How many ten pound bass are caught in MO in a year?

[Al Agnew]

Gavin, the nine pound bass I caught was just shy of 24 inches...prespawn fish and very fat.  I'd say it would take a very thick prespawn 24 incher to weigh 10 pounds.  Back in the days when my dad and I fished Wappapello every weekend and caught lots of 5 pound plus bass, most were in that 21-22 inch range.  And my biggest river largemouth was over 24 inches, and though I didn't weigh it, I figured it to be pushing 8 pounds...it was wintertime fish that wasn't prespawn but was healthy.

[rps]

Pre-spawn pigs and late summer slims can radically affect how long a 10 pound bass would need to be. Both of my 8's on TR were post spawn but still thick June fish. I will try to find the picture of the last one. She was right at 23.5 on my rule.

[fishinwrench]

I've had several 24" Mo. bass that were plenty thick and chunky..... But still shy of 8#

My Florida pig was 26.5" and 11/7.  The head, gills, and gut on that fish was enormous.  Pretty amazing the difference an inch of girth can make in the weight. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

Wrench,

Do you hear of 10 pounders caught at LOZ?

Pete

[Bill Kay]

There is a formula for the weight of a bass if you know its length and girth.  Measure the length and girth in inches.  Then multiply length X length X girth, then divide by 1200.  It is not exact, but in my experience seems to be pretty close.

It seems that in the small lakes that I fish in west central Mo., six pounds seems to be the max. potential for most fish.  I catch good numbers up  to about 6, but few over that.  I did work with a guy that had permission to fish a small farm pond near Creighton and caught one that was 13 even, weighed on certified scales by the Conservation Agent.  Bass Pro agreed to take it but he had it on a stringer in the pond and a snapping turtle killed it.  I saw it dead or I wouldn't have believed it.  So it can happen.

I caught the one below last March.  It was 24" long with a 16" girth.  Didn't weigh it but I don't think it would have made 8.

 

 

[MOsmallies]

   Wrench,

Do you hear of 10 pounders caught at LOZ?

Pete

There's a pic on the Bassing Bob website of a 10.2 caught by Wayne Fitzpatrick in March 2013 on LOZ... I remember a picture about 5 years ago of another one that was supposedly 10 lbs caught in the winter on a jerkbait alongside a dock but that was never really verified. And last summer (2014) there was a 9.06 caught in one of the Wednesday Night Tournaments (8/6/14). Those are the biggest I've heard of on LOZ...

[moguy1973]

How much weight does a pre-spawn female take on?  Say a 20-21" female that weighs 5lbs.  Think it's a pound?  Pound and a half?

[Al Agnew]

I don't have the picture handy right now, but the 9 pounder I caught was WAY fatter than the pics MOsmallies just posted.  The 24 inch river fish I caught was about the same "fatness" as those pictures.

[bluebasser86]

Amazing how much fish can vary in just a couple inches, or how close they can be too I guess. A few years ago I was lucky enough to catch a 24" bass in January in Kansas that only had a 14.5" girth that weighed 7.51.

Then 2 months later in March I caught a bass at the same lake that was only 22" long but had a 17" girth that weighed 7.76.

 

I've seen DD fish in the strip pits in SE Kansas, and there was a guy that caught a DD prefishing a tournament several years ago in April (don't know his name, he was fishing the same BASS weekend series tournament as I was which is the only reason I heard about it). They're out there, but it takes a mountain of skill and luck to ever get to see one, let alone catch one. 

[Quillback]

If you look at huge Cali bass...many of those come from trout-stocked lakes. Trout are very high in fat / oil and would fatten up a largemouth really quick. I'm really wondering if these places that stock trout throughout the winter would have the potential to grow a double digit bass. I caught a ton of brown trout this winter that were small enough to bee a great meal to any Master Angler sized fish.

One of the community lakes here gets stocked with rainbows in the winter.  It's small, about 70 surface acres, but deep, 70 feet near the dam.  2 years ago, a local teenager caught a 12 lb. bass out of that lake.  Biggest bass I've heard of that came out of these lakes.  No doubt the trout diet helped it reach that weight.