However we should not forget nor overlook Gafftopsail’s original goal: “My goal is to have a fishery that provides fast fishing action for my kids and their friends and family, and get bass in the 4-5 pound range, eventually.”
If the goal is for primarily LMB in the 4 to 5 lb range then if more than 25/ac are stocked, four main things will happen assuming ample forage foods are available. 1. More bass should be stocked as with 60 to 70/ac. 2. More original stocker bass will be present to create more top end bass present. 3. Anglers will have faster action of catching bass. 4. More bass will eat more BG and this will reduce BG numbers allowing more BG to grow larger for more exciting fast angler panfish action.
The current philosophy or management recommendation of stocking 25 LMB per acre is rationale for producing relatively quickly very large bass toward the 8-10 pound range. If the goal is for the larger top end bass to be 4 to 5 lbs then this can be accomplished when using a higher number of stocker bass. Since 4lb bass is part of the fishery goal, some of the original male bass should eventually reach the 3.75 to 4 lb category and contribute to the 'group' of bigger stocker bass in the pond. If pellet trained stocker bass are used, then the number of LMB stocked could even be more as in 75 to 90 per acre.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply, Bill Cody. If I were to put my goal in one sentence, it would be to have panfish as big as possible but not sacrifice some decent sized LMB in the process. 70% of the fishing is going to be kids bobber fishing, 20% is going to be fly fishing, and 10% will be my buddies that like to catch bass. I am not a bass fisherman, per se, but living in the south that's the main attraction. And when I accidentally back into one I admit they're pretty fun to catch. So sounds like I should at least double my LMB numbers to accomplish that?
