6 and 7 pound bass caught at the same time with the same rapala

[taxid]

First of all a disclaimer: I don't try to compare these to public water fish as these came from one of my private ponds where I feed and grow out trophy size fish for the taxidermy and replica market. Just thought some of you might find this interesting.

Anyway I have a order for 20 largemouth in the 4 to 5 pound range for a taxidermy school. I prefer hook and line harvest for the fun and I hate pulling a seine through the 1/2 acre pond especially being the only one doing it.

These two largemouth that weighed 6.06 pounds and 7.07 pounds hit the same jointed rapala at the same time. Even though the drag was set to release, I am glad I spooled with 12 pound test and had a large net handy. Ironically I was hoping for just one more fish for the evening and ended up with a double hitter.

These fish are very stocky at only 19 1/2 inches for the 6 pound fish and 20 1/8 for the 7 pound fish. I feed them a special diet for largemouth bass where the pellets are massive in size.  I pulled out 6 others in the 4 to 5 pound range. One of the 18 inch fish was 4 1/2 pounds.

The fish were planted in June of 2016 and were hatched in an Arkansas in the fall of 2015. (They do two hatches a year by manipulating the photoperiod of their brood fish indoors.) So they are 7 year old fish.



Some of the first few before the biggest ones were caught. I overdose with clove oil to euthanize them before freezing.



A yellow perch that's just over twice the length of the rapala used.

[taxid]

A 4.8 pound fish before the largest fish were caught. I know I should have a picture of the 6 and 7 pounders on a measuring board but it wasn't a priority at the time.

The measuring board was made out of 8 inch PVC.

[rivereddy]

Wow, those are some fish.  From their silvery color,I'm also guessing the water in your ponds is
pretty clear.

fish on,

rivereddy

[taxid]

Wow, those are some fish.  From their silvery color,I'm also guessing the water in your ponds is
pretty clear.

fish on,

rivereddy

If I didn't add a dye to keep weed growth down I would be able to see the bottom at 9 feet. I top it off with well water with no ground runoff going in. Clarity does vary a little from year to year depending phytoplankton and macrophyte growth, whichever is dominant.

[iceman260]

Taxid those are some nice fish, are they expensive to feed.

[taxid]

Taxid those are some nice fish, are they expensive to feed.

Conversion rate is supposed to be 2:1 using dry feed for these fish. (Wild natural feed is at least a 10:1 ratio due to the water content). Can't verify that. Feed is now a little over a dollar a pound. So a 5 pound fish over 7 years took 10 lbs. of feed or somewhere over $10.00? I'm sure they feed on bluegills and yellow perch that are also in the pond.

Of course there is also the cost of the fingerlings, labor, and utilities. I get $10.00 a pound for the bass.

[lowaccord66]

Very cool.

[taxid]

Very cool.

Thanks!

It's too bad even with plenty to eat they don't grow as fast as trout. I can get a steelhead to 5 lbs. in two years while it takes 5 to 6 years to do that with a largemouth (it takes longer with wild fish). The feed trained largemouth grow uo to 2 1/2 pounds really fast and then they slow down quite a bit.

[Teacherpreacher]

Really pretty fish !
Teach

[fish/hunt4ever]

Really cool fish glad to see all the ones you grow amd learn the difference between the wild growth and your fish.

[fishinator]

Since you don't sell them for food, can you give them anything to bulk them up? Like some HGH for fish? Guess that would be FGH?

[taxid]

Since you don't sell them for food, can you give them anything to bulk them up? Like some HGH for fish? Guess that would be FGH?

Unlike mammals fish don't respond to hormones or any kind of growth enhancer to increase growth or muscle mass. However with some fish if you add a male hormone to their feed when they are in the early fry state you can produce male only fish, and if you add estrogen you can produce female only fish. This is due the fact that many fish do not become male or female until later in the fry stage. This is why some waters that receive treated wastewater are producing a proponderence of female bass due to estrogen released in female urine into the wastewater from birth control pills.

Many but not all of the tilapia on the market are fed methyl testosterone in the early fry stage to produce all males as males grow faster and larger than the females. It seems concerning, but the MT is long gone once the fish reaches market size. I wanted to produce all male trout because feeding females is a waste of feed as most taxidermists want male trout in full spawning colors. However I needed permission to purchase the methyl testosterone, but the government refused to give me permission even though they are not for the food market.