Lots of moving parts on this one to get the right answer!
As usual, I just have more questions.
What year(s) were the HSB, northern LMB, Florida LMB, and F1 LMB stocked?
In an East Texas pond, does the presence of 10# HSB with 6-7# LMB (of either strain) indicate that the LMB are lagging on the growth curve? If the LMB are not lagging, do they just need some more time to reach 10#+ trophy size? (Or even bigger for the Floridas and F1s?)
I believe the 6-7# LMB are really in the sweet spot now for the Florida strain to keep adding 1#+ per year while the northern strain are going to slow down significantly. Were any of the various bass strains marked to track their relative growth?
I would imagine that anthropic's pond contains some optimally sized BG and tilapia for the large LMB. Add in some bonus RBT snacks for the LMB and they should be adding weight at close to the maximum possible rate. However, is it possible to have optimal forage in a pond for LMB, but they do not have effective hunting grounds to catch forage efficiently? LMB are frequently described as ambush predators - is there a chance the 6-7# bass do not have effective cover to launch their attacks despite an abundance of suitable prey?
