Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Growing big largemouth, and other fish.

Here's a quote from Doug Hannon, who is widely regarded to be one of the premier authorities on largemouth bass. It appears in the most recent issue of In-Fisherman and may apply to hog growers like Cecil Baird, and others who like to grow fish extra big.

This in regards to California largemouth that reach twenty pounds:

"The balloon-like proportions of these fish indicate adaptive specialization at its extreme limits. Just as coyotes have adjusted to susbist on garbage and poodles in the Los Angeles suburbs, California bass have adjusted to feed on stocker rainbows. Staying close to this food source, which has a preferred temperature around 54 degrees F., keeps these bass in the cooler fringes of their environment, which in turn triggers the fat-storing mechanisms of a pre-winter metabolism. As a result, an 18-pound California largemouth is no longer than a 10-pound Tennessee bass, just a heck of a lot fatter".

Comments?--especially the part about stimulating the "fat storing mechanism".