so what problems do F1 bass have down the line? Is it just lowered potential to be giants (10+)? Or is it reproduction and lowered health of the fish? I see it get said a lot, but no one with any quantitative data about what the "depression" is. Are these fish worse off than native bass in growth potential and health?
I ask because our 2 acre pond has F1's, but we really don't care about getting any fish over even 6. We just want the fish to be easy for the kid's to catch and have fun with.
If they've been in there for years you may still have F1s -- your original stockers or those offspring from a FL/Native cross if you stocked populations of both. But you will also have generations of backcrosses of FL/Native F1s onto either parental stock, in any order.
It's not necessarily that the F1s themselves will have problems. It's the future generations that
may suffer from outbreeding depression. Hence part of the popularity of HSB and HBG is that they have poor recruitment and you get the extra hybrid vigor of a F1 cross without having to worry about outbreeding depression.
The wikipedia articles on backcrossing and outbreeding depression are both pretty good.
