DoubleACRanch,
Congratulations on your new lake. From your description, you've encountered some challenging circumstances that threw a wrench in your plans. This is very common and so the response is to do the best you can given the circumstances. Something you are doing.
You asked:
Hoping some of the more experienced folk on here could shed some insight into whether this is tracking well.
I gave a lot of thought to this question and just how it may be best answered. I also gave a lot thought as to whether I would answer. You asked a question that no one else can answer given their limited understanding of LMB growth under various climate conditions. This happens to be one of my strengths of experience that borrows on the reported samples of many of the members here.
I can say that your LMB are tracking similarly to similar sized (and age) LMB in Texas reservoirs. Many of these reservoirs produce large bass and so I do think you have the opportunity to do the same.
Your relative weights are averaging above 100. According to Dave Willis, RW 100 reflects the 75th percentile curve. This another way of saying that 100RW fish exceed the weight of 75% of the samples of the same length. Your fish are in the top 25% in terms of their relative weight. They are growing with the potential to grow to trophy sizes. They are healthy fish growing the best they can, given the supply of forage.
The only other question you could ask, is whether they could grow better than they are. IMHO, yes, they do have the potential to grow faster than they presently are if forage were more abundant or if the number of LMB were more limited. I base this on expectation of growth that draws on the experiences of various members and a thorough knowledge of forage conversion relationships adjusted for climate. There are essentially three stockings of LMB in your BOW. A colonization by fry occurring unintentionally (I have assumed 3.5" on 12/1/24), a stocking of Northerns (I have assumed 7" on 12/15/24), a stocking of FLMB (I have assumed 11" on 1/15/25). And so, for each stocking, I was interested to understand the appropriate expectation of average length where forage was abundant enough so as not to limit growth. To be sure, the circumstances were not ideal in terms of forage and the abundance of optimally sized fish prey items at the respective start dates. It would be reasonable to infer that growth would be slower than modeled, given that, the model assumes no forage limitation for growth. In the mid-April to Mid-May time frames your production of YOY would have been in full swing. To be sure, this year's production of YOY is what is feeding your LMB (plus whatever AquaMax your LMB are consuming). Below is a graph of each stocking's expected
average length (assuming no forage limitation and 108 RW).
![[Linked Image]](https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=21269&filename=DoubleACR.jpg)
That the samples are below the curves is not enough to conclude there is a problem with forage limitation. As I mentioned earlier, given that appropriate sized prey would have been in short supply during the initial phase, we should expect growth below the curves. What we want to see, however, is growth consistent with no forage limitation between the sample dates. We can gain a sense of the comparison of actual versus modeled growth by comparing the length increment of the model to that of actual samples over the range of sample dates. For example, the model estimates that the colonized LMB would grow from 10.46" to 12.62" (2.16") from June 2 to July 27. The average sample lengths however grew from 9.04" to 10.69" (1.65") over the same period. To further muddy the water, the expectation we should have (assuming no forage limitation), is that the average length increment of 9.04" LMB would exceed the length increment modeled for 10.46" LMB. In other words, the growth should exceed 2.16" for your samples (provided they are representative of the population AND available forage did not limit growth). But then, if your samples are not representative, why bother? It would be pointless to go to the trouble if it weren't useful to do so.
I think, it is probably unlikely that many (if any) of your samples are from your stocking of FLMB. Doesn't mean they aren't in there, but it seems to be a pretty good inference that your FLMB may have not yet been sampled.
To Eric's points:
1. May be time to thin some underweight LMB
2. Need to understand whether the LMB produced a YOY crop
3. An electro survey would be a good idea to paint a more complete picture of your population.
I'll add a +1 to each. I would especially like to see some FLMB sampled to ensure those genetics are contributing to future generations as planned.
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