Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Female Bass stock for Ky pond

I am looking for a supplier of female bass for a pond in Ky. Currently it has 2000 BG, 500 Red Ear, 40lbs of Fat heads in a little over 2 acre pond. All the posts I see have them available in the mid-west states. Anyone know of someone who will deliver/ship 150 female bass?

Try to figure out which hatcheries are actually hatching/growing LMB and not just reselling from other places. I know Jones has a presence in KY, but in my conversations with them in Cincinnati, they seemed disinterested in anything like that. They might be able to help you out. I met with a YP grower 2 hours from me in mid-March before the perch spawned and he let me pick out plump, presumably females. I then tried to express milt out as back up identifier. Hopefully we hit the nail on the head.

I have a friend that will be moving to and building a pond in TN when he retires. He has been talking to be about Trophy Pond out of TN. It looks like they service all of KY, I'd maybe start there.
https://www.trophypond.com/kentucky-fish-pond-lake-stocking-management

Cody Note - IMO - Trophy Pond Mgmt will try and convince you that to grow trophy bass all female bass are not needed nor necessary. IMO that is due to them not using nor selling all female bass.

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.

Recent experience with Jones leads me to think they are more interested in reselling fish they can bring in from other suppliers. I was disappointed this Spring when they stated that they are (probably) no longer going to handle SMB.

Theo - check with Fenders FF in Baltic -Charm area of OH. They have the spawning method worked out and usually manage to produce a few hunderd to a few thousand SMB fingerlings each year. Big shortage of SMB fingerlings fall of 2022. Those produced usually all sell out in Fall. You will have to take a drive to Amish country get them. It is best to place an order early so they can call you when they are available for pick-up in Sept-Oct. .

Cody Note - Yes Smallmouth bass of any size are definitely a premium fish. It is difficult and tricky to get them to dependably spawn and raise any eggs that hatch to fingerling sizes. Fingerlings are almost always sold out each Fall. Then to find juvenile to yearlings is very difficult. Anyone that can produce them should be making some money if they sell them for the SMB true value considering low numbers available each year. This is probably why Jones FF - Cincinnati will not "handle" SMB. IMO this will make SMB even more valuable due to supply and demand.

Theo - Female LMB are even more difficult to find compared to smallmouth bass for stocking ponds. See my added notes in your post above. If you can get all female LMB (12"-14") delivered for less than $50 each I think that is a pretty good deal. Growing trophy fish is not a cheap endeavor nor is it easy. That are just two reasons trophy class fish are a high premium value. A lot of time and money and or forage food value goes into growing that trophy size fish of any species.

Bill:

I bought LMB and YP fingerlings from Fender's last Fall at one of the "Fish Days" They hold at our local Seed'n'Feed Mill - these fingerlings all looked good.

My wife and I enjoy just about any excuse to go up to Berlin/Millersburg. They are just a stone's throw from Charm (which is the home to Keim Lumber - the Disneyland of lumberyards).

From a different angle, let’s look realistically into what it will take to grow 150 all female LMB as 12”-13” stocker females in a 2 ac pond. Feeding them less, ALWAYS lessens their growth rate. A fast growing bass needs to almost daily fill its belly and not just eat a few small fish if you want best possible growth of the bass / predator.

150 1 lb LMB growing to 2 lbs X 6 lb for a maintenance StdWt = 900 lbs forage + 10 lb x150 = 1500lb = 2400lbs total annual forage

150 2 lb to 3 lb X 6lb =1800 lbs + 1500 lbs = 3300lbs annual forage.
150 3 lb to 4 lb X 6lb = 2700 lbs +1500 lbs = 4200lbs annual forage
150 4 lb to 5 lb X 6 lb = 3600 lbs + 1500lbs = 5100lbs annual forage
150 5 lb to 6 lb X 6 lb = 4500 lbs + 1500 lbs = 6000lbs annual forage
150 6 lb to 7 lb X 6 lb = 5400 lbs + 1500 lbs = 6900lbs annual forage
150 7 lb to 8 lb X 6 lb = 6300 lbs + 1500 lbs = 7800lbs annual forage
150 8 lb to 9 lb X 6 lb = 7200 lbs + 1500 lbs = 8700lbs annual forage

Do you see why feeding 150 bass in a 2 acre pond is not a very good plan to grow those 150 female bass into becoming big bass in a 2 ac pond. A regular 2 ac nutrient enriched pond can probably produce 400 – 600 lbs of consumable forage fish per year. Remember there has to be enough uneaten forage fish as brood stock and some forage items for the next growing season.

If someone has to buy medium size forage fish to feed large bass to keep them growing at their best rate this gets pretty expensive. For large bass having to eat minnow size fish the bass expends almost as much energy catching lots of small fish as the nutrition benefit from eating lots of fish that are too small. Learn about optimal foraging theory for the best way to grow bass.

Bill is such a wealth of knowledge and can really put things into perspective to help achieve your goals!

To take his math a little further and to help you better determine the stocking rate base on you goal end size, here are some formulas:

X * current weight * 6 lbs + X * 10 lbs = forage pounds needed to consume for all to grow 1 lb, X is the number of current bass

Say you want 9 pound top out weight and you estimate you have 600 lbs of consumable forage, it would be:
X * 8lbs * 6 lbs + X * 10 lbs = 600lbs --> which can be reduced to X * 58lbs = 600lbs --> to solve: 600/58 = X = 10.3 bass.
Once these 10 bass are 8 pounds, they will require the full 600 lbs of consumable forage to hit the 9 lb mark. Original overstocking with the intent to cull as they grow is an option, but a very expensive option if these are going to be $50+ per fish

If you want to be conservative and say you will have 400 lbs of consumable forage yearly:

4 lb top out = 400 lbs / 28 lbs consumed = 14.2 bass
5 lb top out = 400 lbs / 34 lbs consumed = 11.7 bass
6 lb top out = 400 lbs / 40 lbs consumed = 10 bass
7 lb top out = 400 lbs / 46 lbs consumed = 8.7 bass
8 lb top out = 400 lbs / 52 lbs consumed = 7.7 bass
9 lb top out = 400 lbs / 58 lbs consumed = 6.9 bass

If you want to be more aggressive and say you will have 600 lbs of consumable forage yearly:

4 lb top out = 600 lbs / 28 lbs consumed = 21.4 bass
5 lb top out = 600 lbs / 34 lbs consumed = 17.6 bass
6 lb top out = 600 lbs / 40 lbs consumed = 15 bass
7 lb top out = 600 lbs / 46 lbs consumed = 13 bass
8 lb top out = 600 lbs / 52 lbs consumed = 11.5 bass
9 lb top out = 600 lbs / 58 lbs consumed = 10.3 bass

Now, all of these numbers spend your fish mass allotment with the original stocking. If you wanted different year classes of fish, it would likely to be better to stock 1-2 (maybe 3) female bass year based on what you would be happy with at top out weight (Could also be slightly more for initial stocking). This formula also doesn't account for supplemental forage stockings. If you had planned on adding large live forage yearly, that poundage could be added to your consumable yearly forage (but also be expensive).

Especially without golden shiners, I would carefully consider Bill's suggestion of adding yellow perch as additional forage. These would be a tasty addition for both you and those big girl bass!

Thanks for all of the great information guys!

It does sound like the best way to create a trophy bass pond is to start out as a multi-millionaire!

[I apologize to you (For the Family) if this turns into a threadjack. I am trying to find an alternative DIY route for your type of goals.]

Bill, Theo, and all others:

Would it be feasible to start with a smaller grow-out pond to develop your female-only LMB population in the main pond?

I was thinking of stocking the small pond with the best class of available bass from your supplier. Feed them until the next spring, and then harvest bass right before the spawn. Identify the females and move over the optimal number for Year 1. Repeat the process again in Year 3(?), such that you are always ladder stocking a few choice female LMB into the main pond.

1.) How to harvest the female bass for transport?

Can you use a large lift net under the feeder to get a few gals without making them hook shy?

Can you do your own version of an electro-survey at the feeder to safely harvest a few fish?

2.) Moving fish to a new pond is always a topic discussed on Pond Boss, with differing levels of success.

Other than safe fish handling, what would be the best ideas to get the big gals moved over to the main pond?

Having the few bass that "fail to thrive" actually die, would probably be a better result than having them take up part of the biomass weight of predators in the pond.

3.) What to do with the grow-out pond as it matures?

I was thinking of turning off the feeder for a week, and having an entire Boy Scout troop come over and catch bass when they hit the 10-12" range and send them home with smiles and a bag of fillets! You could then drain down the pond and seine the remainder if you had some neighbors that wanted bass.

You could then start the process over again with zero fish in the pond with some new stock or with some brood fish you previously saved. That round would be used to once again stock a few select females into the main pond.

My process would NOT be prohibitively expensive, but would require a lot of labor hours. Hopefully they would mostly be fun?

I am sure the experts can readily improve on my hare-brained scheme! Maybe even come up with some workable ideas for the OP, or other later readers.

For best potential, we all want to buy the shooters (jumpers-fast growers) problem is unless we raise the fish from 2-3", we don't get to see the shooters because most growers take the top of the top for their own reasons, so yes, growing from small fingerlings in a separate pond to a sex size is not a bad idea.
Looking at bass prior to spawn is about 75% accurate, cath tubes are 99.9% which takes some time to learn, break a glass tube in a fish it becomes fillets..
I love the math above, it takes a lot of information and clears the trash out to see the raw numbers-which to most is unbelievable-but you still have to determine what your specific water body will grow in forage per acre and it has to be available in all sizes, not just pounds-you guys above all know that-I'm just writing it down for reference.

Does anyone know? Who sells all female bass? When one buys all female bass what method is used to select those fish?

Snipe - Cecil sent me a sample of a plastic cath tube. Do these work as well as glass tubes?

Here is a link to our PBoss thread that discussed back in 2014 using all female bass. In the thread it was mentioned that American Sportfish grows all female bass using a chemical modification on eggs / fry.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=387220#Post387220

Pond Boss article Mar –Apr 2021 p:30-33. All - Female Bass. Lusk provides the ideas from Greg Grimes, Troy Goldsby and himself from their experiences of using all female bass. Some important points were:
"Finding all female bass is uncertain, almost impossible".
" Get one male from any source and you messed up the whole concept".
"All females demand a very strong forage base ... building it for two to three years before bass".
"Think a mature 4 - 5 year pond worth of forage before any bass at 20 - 50 bass lbs /ac". These numbers could amount to 10-16 bass at 2 - 3 lb each per acre.
"Expect double $$ for females".
"Need intense management - cull ones at 100-110 RW when others are 130-140 RW".
"6lb bass needs 6" BG, 8 " trout or big shad as main foods".
"Plan on at least twice a year stocking supplemental big sizes of forage to suit biggest bass sizes to stay ahead of them so they continue to grow" -
"open the check book".
"You need unnatural management to make it work".

Bill, plastic is fine. I like glass because the suction seal is better but they need to be handled carefully.. Either can be soaked in 3-5% H2O2 to sterilize.
This comment:
" Get one male from any source and you messed up the whole concept".
can be avoided if unsure with cath tube, leave it out, if you get egg it is 100%.. but it's like buying fish from a supplier and "assuming" you are getting what you bought. In this case, there is zero margin for error and learning the process assures success but it may take a purchase of 300 fish to get 100 confirmed females and each fish has to be individually sedated, that's very labor intensive but the only way to do it correctly. $30-$50 per fish is not unrealistic because you have "possibly" 200 males nobody wants except for free..

A number of years ago I cath'ed a bunch of LMB to get females for a pond. I ran closer to 60% male, 40% female in the group of LMB I had to work with......

Couple of things that has to be done.

1) You have to cath the fish at the right time of the year - pre-spawn. After late June, you are typically done until next year.
2) The fish have to be large enough to be of spawning size - it doesn't work well on 12" or smaller fish, and I'd rather try it on 14" or larger fish.
3) Unless the fish are pellet trained, transferring those larger fish to a pond and expecting them to figure out where to go to get their food is an iffy thing.if you expect those fish to keep growing quickly.

I think one use for male bass is to use them in a pond such as a perch pond where you want the predator to stay smaller and focus its eating of fish that have the smaller size ranges. The male bass would be a tool for biasing the predation toward small fish. Plus all male bass would not spawn in the pond and cause problems with too much bass predation of the preferred fish crop. Again - good management of the predator population can be a big asset for fishery management.

esshup, we are getting about 80-85% confirmed at 8-10". If they can't be sexed by 12" early Feb, they get culled.
On 11"+ you can confirm about 75% of the females by October.
No pellets, these are all conditioned on Koi from 4"+, for example, fish are gathered in late Sept at 4-6" and moved inside and kept at 50 degs through winter with a fair amount of Koi. April 1st they go back outside in 4 ac grow outs full of fresh Koi and then are collected again in late Sept at 8-10". Anything above average is desired but if it can't be sexed, it's removed. Most of the 8-10" fish can be sexed and that same 80-85% will spawn in tank when temps are brought up in Feb.
To see the best genetics, the shooters during the next period outdoors are separated the following year for the best brood stock.
Then the goal is best growth of the offspring but they still need to produce stock for reproduction to choose from so it's 2 years before the shooters are separated.
Yes, we are talking about 2 different goals here, but if fast growing fish are a part of the target for trophy potential, those that don't mature need to be removed completely.
The difference is those shooters that appear from the 8-10-12" fish are the one's we want for breeders for stock to raise and sex for trophy ponds. My point??? If you can't sex them until 14-15", the potential to grow a trophy is not good.
I also think there is a misunderstanding on the sexing process because seldom do we see sperm, only egg but we can have extra females without issue-until we need to eliminate the male from the equation, then we get in trouble assuming it's a male because we didn't get any egg. 75% of males you won't see sperm, if you do, it's a bonus indicator but not the norm.
Keep in mind, these are fish that are observed every day to confirm males on nests that can be pit tagged at that point. There are 2 categories..female and unsure, which brings me to another point for Cody, another reason for glass vs plastic is sperm will show on the end of glass that will not show on plastic which removes fish from the "unsure category" but not many.

Your point #3 is definitely one of the problems when attempting to transfer fish from one pond to another and expecting them to thrive.

Follow up questions:

A.) For pellet-trained fish (of any species), are there any estimates for what % of their diet is pellets versus how much forage they still capture?

B.) If you transfer a low number of predators to a pond teeming with forage AND without existing predators, would that significantly reduce the odds of the new predators failing to thrive. I would assume abundant forage, including some in the exact optimal size range, combined with the forage NOT being trained to avoid predation would be a very encouraging environment for the introduced LMB.

Bill, that sounds like an excellent use for a population of all male LMB!

I can imagine that might be quite effective when someone wanted to create a trophy BG fishery. Once the BG became too big too eat for the male LMB, they would be safe to keep growing from large to "trophy" status. A horde of hungry, smaller LMB should be quite effective at keeping down the TOTAL BG population.

Only when the pond began pushing up against the total fish biomass limits would you need to cull some LMB for pond safety.

Follow up questions:

A.) When pellet feeding to target the "trophy" BG, I assume you can control which fish species gets the feed by using the correct pellet size? If you did manage to get a population that was 100% male, then there would be zero little bass competing with the BG for the feed.

B.) If you tried to create a "natural" trophy BG pond, would the biggest BG have enough forage available for them to "pig out" all year, or would the bass population have a significant overlap in consuming the preferred BG forage?

Snipe, thanks for continuing to post the fascinating details about the state's ongoing LMB improvement project!

If I am reading your post above correctly, then it appears that it is much more certain to create a 100% female LMB pond than a 100% male LMB pond?

(I just typed a post above about the possible advantage of a 100% male LMB pond. As usual, it appears that I am a day late and a dollar short!)

Since it is not certain to express milt/sperm from a male LMB, how effective is sexing utilizing the "observational behavior" method? For example, if you made a grow-out pond with some good area for bass nests, could you get a 100% male LMB sample if you only took the bass guarding the nest with a cast net?

P.S. Which raises another question - if you want to post about the "capture" methods that are used at the state fishery. For example, how do you selectively capture the shooters from a tank of 8-10" bass? (Or do you just capture them all and then hand sort for the shooters?)

Shooters are all hand sorted but backpack electrofishing methods are used in concrete tanks also. Cast net is very hard on a stressed, adult male guarding a nest.
Keep in mind on females that just because they have eggs doesn't mean they are going to lay them. At young age, LMB are similar to walleye in that they may go 2 years with eggs-and reabsorb them, then next year they may actually lay eggs. Stress, water conditions, population structure etc, all will play a role in whether those eggs mature or not, but for the purpose of female only stocking, it doesn't matter if they lay-which the may blow them or reabsorb but no production occurs because (hopefully) no males give them a spot-or lead them in to spawn anyway.
Different ways of looking at all of this.. Point is, if eggs are confirmed, it's 100%, but still another side to how they are selected and another story about what can be done with the unconfirmed fish.
Collecting for reproduction and collecting for trophy potential is 2 completely different goals.
Keep in mind also, males will grow to 6-6.5lbs at the same rate a female grows under specific conditions.

A male bass of 6 - 6.5 lbs is a BIG bass for many anglers. I did not realize male bass were able to grow that big. Enlightening.

Theo seizing the chance to use a $2 word:
Perhaps you were thinking of FloridaLMB, which exhibit a greater degree of sexual dimorphism than do Northerns.

I didn't know that either Bill... until we started sexing the Bass for indoor spawning last year-had no idea a male could get that big. Most achieve 5-5.5 on a regular basis. Hatchery manager says it's all in the Koi, which I couldn't even begin to speculate on that.
This was my 3rd year with this program and the only person that seemed to be surprised was me..

Like Bill, I also thought that the sexual dimorphism of northern-strain LMB was significant enough that a 6.5# male bass would be rare indeed.

(Dang it, I had to use Theo's $2 word and I don't know where to send his royalty check!)

Perhaps Snipe seeing males that large is because he is working in the program where they are almost shoving koi down the gullets of their bass?

Of course, I just assumed when we caught big (for Kansas) LMB that they were gals. I think the biggest LMB that we typically caught that had abraded chins and torn up tails were maybe 3.5# - 4# max. I figured these were males that were torn up due to making and then guarding the nests. The biggest LMB we caught in that lake were about 7.5#, and we figured they were female.

However, we never tried to deliberately make a sex determination on a bass, so I actually know literally nothing on the male/female size debate!

Those bass are HUGE and only got that way because appropriate sized Koi were fed in optimum numbers in a very controlled arena..
I can tell you that KS pulls these genetics from Colorado, they are spoon-fed and used for indoor spawning only, but again, small fish are culled-quickly.. they want nothing less than a 4lb male for this program but I learned that what I knew about Bass-LMB-was nothing in real life for what these guys grow.

Snipe:

If you had to put a dollar figure on each female LMB at that size, what would be the retail price for say, 100 fish? Would that $$ amount be a viable business decision to tie up a pond for that length of time, plus whatever water was needed to grow the koi? Or are the koi being sourced off site?