Boondoggle,
One thing that spoke to me in the second paper was that 25% of the population of the parental group were not caught at all. From the perspective culling wouldn't we want fish that are inclined not to take artificial bait to go? In a practical sense, its not likely that culling such fish could be accomplished adequately by sampling with artificial baits. You have to capture them to cull them so to speak. IMHO, if vulnerability to angling is important to you, you will have to use this trait as a decision variable when culling and you will have to employ sampling techniques that hard to catch fish are vulnerable to. So fishing with live bait and shock surveys would both provide a means of sampling fish that you have never caught with artificial bait.
With your goals, yes, the males do have to go. But this would not apply to a balanced pond seeking better growth of panfish or a Big BG pond. A person needs both sexes represented in the latter two scenarios. A person does not need males at all in a Big Bass scenario if he is willing to purchase new female recruits. There is more value in that than a person may realize. If sub-adult LMB are not present, then there will be more forage for the adults and they will attain greater ultimate weights and growth as a result.
You will need to combine culling of the original stocking and adult recruitment to maintain a fishery that can produce trophy LMB 12 years from now. This combination of culling and recruitment should eventually merge with a recruitment plan where only chosen recruits are allowed to live when caught. If as Lusk says, "A WELL MANAGED POND CAN SUPPORT 80 LBS OF LMB", then you have to keep the population of LMB below 20 to consistently produce trophies. If you want something that is sustainable and an easier to maintain, these 20 must be spread across multiple years of recruitment. So that is the challenge. Going from 1 year class to 7 years of representation .... that is the goal IMHO.
Reach out by PM and I will share my thoughts on this with you.
Last edited by jpsdad; 09/01/24 04:03 PM.
