Yes, but not entirely. The brooding prey fish generally don't have a predator in systems balanced on only one predator. This ensures that they can breed to perpetuate their kind. These too large for the predators to eat prey fish are essential but if they comprise too much of the standing weight of prey fish the production of vulnerable prey is limited by the numbers of adult prey fish. The limit arises from a number of factors. One is competition with parents, another is predation by parents, still another is the impact of a large standing weight of prey fish on the production of their prey organisms. Fewer parents and efficient cropping of their young by the predator allows the numbers of these organisms to be greater and their reproduction to be greater. In other words, removing some but not too many large prey brooders has effects that cascade through the food chain and these effects benefit every organism whether it be predator, remaining prey fish, or the organisms the prey eat.

So what this means is that a balanced harvest includes the removal of both prey fish and predator fish. So what is the ideal number for each? It depends on ones goals I suppose. IMHO the best balance is best achieved when there is a good representation of year class in both predator and prey populations. This requires consistent annual harvest. The bigger one wants to grow them, the more years it takes and so efficiency declines. The most efficient harvest is one that equals the production limit of the BOW. So a Bow in spring with 250 lbs of fish that could produce a net production of prey and predator weight of 80 lbs could be harvested at a rate of 80 lbs/acre. A good number to work with is 25 percent of the weight in predators and 75 percent of the weight in too big for predators to eat prey fish. In the example above this equates to 60 lbs/acre for prey and 20 lbs/acre for predators. Essentially such a scenario turns most of the population every 4 years or so. Generally, the predators won't be really big over such a short span of time. For LMB probably in the 15" range in the 4th year IF they are harvested and not allowed to accumulate.


It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers