Originally Posted by ewest
Fisheries scientists tried the all female LMB method (laddered stocking) in a small Ga lake and had great initial results until year 3-4 when it became obvious that they misidentified a supposed female LMB. Lots of tiny LMB offspring showed up. My point is even trained Fisheries Scientists can make a mistake and often do on sex id. Several other studies on species id/gender where even trained pros id (species and gender) correctly in 70 % range.

Are you referring to this Georgia lake? It is true they messed up the sex identification right from the get go. But this did not prevent the lake from having really good trophy bass fishing. The original stocking was in 2005 and 7 years later the ratio of female LMB to male LMB was 6.9 to 1. To be sure, the lake was in decline as a trophy fishery by then, but it still remained a good fishery where LMB recruits were limited by the ratio of females. They had a reasonable theory as to why the sex ratios remained scewed toward females.

If I do female only myself I figure I am going to have to verify the sex on my own. I think I would have to cath eggs before I would feel confident to release recruits. It would take a provider who certified female only before I would purchase female only from a provider. Even then, I might cath them anyway. If I had 3 acres I would only need to do this on 6 to 9 per annum. I would probably work out a system to use a forage sized pond to produce my own as I wouldn't want feed trained LMB for this purpose.

Quote
I would anticipate (plan for) a carrying capacity issue on the above mentioned pond - at those rates over time there are a lot of fish in the water

Yes I totally agree. It's overstocked, pretty lopsided on population structure, and is really just a feed trough. The bass are thriving on the forage fish they are adding which is requiring 20 to 30 lbs per pound gained. It would seem to me that some of the forage stocked is also making it to a size to escape predation. The standing weight of forage fish too large for those big LMB to eat must also be high. I would bet a James Madison to a donut that they are also feeding the big lepomis though I don't recall them mentioning it in the article.

The owner of that pond must have some very deep pockets and doesn't think twice about costs whatever they may be.

Last edited by jpsdad; 10/28/20 02:09 PM.

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