Tiger bass

[Gavin]

Your gonna have to stock those Gen 1 bastard bass continuously to see any difference. The traits will just disappear in Gen 2, & 3 as they mix with a lake full  of free no cost  Northern Largemouth. There will likely be no benefit, unless your employed to run the fish hatchery.

[bluebasser86]

A friend of mine lives on a private lake in South Carolina that stocked all Tiger Bass when they built the lake. Really can't tell a difference other than they grow faster and they seemed to attack more aggressively when they decided to eat. They weren't easier to catch at all and didn't seem to have any ill effects on the other fish species in the lake. They all pulled harder it seemed also. Not sure what effect they would have on an existing population of fish though. 

[tjm]

22 hours ago, bluebasser86 said:

Not sure what effect they would have on an existing population of fish though. 

At the very least any stocked fish competes with the natives for space and forage. If the native population is in stress from tournament fishing or just over harvest,  stocking a more vigorous non-native species or strain could be catastrophic to the natives, and the anglers catching them probably  won't notice when the natives are extirpated, as long as the stocking is kept up to a maximum carrying capacity. Who goes to the trout parks expecting to catch SMB?

If the fishery can't support tournaments, stop or cut back on the  number of tournaments. Let the fish recover.

In the case of the tailwaters, the drastic change of discharge temperatures killed off most native fish and the trout were the politicians' "mitigation" tactic. Not much can be done to rectify that until we decide to take out the dams.

[Champ188]

On 7/21/2022 at 8:35 AM, tjm said:

If the fishery can't support tournaments, stop or cut back on the number of tournaments. Let the fish recover.

Amen.