David,
I shock bass up and sell them as stockers. this is rarely a profitable venture. In certain situations I can catch enough bass to make my day profitable. Do the math. you can sell bass for about $8 per pound on the average. you need gas for a boat, generator, and a truck. You have to travel to and from the pond with the bass and you have travel costs to and from all the ponds you stock. you need oxygen to keep them alive from pond to pond. you also need help on the shocking boat that takes $. In your average bass heavy pond you can probably catch 50 bass in a couple of hours.(if you have a good net man). but you can only remove bass in the slot. Just because you catch 40 bass per hour does not mean you can sell all of them. Even if you can where is the pond located. If you have to travel 200 miles to the other pond there is usually not enough hours in the day to shock them up and then deliver them the same day, unless you can catch 100 pounds of bass in 1.5-2 hours. otherwise you need a large tank (700-900 gal) that you can hold bass in so you can shock for a few days and stock pile bass then go and deliver them. this time of year its risky to hold bass in a tank or cage for over 1 day.
In general, the land owner of the bass heavy pond should expect a deduction on his shocking survey for giving the consultant his bass. On occasion the survey will be free to the pond owner (if enough bass are caught) but I would not plan on retiring off the profits from selling your bass. I made and extra 8K or so last year selling bass, and I worked my butt off doing it. I also drove about 60,000 miles last year. I have 300 acres of bass heavy water to work off of.
goldmine? I think not
