Lake Management

[roadwarriorsvt]

This is just to give you guys a small update on what I've been doing. I've been in touch with a mainland fisheries biologist concerning the size of our bass, or lack of it, in our lake. He asked for alot of information which we have provided. Stan has kept great records on the weight & length of the bass and Tucs they've caught over the years. Their are charts showing what a bass' weight should be at a certain length. A disturbingly high percentage of our bass showed to be underweight, especially as the bass got longer. He has given some basic recomendations and even some suggestions on how we might raise money to pay for the lake management. When I get more definite information, I'll keep you guys posted.

I may see if he can document his professional opinion in case we want to lobby for a change in the catch & release status of our lake, which is part of the problem. In a nutshell, as many of you know, our lake is over-crowded with trash fish (as I call them) which take food away from the LMB and Tucs. Eradicating the other fish would be one goal of the lake management program.

[Stan Wright]

Can you imagine reducing the armored catfish population?

Impossible dream.

[roadwarriorsvt]

If anyone is interested in what the heck is "lake management" anyways, click here: http://www.pondboss.com . Surf around the site and click on "Ask The Boss" to get to the forums. Some of the best pond/lake management professionals come on this site to give free advice to pond/lake owners. They cover most everything from pond contruction to corrective stocking and everything inbetween.

[roadwarriorsvt]

Hopefully the plecos aren't a "big" part of the problem. I suspect the red devils are the heart of our lake management problem. I'll call you later Stan when my phone charges up!

[( 808) bass hunter]

My friend i think the (stick fish or needle fish) is part of the problem too!!! man they're everywhere!!! eating all the bait fish!!!

[Ca_Bass]

I agree with roadwarrior about the red devils. There are way tooooooo many they are very aggressive, they eat up all the food and they get too big for the tucs and bass too eat and I have never seen one smaller than my hand. I think the needle fish actually stay small and slender enough that tucs and bass eat them. I've never used them for bait, but I've seen them getting eaten by tucs and bass. I know it's a dead horse but Florida Strain bass is the key....it's an absolute ridiculous law and the reasoning for not having them...eating native/endangered birds is CRAZY. That would be an EXTREMELY rare occurrence for them to be eating birds in the first place, let alone it happened to be one of the endangered species. The Florida bass could definitely put a dent in the red devil population because the will get big enough too eat the 1lb red devils. I've seen in person Florida bass eating 4lb rainbows!(granted those bass were 13lbs+) And at least from my experiences, Florida bass are actually less aggressive than "northern bass", they just live longer and grow faster.

Since, that will never happen, maybe it's possible for anyone who catches a 3.5lb or 4lb+ bass and has the means to keep it alive (IE a livewell or an aerated cooler) to bring it too the hatchery so they have a larger gene pool of larger fish to breed with. That seems to me like something that could actually happen.

[roadwarriorsvt]

I hear ya Alec. Maybe we could start our own version of the "Share A Lunker" program..... Not a bad idea.

[roadwarriorsvt]

I'm gonna be sharing some of Stan's records with the HFFA as well as my fisheries biologist's recomendations to see if they wanna buy in to it. Hopefully I can sell them on the idea of financing some lake management, otherwise we'll keep catching dinks!

[Ca_Bass]

You see my new boat on the what do you fish from topic? It's my second wife