Fisheries Management

As seen in Pond Boss Magazine

Thanks to plenty of sunshine and warm seasons, the southeastern United States is prime ground for producing trophy Largemouth bass. Well-managed waters in this part of the country naturally produce thriving populations of forage over a long season. This fuels ideal conditions for Largemouth bass to become spoiled, fat and happy…our goal.

Capitalizing on the opportunity to create a fun fishery of this nature brings excitement to landowners who are blessed with enough resources. In 2015, a landowner with a 10-acre lake set his eyes on creating a trophy fishery, with double-digit bass. He had a firm understanding he would need an abundant forage base and good bass genetics to do things properly. Although he was not up to speed on the most advanced management strategies, he hired fisheries professionals to help him accomplish his goals.

Over the course of the fishery’s first few years under management, the owner and the biologists made some good decisions. First and foremost was resetting the fishery. This management strategy provides significantly better odds of producing double-digit bass. During the resetting process, the lake was drained, cleaned up, and deepened in areas, improving both depth and the bottom contour. Add some habitat, and this lake was ready for water.

Once the lake filled, biologists introduced bluegill, redear sunfish, golden shiners, fathead minnows, and threadfin shad. They installed bottom-diffused aeration to improve water quality and placed artificial fish structures to improve angling experiences. They also installed three fish feeders and implemented a fertilization program to boost forage production. Then, summer 2016, they stocked F1 strain Largemouth bass fingerlings at a rate of 25 per acre, totaling 250 fish.

Over the years, biologists conducted electrofishing assessments and made adjustments as needed. As the bass grew larger, they also incorporated gizzard shad and rainbow trout into the management strategy to provide a larger meal to the bass. Although the bass were growing larger, the owner grew concerned his initial generation of F1’s were not reaching their full potential. More concerning, however, was the fishery appeared to be lacking a second or third-generation of bass growing fast enough to reach his double-digit goals.

The fishery had some good fish in it, but electrofishing data collected in the spring of 2020 supported his concerns. Only four bass greater than four pounds were collected that spring, with 85 percent of the bass weighing less than three pounds. The sample size was sufficient, but the quality of the pre-spawn bass was not. Eventually, he decided to make a change and bring in a fresh set of eyes to the project. In that process he hired SOLitude. 

As with all trophy bass fisheries, some management improvements are obvious, while others take time to figure out. Upon getting to know the fishery in the late summer and fall of 2020, a few adjustments made sense immediately.

Restructuring a bass population in a lake this size, using electrofishing and angling typically takes 24 months, although it’s realistic to do it in 12 months if the waterbody’s habitat is outstanding and efforts are robust. This involves selecting all of the female bass you want to remain in the waterbody while harvesting all other bass.

Although this fishery would not exceed expectations for several years, it was still capable of producing measurable results. The initial generation of F1’s stocked in 2016 were good fish, and have a chance of reaching double digits, but not likely until around the time they are dying of old age. Although not perfect, these big bass will provide some great fishing opportunities as the owner patiently awaits more sustainable future generations of fast-growing bass.

The biggest error made in the original management strategy was to allow the bass population to become overpopulated. Based on the lofty bass growth goals and the owner’s avid fishing experience, it is realistic to say that male bass should have never been introduced into the system following the initial reset. Male bass are inferior to females when it comes to top-end growth, so based on the double-digit growth goals, male bass make little sense. To compound matters, the offspring of F1’s are considered genetically inferior to their F1 parents, resulting in less favorable bass in fisheries intended for top-end growth. If looking to create a sustainable fishery capable of producing double-digit bass within each generation, the strategy should not lean on offspring from F1’s to accomplish the objective. A more favorable solution would be all female F1s, as well as layering in pure Florida female bass at least every other year. Given the geographical location of the waterbody, it is not guaranteed that pure Florida bass would always survive winter. If the owner were to balance the risk/reward of Florida genetics, they would want to consider no more than 1/3-1/2 of the population being pure Florida strain.

This poor-cover scenario made assessing the fish population and harvesting bass more difficult than it needed to be. This was especially true when it came to estimating how many bass were in the system. Following some fish collection struggles, logs were installed in the pond to better congregate bass. Unfortunately, due to the scarcity of wood in 2021, the log installation was delayed until the summer of 2022. In addition to adding woody cover, aquatic vegetation was installed in both 2021 and 2022 in effort to improve the complexity of the fish habitat.

The spring of 2023 will mark 24 months of effort toward restructuring the bass population. Although the bass population was not fully restructured in 2022, nearly zero bass recruitment was observed during the fall 2022 electrofishing study, indicating the fishery was nearing its goal. Lack of recruitment is a good indicator that the male bass population is becoming depleted simultaneously as the biomass of forage fish is increasing. Momentum is building in a positive direction. The forage base needs more momentum, and the bass population needs an additional round of harvesting.

Water quality was another critical variable that impeded the fishery’s success. During heavy rainstorms, incoming runoff would turn the entire pond brown with sediment, disrupting the plankton bloom and negatively impacting the forage base. Further examination of the watershed revealed areas of exposed soil and erosion. The largest contributor was a large ditch that ran several hundred yards in a straight line, allowing water to run rapidly downhill. Using riprap, small check dams were installed to slow the water down, significantly reducing erosion. Although a lot of work to install, they have done a great job at minimizing sediment–related turbidity following heavy rainfall.

The management adjustments made over the past two years will have a profound effect on the fishery’s trajectory. The forage base still has room for improvement when managing to high standards, but overall, it has rebounded noticeably well. The initial generation of F1’s continues to grow, as they should. When electrofishing in the spring of 2022, two egged-up six-year-old females tipped the scales at seven pounds and are on their way to meeting the owner’s expectations. With another year of hard work and strategic management efforts ahead, this fishery will likely be fully on track by late fall 2023.