Check with David Beasley as Solitude Lake Management - They have branch offices in eastern US. David specializes in using all female bass for growing the big trophy bass for ponds. He has written several articles in PBoss magazine about growing and managing all female bass. Managing all female bass is as much art as it is science. Genetics and water quality are very important for accomplishing big bass to keep them growing long term and not having them "hit the wall" becoming food and growth limited.

All female bass will be rather expensive for buying them and then feeding them to grow into trophies.

1. they are rare, a high premium and not cheap fish because they need to be larger size for gender determination. It takes time to grow them to large sizes. Same as buying larger trees - time is money. Separating out the females wastes the male biomass. Who wants to buy slow growing all male medium bass?. where is the market for them?

2. In the long run using all female bass probably saves money to grow trophies because all female gender fish not only provide the big fastest growing fish but it in the long run it reduces cost of managing and dealing with excess slow growing smaller bass and dealing with feeding male bass that are consuming your valuable forage fish and you not having to focus as much time and money on adding more proper forage fish / items to produce the best fish (bass). With all females and not males our Forage fish will last longer because not as many fish predators are present.

Remember as bass grow they eat bigger foods. A very important point for growing trophy fish. Be prepared to enhance the pond's forage base as the bass get bigger. IMO do not over stock initial bass numbers and 150 females in 2+ ac will quickly over eat the forage food base -see later. When that happens you get slowed growth of the females and the longer it takes to reach big bass trophy status. Maximum number to stock the experts suggest would be 50 female bass / ac . This last year with enlightening new fishery experiences and IMO - now that 50/ac is 25/ac too many for producing the best and biggest bass a pond can grow. You can't grow enough forage fish in a 2 ac pond to feed 60-80 big bass /ac as all female bass and have them grow around one lb to 2 lbs /year. I would put in no more than 20 per ac if you want the biggest bass possible for the genetics that you are buying.

The fewer that are stocked the faster they will grow and in the end reach larger sizes and do it in the quickest time. Remember for EACH pound the bass weighs it needs to eat 6 lb of forage fish to keep a maintenance weight (std wt) so it can keep growing. Then to gain 1 lb or 1lb+ PER YEAR it needs an additional 10 lbs of fish. When the LMB hits 6 lbs it needs 36lbs (for maintenance wt) + 10 lbs (46lbs) to get get to just that 7 lb mark. Be prepared to feed those fat females to keep them so they are gaining 1+ lb per year. Sit down and figure out how many forage BG (5"-7") it will take to feed 150 bass each one eating enough fish for bass weights of 5 lb, then 6 lb, then 7 lb then 8 lb. Just 40 total bass (20/ac) at each 8 lbs will be eating 2320 lbs of fish per year. ( example - 8lb X 6lb forage = 48lb + 10lbs added forage to reach 9 lbs. 58lb x 40 bass = 2320lbs. Your 2 ac pond cannot grow that much forage fish and have left over forage brood stock for reproduction next year.

Adding too many females will cost more in the long run to produce trophies because you will need to be adding large forage food items to keep them growing. Large live forage items are EXPENSIVE. BG at 4"-6" cost $2-$3 each as optimal forage for 20"+ bass.. .I would consider adding YP to the female bass pond. A 10"-12" YP makes very good slender easy to swallow food for a 7 - 8 lb bass so they each year have enough food to grow toward 10-12 lbs. Remember with just all female bass there will be no small 6"-12" bass available for the big LM females to eat for dinner. Big bass need big foods to stay at maintenance weight and then some added foods for CONTINUED growth unless you want the females to stay at one size. Food limiting conditions will do that. Bass not growing 1 lb per year means food limiting conditions.

Tell Dave that your were referred to him by Pond Boss Forum.