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setting up for habitat restoration fingerling stocking faCtors
MLF Fisheries Management Division , MLF anglers , state agencies join forces to enhance local fisheries with largemouth stocks
By Steven Bardin and Gary Klein
One of the most popular conservation efforts supported by national and local angler groups alike is fingerling bass stocking . There ’ s something special about seeing fingerling bass going into your favorite body of water . Stocking is a much-needed enhancement to support recreational opportunities in new fisheries , to help bass populations recover from natural disasters or fish kills , to supplement low spawning seasons or to improve or restore specific genetics .
These circumstances , however , are rare . Most reservoirs contain abundant largemouth bass populations that have high annual spawning success , so the true need for stocking programs is often a subject of debate .
fingerling factors
There are a few obstacles that fisheries managers must overcome before implementing a stocking program .
• First and foremost , fingerling stocking takes a lot of fish ( and therefore money ) to be successful . A program requires eggs to be hatched and fingerlings to be grown , transported from a hatchery and placed into a reservoir . As a result , a single fingerling largemouth from a commercial hatchery can carry a cost between $ 1 and $ 5 . The number of fish needed to be stocked is often determined primarily by the cost , which can quickly consume even the largest budget .
• The number of fish needed to be impactful in the fishery is very high and dependent on an extraordinary number of
Fingerlings can be the life blood of conservation and enhancement efforts for local bass fisheries . factors . One of those factors is initial mortality from being consumed by adult largemouth . Studies have shown that this number can be as high as 50 to 95 % of all fish stocked . This can be somewhat minimized by site selection for release and by stocking a larger size of fish . But stocking larger fingerlings , of course , carries a higher cost and takes pre-planning up to a year in advance with the fish hatchery .
• Another component of how impactful a stocking will be is the number of fish naturally spawned versus how many fish are stocked . Each spawning season , a single female largemouth bass can lay 2,000 to 7,000 eggs per pound of body weight . Even at a survival rate of 1 to 10 %, that adds up quickly . It ’ s practically impossible to stock enough bass fingerlings to completely replace natural spawning ; instead , fisheries managers stock based on the number of fish per surface acre and do it over multiple years . The closer this ratio can get to 10 fish per acre , the more likely that stocked fish will be found in the adult population .
• A final tough question is simply how or why stocked fingerlings might out-perform native fish . This can be looked at from a genetic or an ecological perspective . Ecologically , every fishery has a carrying capacity . Once that capacity is reached , introducing new individuals will not result in improvements until competition is reduced or capacity increases . That could be accomplished via habitat improvement , increase in plankton productivity , increased forage abundance or more participation in selective harvest . A prime example is the Major League Fishing Fisheries Management Division DNA project on Paintsville Lake in Kentucky ( details can be found on the MLF FMD site ). In this project , we helped a local angler group conduct a comprehensive population level genetic study and collect the data needed to determine how genetic diversity was impacting growth . The findings allowed the group to identify and implement numerous measures to improve the fishery .
the texas success story
In some fisheries , using stocking to alter a bass population ’ s genetics by introducing more Florida-strain largemouth can result in improved growth rates or overall size . Doing so requires a highly productive fishery with environmental factors that allow for such genetics to be showcased .
The state agency that has likely put the most time into doing so is the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department ( TPWD ) with the Toyota ShareLunker program . The ShareLunker staff collect DNA from all 13-plus-pound fish , which are used to
10 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2023