I've been thinking about getting some Tiger bass to increase genetic diversity in my BOW. Tigers cost $10 each for fish in the 8-10 inch range. My concern is that I don't want too many more mouths to feed, as I probably have excess LMB already. But if I only stock a dozen or so Tigers, few will survive cormorants, large bass, etc. A dilemma!

So now thinking about an alternative to just dumping small Tigers in my main BOW: Forage pond. I have a 1/8 acre forage pond with fed CNBG in it. I'd planned to continue feeding until after their first or second spawn, then transfer fish to main BOW for bass/stripers in May.

But what if I put the dozen Tigers in the forage pond? They are feed trained already, so could feed them while they also take advantage of dense population of CNBG. Cormorants may or may not find them, but larger fish would not.

Goal would be to help them grow very fast for a few months so that they could be released to main BOW with better chance of survival.

Any thoughts on this strategy?

Should have mentioned that I'm trying for all female Tigers, so reproduction in forage pond won't be an issue. If I only stock a few, maybe we can keep mistaken identity males out.

I think this its a great idea. I'll add a couple of thoughts.

It may make no difference but I would probably abstain from F1s that are feed trained. My preference would be F1s that have depended on fish forage and that are skilled predators. So by fall you could grow F1s exceeding 1.5 lbs provided they are stocked at an appropriate weight.

I recall that you can completely drain the forage pond which is great also for this purpose. Consider this progression or improvise to improve. Fill forage pond winter and early spring stock 20 lbs/acre FHM during fill up. Add current year crop F1 fingerlings as soon as available @100 per acre. Early July add 40 pair/acre adult BG. If in October all you had left were primarily the Adult BG and F1 LMB ... it would be ideal as the LMB would have efficiently cropped the minnows and BG YOY production.

The next step is to remove the F1 female LMB. A broom straw from a plastic broom is the best method for sexing the LMB. I've attached a link below that describes the method. Be sure to fin clip to be sure the F1s are not later culled accidentally.


https://www.researchgate.net/publication...f27df8/download

Thanks! I'll check out the site you linked. Trying to add big fish potential without many fish is a challenge.

Later addition: After scanning the site, it appears I'd be doing well to achieve 90 - 95 percent gender accuracy. Assuming 90 percent, this means 47 percent chance of male getting in with a group of only six. Yikes.

It's fairly easy to distinguish female from male lmb this time of year in the southern states. You might also have some tested by the supplier prior to adding them. if I understand it all, the fish can be tested for a little extra money.

This is incredible information. I'd love for some fellow pond bossers to put a thread together with youtube videos showing how quickly and easily this may be done. Also, I wonder if it works on smb as well as it does on lmb.

With your set up Frank, why not take some 12" or larger Florida like the Legacy lmb and then add a male or two of northern strain lmb and add them to your forage pond. The legacy is supposed to be an aggressive Florida and add an aggressive large northern male and let them breed in your forage pond. I would then thin the herd by selecting the fastest growing fingerlings (most aggressive). You might come up with Franks tigers Sounds like some fun. You interested in renting out your growout pond and see if we might produce a mean mouth After draining your forage pond, how long does it take for the pond to fill to where you can restock?

Well to be 100% sure you could cath them for eggs. Still the method is very practical and simple to implement. For your scenario, where the LMB already reproduce, I don't see any harm in introducing 1 or 2 males for every batch of 20 intended females.

In any BOW where large LMB are the goal, one seeks predominance of females. The probing method can help one achieve this via selective harvest of males. In your case where a small stocking of F1s could represent a desired annual recruitment, you could remove all fish but these which you would allow to grow.

Fin clip idea is excellent. One worry I have is that I'd unknowingly harvest the Tiger bass I just stocked!

Excellent thinking, Tracy. Thing is, I already have stocked Fla Legacy and aggressive Northern strain from Overtons. They have certainly mixed in the last four years. For genetic diversity, I'm inclined toward Am Sportsfish strain of F1, the Tiger.

Meanmouth brings back memories of when I lived in Ohio, decades ago. Meanmouth was the cross between largemouth & smallmouth, and for a while was all the rage, especially up north. I'd love to have smallmouth or meanmouth, but not sure how'd they do in Texas summer heat. Pretty certain they wouldn't spawn much and I'd need to periodically stock fish large enough to make it, maybe 10 to 12 inches.

If only HSB jumped like smallmouth, nobody would care about LMB!

When I was actively looking into the meanmouth I found that there are several state fisheries that are stocking the fish in lakes. Kentucky seems to come to mind.

For several years in the beginning of my pond I had no reproduction in the lmb or the fry were eaten because of large population of cnbg. So I am not sure even if you had a male lmb in your forage pond you would get any reproduction from the lmb providing there are a lot of cnbg in your forage pond.

At Bob's Pondology, we participated in electrofishing a large lake in Ok. F1 YOY that were less than about seven inches were culled. I'd have taken any of them for my pond. Just sayin.

Good point on LMB reproduction, I hadn't thought about that. Very dense population of CNBG in forage pond, or so I hope.