Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations life-span of hybrid-striped bass

What is the average life-span of a hybrid-striped bass? Steve caught a huge one this evening and is really impressed with their growth. I know alot of variables probably go into that.
We were told they wouldn't reproduce in a pond. So, when we had to drain the pond (two years ago), we were blown away when we found 46 baby stripers (and 1 baby rainbow)!

We are in Virginia and had them brought up from Georgia. It was a fairly good expense. So what a happy surprise to see the little 'ens!

Wow! Hybrid striped bass reproducing in a pond... Now that is pretty much unheard of! What are the details of this pond? Size, substrate, is there a feeder creek? Rainbows reproducing in a pond as well... There has to be a creek or you have a miracle!

I think you could expect 8-10 years as a average life span. White bass are the shorter lived of the two parent species with a 6 year old fish being old. Striped bass the other parent species and are rather long lived with a rare fish reaching 20 plus years of age.

HSB are not sterile but reproduction is highly unlikely in ponds. Dave Willis explained this on a thread :

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...=true#Post15285


Dave Willis
Lunker


Registered: September 09, 2002
Posts: 1494
Loc: South Dakota State University
(12.218.163.246) Actually masterbasser, it's even worse than the state biologist told you. Hybrid striped bass are "functionally" sterile. The 1:200,000 probably applies to hybrids spawning with hybrids. However, the males of both species commonly run with either striped bass or white bass, and they certainly can produce a back-crossed generation with either. For example, hybrid males running with striped bass females will produce offspring that are 3/4 striper and 1/4 white bass genes.

The "functional" sterility comes from the difference in egg types for the two parentals. Striped bass have eggs that are nearly neutral buoyancy, and along the east coast they spawn in rivers that carry the eggs while they develop and hatch. If the eggs settle to the bottom, they typically smother and die in the organic/silt layer on the river bottom. Eggs need some oxygen, which crosses the membrane. White bass have heavy, sticky eggs. In rivers, they spawn on gravel riffles. The sticky, heavy eggs attach to the bottom and the current keeps them clean and oxygenated. Hybrid striped bass eggs are halfway in-between. They are too heavy to float with the striped bass eggs, settle to the bottom, and generally die. They are too light and not sticky enough to stay on the gravel if spawned in a riffle. They wash off, into a pool below, settle on the organic mud that usually has low or no dissolved oxygen, and die.
_________________________



Can you provide more details ?

That's crazy! Can't wait to show Steve this tomorrow! He can tell you more details than I can...

He has a 1 acre pond. He had a well dug and that feeds in water as he needs it (cools off the trout in hot weather, too), as well as a stream that comes off the moutain above his pond (evenutually gets to the pond thru a pipe). You wouldn't believe the genius way he has it coming into his pond! Both water sources are on seperate sides of the pond.
The only other fish in the pond is trout (rainbow, brook, brown).

I think the lack of other predators may help the natural reproduction. I think more reproduction may occur but the offspring are eaten before the fish are seen by human eyes. Have Steve get us the details... I know Eric and I are very interested by this!

Oh, and at the time we drained it... we had 98 (give or take) adults. We had stocked 100. So we were happy how many to have.
They all had to be caught in a net and then my brother and I would literally run them over to the cove (the only part of the pond that would not drain).... many, many feet away.

We drove Steve crazy! He wanted all the adults hurried over but all my brother and I did was spend too much time catching the babies!

I'll let you know first thing tomorrow. What other questions should I ask him?

Depth, substrate type, as in is it silt, sand, rocks, etc, what size creek is flowing in? How big were the adults when you drained? How big were the "babies"? Eric, any other questions you want asked?

Very interesting... this may be a first.

It's funny, when I go fishing there, I always talk about hoping to catch a tiny striper rather than the biggest!

He is seeing a BUNCH of little fish when he feeds them right now.

Over much of the bottom there is gravel. We had to cover a big part of the pond with liner so the gravel helps hold it down. There has been so many headaches. Where we live there are a bunch of caves... so we were brave digging a pond anyway!

We once had some documentation provided by a TPWD Biologist of white bass reproduction in a small lake with no running water as input to give the eggs buoyancy. The conclusion is that they were spawned on a windy, rocky shoreline.

Never say never.

Good morning! This is Steve's answer...

Clay bottom on primarily limestone rock

gravity flow (controlled) spring that is obviousily weather related. Flow in 4" pipe -the flow ranges from 50 gallons/minute to 5 gallons/minute in dry conditions.

Adult stripers, at time of draining, were 3-4lb range. Fingerlings were ~4 inches long. Stacy was right, there were 98 adults and 46 fingerlings. Only 1 trout fingerling. We stock the 2lb range and my supplier supposedly sterilizes his fish.

1 acre pond


and from me... he said the little fish he is seeing while feeding right now could be the browns he stocked and told me not to jump to conclusions!

If you compare the facts you provided about the bottom nature and water flow you could be the 1 in 200,000. Cool ,clean , moving water on rock substrata with little pond bottom muck (liner and clay). Also no/little predation. I would say that fits what Dave Willis described.

A little confused though. Did you actually see , close up , as in handling , the small HSB ? I assume that you did.

Yes, we had to hand-carry all of them about 75 yards to the holding cove. One dropped and I went crazy trying to catch the little guy.

the limestone may be another key. Higher alkalinity/hardness would be a plus as far as ideal water conditions. this is an amazing natural phenomenon.

You're right burger, HSB do like hard water. Sounds like it truly is the 1 in 200,000. If trout could reproduce, they bury their eggs in gravel then I see no reason why HSB could lay their eggs in the same area and have them get wedged in between rock crevices and survive. With no LMB or other gluttonous predators in the pond, some of the little ones survived. Eric, any research on the quality of a F2 HSB?