Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - 8 Acre Trophy Pond Stocked Tiger Bass. Need Help

My pond is 5 years old. It was made and stocked to be a trophy bass pond. It was stocked with Tigerbass from American Sportfish in Alabama. I put 12,000 Bream, 15,000 Fathead minnows and 10,000 shad in it 1.5 years before the bass were put in. The bream are fed daily. To start with the bass was really really aggressive. That lasted up until about 1.5 to 2 years ago. Now I can not hardly catch a bass on a bait. They seam to have lost there aggressiveness. They will not hit a artificial lure. I have caught some 6+ pounders out of it. I see the bass chasing shad all the time but they are uncatchable. The pond is fertilized to maintain the water clarity. I was using a management program but now I can not manage it properly because I can not get them to bite a lure. 2 years ago I also put Talapia in the pond to give the bass something else to eat. Of course they all died off in the winter.

The bream are doing really good. They are all of different sizes from hatch lings to 8-10 inches.

The shad is also thriving very well. They are all ways schooling and get hammered by the bass.

I am going to lime it in a couple of weeks to get the acidity back right. Not sure if that will help the bite though ?

I have also been told by the people that Manage Bear Lake in Washington County Alabama that the Tigerbass will loose it aggressiveness if they do not have any competition fro food and the food is plentiful. They told me to add striped bass to the pond to give the tigerbass competition and they would become very aggressive again and very catch able again. They did that in there lake and it is a awesome lake to fish in. There tigerbass are very very aggressive.

I need some help on what to do ? If I can not do something to change there aggressiveness so that they will bit a lure again then I am going to end up with a very out of balance pond with the bass.

Please help !!!

Here is some PB library work on catchability from the studies.

Here are a few selected from the search list for "catchability"

Note from the graph and the text that many LMB especially Fla strain never bite an artificial lure and many that do quickly become lure wise. A few never figure it out and are caught numerous times.




http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=58265&fpart=1 *

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=115238&page=1

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=229410&page=1

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=181009&page=1

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post260622


Garrett

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=58265&fpart=1 *

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post108885

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=105508&page=1




From http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=150533&fpart=1

We conducted a long-term selection experiment to assess the

heritability of vulnerability to angling in largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides.

Yes there was a study done by Gary Garrett of TPWD that is related to the new one and its findings are included in the new study along with a bunch of additional studies on everything from BG , trout , CC all the way to birds. I will find the old thread for you here.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=58265&fpart=1 Fla LMB catchability

Even though I do not like to try to speak for someone else I will try to set out a few of the points Dr. Gary Garrett of TPW made in a conversation regarding the topic of this thread.

I explained the points we were discussing as they related to the several papers and articles he has written on his research.

He has been very busy and may post later. I hope he does and corrects any error I may make in relating the conversation.ML sent him an email that we both hope he will answer and if so it will be posted. Thanks for the help on this matter.

Most of his points were included in the papers. Each point needs to be read and thought about and allowed to sink in before going to the next point. I read the articles several times and did not get the full effect of the points until I talked to him.

1. Fishing with resultant harvest creates selective pressure for wariness in fish.

2.Some fish are more prone to be caught and they are the ones removed by both fishermen keeping them or by natural mortality associated with catch and release fishing. Thus leaving a higher % of wary fish either by learning or genetics.

3.LMB are rapid learners particularly when negative stimuli such as artificial lures are involved.

4.There is a genetic link to angling vulnerability -- difference between Fla. strain and northern strain.

5. There is evidence this applies to other sunfish (BG, RE etc.) as per studies that show that hybrid sunfish are more aggressive and more vulnerable than either parent species.

6.Catchability (vulnerability) can be manipulated by selective breeding.

7. This manipulation runs on a sliding scale based on the amount of vulnerabile fish genes in the population. A pond with 80% northern LMB genes will have a higher catch rate than one with 40%.

8. Use the goals of the owner to set and then adjust the % Fla. or Northern or F1 genes to get the catch rate wanted. We used 87% northern genes and 13% Fla. genes +- in a TX Resv. because we wanted high catch rates for the public while still retaining a chance for a trophy. Much lower rates of northern genes ( 20%) will still have a measurable effect on catch rates but they will be much less than with 80%.

9.TPW used triploid Fla. LMB in several of its studies which are not available to the public. Several of the studies on these matters are still ongoing in TX lakes and more info will soon be available.

10. There is a range of vulnerability within each subspecies but there is a bigger difference between the 2 subspecies.

11. Remember that BOTH types of LMB learn quickly ( a major point)-- so that catch rates go down a lot over the first fishing days on each of our test ponds. This is like the " opening day effect" on new resv. high catch rates drop off quickly.

12. Vulnerable fish were caught multiple times during the survey while some fish were never caught.