in a great habitat with plenty of food and selective harvest. Stir in good fortune, a smile from Mother Nature, flip a coin and you will grow double digit bass. The tiger bass thing is a marketing ploy, with no long term basis in pond management fact. Here's the bottom line. Even if this fish does what's advertised, long term management cannot support the genetic integrity of this first line of fish. The population starts off as good as it gets. So, three, five, ten years down the road, what do you do? Start over? Plan to continually alter genetics in what ways make the best sense to you. Think it through, everyone. Don't get sucked into someone's marketing game. They have an agenda. It's not necessarily yours.
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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