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Mozambique Tilapia. These are especially suited among tilapias for producing forage for big bass. They will attain lengths between 3 and 4 inches within 70 days (as will most TP) but Mozambique Tilapia reproduce at a younger age and this is why they are so much better than Niles or Blue. This is important for the following reasons:

1. A second generation is produced sooner. (I am not speaking cohorts of the original adults, 0 year Moz TP... the offspring of the original adults ... will produce a generation earlier than Blues or Niles). This is important for large LMB because the first cohort of 0-year females will be larger in size at the end of the season than those produced by Blues and Niles.

2. Moz TP of 0 year could produce more than one cohort by the end of the season (not possible with Blues or Niles)

3. Early onset of maturity slows growth and this occurs around 4 to 5 inches in length. By the end of season, most of 0 year adults will be less than 7" in length. In other words, no 0 year Mozambique TP will be too large for your 9 lb LMB to eat.

It's a 130 acre lake. Ideally you would just stock 8 lbs/acre of Females and 2 lbs/acre of Males every year that are Age 1 fish of sufficient size to evade predators. But you are probably talking well over 20K a year to do that. Plus, I don't think you would ever find a seller that would sell males and females independently by weight. Usually females would only comprise 25-33% (perhaps less) of the weight of adult TP. To get 8 lbs of Females would require purchasing 25 to 32 lbs of adults (now the cost could be over 40K). Male and Female Moz TP grow at the same rate for the first 60 days so the forage pond could produce 5.5 lbs of females (per acre) for the 130 acre lake at the time the forage pond is harvested. So there is a lot of leverage in the forage pond .... provided ... a sufficient weight of 0-year females produce a cohort before being eaten by your LMB.

Check out the graphs below that depict the concepts presented. These data were obtained from this paper.