Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What makes exceptional trophy lakes different?

Sometimes a picture paints a 1000 words. Florida genetics, I think, help fish put on more length at similar ages than Northern genetics do. So in Texas, the introduction of Florida genetics has had a significant impact on ultimate weights achieved. Same goes for CA and Biwa in Japan. Let's do a comparison of LMB that achieve different growth increments each year so also achieve different ultimate lengths in their 14th year. I have plotted Dottie and another LMB which could be either Northern or Florida that achieves a length of 25" (the same as the OH state record)



Below I plot two fish one of which grows to Dottie's length but only consumes enough to maintain 100 RW. The other is one which grows to 25" where for its entire life it is RW of 140. Both fish start at 1 lb at the start of their 2nd year. The fatter fish which achieves lesser length increments only has an advantage over the fish that logs larger length increments at std weight in the 3rd year. There after the effect of faster length increment gives the weight advantage to the fish that has greater increments in length. The reason is that standard weight is a power of length and the magnitude of the power is greater than 3 (weight is proportional to L^3.28). Small increments in length have profound influence on the weight of a standard weight fish. RW influence is more limiting being a linear proportion that seems to be bounded by 80% additional weight.



OK, So Dottie didn't grow at standard weight her whole life. But she probably logged something similar to standard weight growth until RBT became an important part of her diet. Below is plotted Dottie versus the 140 RW LMB that "only" achieves 25" at 14 years. When Dottie reached 20", she gained the ability to exploit the 10" stockers and so could pack on additional weight above the standard weight. This occurs beginning the 5th year of age. The maximum percentage weight growth increment will occur when the 10" stockers are most optimum energetically. It may not be the 5th year (as depicted) but a later year. Also, Dottie would not have maintained 156 RW throughout years 6 and 14. There would have been a ramp up and then a small decline after the peak was reached. In 2003 Dottie's RW was close to 180 but when last foul hooked in late March of 2006, her RW was "only" 156. It was the length increment of 2.25" that made the difference and added a little less than 4 lbs to her in spite of RW decline.



So I hope this expresses better what I was saying. Length increment and ultimate length are important parameters for genetic selection. Florida's seem to have an advantage there (just judging the difference Florida LMB have made in Texas). I think this is the most important attribute for ultimate weight. RW can be controlled by feeding forage but a fish's genetic predisposition to grow longer is desired and should be selected for no matter what the species or strain we are talking about. Weights alone can be a problem because environmental factors affect RW and environment isn't a genetic trait.

Just an update. Dottie died in 2008 when she was 14 years of age. She was 29.5" long at the time of death. So in 2006 when she was 12 years of age and then weighed 25 lbs she would have been close to 180 RW. To know for sure would have required a length measurement which did not occur at that encounter. Even so, her RW should have been between the range of 172-182.