hey y'all. been a couple of days. sorry. told ya i'd get back with ya on how i've used a notebook to raise trophy bass. back when i got serious about management, as i've already detailed, i started a journal. i've already covered how i started the journal with my goals, objectives, and dreams, so i won't belabor those points. but i told ya that this little notebook also served a very important second purpose. it was my "crystal ball" with which i could accurately predict which bass in the pond were destined for greatness. that's what i hope to cover here. but a word of caution before you read any further. if you are dealing with big ponds, if you are not really serious about raising lunkers, or if you do not want to invest a little (and by a little, i mean VERY little) more time than usual in your management process, stop reading here. what i'm about to say will be impractical for you.
we all know that when it comes to raising monster bass in small ponds, selective harvest is a must. sadly, most folks don't seem to pay too much attention to proper selective harvest for the purpose of raising trophies, even when they THINK they're doing a great job with it. yes, they are dilligent. and yes they harvest in correct proportions. but unfortunately sometimes they are shooting themselves in the foot by removing the WRONG BASS. unknowingly, sometimes pond managers fire their franchise players! to make it worse, they keep sub-par performers on the team. i'll illustrate on a small scale to make things a little more simplistic.
one day joe goes fishing at his pond. he's been at this pond management thing a while and has now decided he wants some lunkers in his water. joe realizes he needs to take a fish or 2 out every so often to make his goals a reality. so on this particular outing, joe catches 2 healthy fish, a 3 pounder and a 4 pounder. well, this is a no brainer for joe. he quickly releases the 4 with dreams that this fish will one day be a jaw-dropper. without a second thought, he harvests the 3 to accompany some slaw and hush puppies. he goes back to to the house patting himself on the back for a successful "selective harvest" thinking he's right on track.
here's the problem. what joe didn't realize was that the fish he released was a male fish that had basically topped out in growth. over the past year, that fish had only shown a net gain of 3 ounces. the one he kept for the skillet was a little female destined for greatness until her progress was permanantly brought to a screeching halt that day. prior to being caught, that fish had doubled her body weight from the previous year. her growth rate was fast, and the sky was the limit. like a snowball rolling downhill, she was gaining even more momentum with each passing month. she was one of joe's "star players". of course the key word here is "was" because now she's swimming in the fry daddy instead of joe's pond.
poor joe. but we can't fault him though, can we? he was just doing what seemed right. there's no way he could have known that he had released a fish back into his pond that would never be any bigger than 4.75 pounds. there's no way he could have imagined that the one in his belly would have grown to 11.5 had she been allowed to live out her days. it's just not possible that he could have guessed all that from a half hour fishing trip. or is it?
enough typing for now. more later if anyone is still interested.
