I went back to the beginning and reread Happy's initial post that stated: "... building a 3 to 4 acre trophy bass pond...". We as Forum members never received from Happy what he considered a trophy bass. IMO a trophy bass could easily be a fish any size from 4 lbs to 10 lbs. Most would be very happy with a LMB that weighed 6-7 lbs and consider that a trophy. The Fisheries Techniques book co-edited by our Forum member Dr. Dave Willis says (pg 464) a Trophy LMbass is a minimum of 25" long (std wt of 9.3 lbs) and a Memorable LMB is a minmum 20" (wt 4.6lbs).
In addition to what has been mentioned previously about growing some "large" LMB another relatively new method is being researched as you read this. It is growing big bass using the new large food pellet called Aquamax Largemouth. This large 1" pellet was designed to contain the food nutrition content of a trout. Thus it is very capapable of growing big fish. No one yet really knows how big the pellet eating bass will get when regularly feeding these high protein nuggets to bass. To date LMbass have gotten to six pounds and growing - some this year will reach the 7 lb mark with an occassional 8 pounder showing up; a trophy in many anglers mind.
So with new technology being used today one can actually grow truly big bass without forage fish or with a limited amount of forage fish present.
As was mentioned earlier it will be easier and more feasable to to grow more 5-7 lb bass in 3 acres of water compared to 9-10 pounders due to carrying capacity limits of the pond. Having more slighly smaller bass per acre in reality means more catches of bass per angling hour which is more appealing to me than fewer catches of bigger bass.
Another important thing to consider, that has not been discussed, is if the bass are fed and growing primarily on Aquamax Largemouth Pellets to produce big bass one will be able to grow MORE bass per acre compared to if the bass were growing on just natural food items. That IMO will be a big, big advantage for many pondowners who are wanting to grow large bass without encountering lot of the potential problems managing problematic forage fish. Who would not be happy with a 1-3 acre pond that contained a high number of aggressive 4-7 lb bass?
Last edited by Bill Cody; 04/15/09 08:47 PM.
