2013 Big Bass Population

[Bill Babler]

Nat, you may have a point, and the way you do things in your fishing are really quite abit different than 99% of us out there. Making your own lures and baits and just handling your trips like you have stated. We just don't do that so much.

Really with limits we have now on the fish and the size requirements of course except for gills and kittys it is very hard to indeed fill that freezer, as not only are the daily limits on most species from 5 to 15 fish per day but the limits that you can personally have are only in most cases a two day limit total in your freezer.

In speaking with conservation officers and lake biologist for the last 30 years, folks filling their freezer is really not how they are managing the resource. It is managed that if a guy and his wife keep a few fresh fish to eat on their vacations or a local wants to have a fish fry with fresh fish, there you go. With the ammount of usage these ponds get it is no longer designed to go out and put the Winters meat in the freezer. I had a game warden tell me several years ago to tell my clients as he told people "Think fresh, Not freeze." He was refering to pan fish.

All our state agencies including the conservation dept is experencing cuts and you know what that means. As far as the Rock is concerned maybe not so much as it is a self renewing resource that is not stocked and has to completely substain itself, reguardless of what the corps does.

God Bless all and Merry Christmas

[*T*]

Thanks for all of your comments. Hate to get somewhat back to my original question , but........Has LM population percentage shown any significant increase or stayed about the same? Aren't the SM flourishing and shouldn't we expect to see more & more giants. And, based on a few

outings there are just so many 10 - 15" Spots right now, is 2013 set for an explosion of 15"+ Kentuckies? Thanks. Merry Christmas / Happy New Year

[Quillback]

Thanks for all of your comments. Hate to get somewhat back to my original question , but........Has LM population percentage shown any significant increase or stayed about the same? Aren't the SM flourishing and shouldn't we expect to see more & more giants. And, based on a few

outings there are just so many 10 - 15" Spots right now, is 2013 set for an explosion of 15"+ Kentuckies? Thanks. Merry Christmas / Happy New Year

You would think that there's a nice crop of Spots on the way, lots of those 10-15" fish and most of them are fat. On Beaver, and I don't know if this is true on TR, according to the biologists, a 15" spot is on average 7 years old. Hard to kill them when it takes them that long to get to keeper size.

[Bill Babler]

LM in the Rock is minimum of 4 yr. to be a keeper.

Jaw is 5 to 6 yrs.

Spot is 7 yrs. minimum to reach 15 inches. K's also have a life and reproduction span of plus 15 yrs. Mainly due to how slow they grow, they have a excellent reporductive life cycle that is much longer than the LM or Jaw. Longer life more eggs and hopfully more fish.

With the no stock policy MDC has on Table Rock, its good to have these Mama's around repopulating the lake on such a long life cycle.

[fishinwrench]

7 pounds and some change seems to be the majority LM size ceiling in all of MO. Bass 8lbs. and larger are drastically fewer.... or at least drastically fewer of that size are caught.

Do you think most bass croak at about 8lbs in this region, or do you think they begin to change their feeding habits as they get close to 8lbs. ?

[rps]

I think the 8 pounds plus fish are the ones that start out a bit different. The true perfect ambush artists. I think that explains why so many of the great fish are caught on jerk baits and jigs and top waters. They have learned to hide and wait. Even if I am wrong, it sounds good, doesn't it?

[ozarkgunner]

Jerkbaits produce the biggest fish of the year for me.