How long does it take them to get to SAL size? just curious on how old some of these big girls are that are caught across Texas.....

Lots and lots of different factors
Genetics
Climate
Forage quantity
Forage quality (protein)
Water fertility/zooplankton health
Competition/predation
Water Clarity
Luck

In general, a healthy LMB can gain a pound a year it's first six years, then half a pound a year after that. Males tend to top out at around 7lbs. As a bass gets bigger and bigger, and older, it has to continue to improve it's eating efficiency and limit energy expenditures to pack on the pounds.

I'd say at Lake Texoma's climate (imagining no competition from stripers) a bass could grow to SAL size in about 20 years (there has never been a SAL from Lake Texoma)
In a climate like at Lake Falcon, under ideal conditions, a bass could grow to SAL size in about 10 years.
I've heard of DD size bass in Mexico that are only seven years old.

Under exceptional circumstances, the LMB growth rates can rapidly increase:
Example--Initial introduction of pure Florida strain bass into a lake with lots of forage and cover and few predators

Takes ten pounds of forage for a bass to gain one pound of body weight. That is the single most important factor...is there enough food to allow maximum potential to be reached?

Most sals are 8-11 years old if i was to guess. A 20 year old bass? I doubt it

Wow, thanks for the information. Really makes you think about the time it takes for a 10lb bass to get there and the odds that fish had to beat!

Why I support Catch/Release 100%

The youngest SL recorded and aged by TWPD was an eight year old that weighed about 13.5 pounds. It was caught and died during a BASS event here on Falcon Lake in 2008..

That was during an extremely good extended period of great conditions that is extremely rare. .

I would think that most SL fish are at least 10 years old..

I know when caney lake in ne La was officially full in 1989 it started producing 13-15lbers in 93-94 I think the Ldwf may have put some florida strain up to 1 pounders in the lake maybe during when it was filling up starting in 1986 as there were no brood ponds there before where they stocked them prior to 1986. not sure how long it takes for a florida strain to grow to 1# but when full in 1989 it only took 4-5 yrs to start producing 13+lbers. Know this cause I dug up some old pictures from browns landing only marina on the lake where they had a monthly board of all the big fish that they weighed in. They kept this board for years later.

lots of thoughts on this depending on which biologist you talk too and what articles you read...

general "knowledge" is 1 lb per year

I call bs on bigger fish growing SLOWER... they eat bigger bait, they are more efficient. If anything I think they could grow faster...

spawn does effect older fish but still.

Given perfect conditions, Bait size perfect for the full range of growth, water quality perfect, and mild winters I think they could probably grow a lot faster. Think cattle in a feed lot, I'd bet an almost humorous growth rate is POSSIBLE. BUT really hard to get these conditions even in stocked ponds due to mother nature having all the cards.

PS- there has been some MAJOR questioning of our ability to accurately age fish. The method most used where they look at the bone has been called into question. SOOO what we thought we knew, might not be what we thought...Somebody was posting about that not long ago, maybe it was on tbh I'll have to check...

Here is an older article that had some interesting info about it.
www.bassmaster.com big-old-bass

I fish a 100 acre PWF lake that is full of 4 y/o bass out in Mt. Pleasant. The lake was drained in 2010 and then restocked a year later. Supposedly the lake record is 9 lbs but I didn't witness it. I've caught seven and a half pounders and an acquaintance of mine caught an 8. These are Florida strain bass and the people that stock it have spared no expense. There is plenty of forage (shad, bluegill, etc) and no other predators (crappie, catfish, etc).

These bass appear to be growing two pounds a year and surely that will slow down.

Good stuff here,

Now if it takes a year to gain a pound, when would a female be old/big enough to start spawning? Most of the spawners I have caught have been at least 2.5lb or bigger. Is that normal and if so, do they set the slot on lakes to keep these fish safe from being taking away from the fishery?

I am relatively new to fishing tournaments and every tournament I have fished is a catch and release event which I support. Yet others may take the big ones away from the fishery. I know that�s their right as long as they are licensed and the fish is within the limit and slot but morally is it the right thing to do. Is this a resource that can be sustained when this takes place too often? Just thinking out loud and gauging how most of you feel about this. I have seen numerous �trolling� arguments about this and that is not what I�m after. Just an honest consensus from TFF navy.

Sometimes one year old females less than half a pound can spawn.

A better question than "average" growth rate" would be "maximum" potential growth rate.

Generally speaking the limiting factors include habitat (environment and water quality), amount quality and availability of food, and a few other things like fishing pressure and disturbances.

In an experiment in a 90 acre private impoundment with good water quality and clarity, a controlled habitat and a feeding program we were unable to fully satiate the bass population for more than a few days at a time. To wit....

In summer once a week we seined one of eight one acre hatchery ponds producing koi, tilapia, shad, sunfish and other forages most of the time about 500 to well over 2000 pounds a week. Also once a week we received a 900 pound delivery of live/fresh dead gizzard shad from a catfish farm nearby. The lake also received several large loads of 1000 pounds of crawfish when they were available in late spring.

In winter we'd alternate between loads of golden shiners, goldfish and rainbow trout. Usually 2000 pounds per load. We'd buy whatever was cheap. Once we got a load of goldfish that looked like baseballs, they were round balls, they couldn't do anything but wiggle, the bass gorged on them things. Rainbow trout would be three to the pound, same as the state uses to stock urban ponds, we'd get about five loads of 2000 pound a load each winter. We'd get about five loads of shiners and maybe two or three loads of goldfish or green sunfish (slick perch).

In 90 acres we'd feed about 50 or 60 TONS of live bait in a year. At any given time you'd be hard pressed to figure out what was going on if you electrofished and did not know the story.....all huge bass and nothing for them to eat.

It WAS indeed a very good place to fish for big bass.

I know of a 50 acre lake that gets about $700,000 worth of shiners and bluegills a year put in it, the bass eat 'em all.

So bass can eat a lot. Trying to keep them full is almost impossible, so maximum growths are difficult to figure.

I've seen as much as five pounds of growth in one year. From a yearling of around two pounds to nearly eight pounds in one year of sustained growth.

I've seen in some well prepared lakes, fingerlings stocked at less than 2" grow to (some individuals) as large as four pounds in the first year.

But to answer the question, average growth of maybe two inches and perhaps a pound or so a year is not bad. In a lot of lakes, especially smaller private ones, they may be not growing at all. Some twelve inchers may be ten or more years old.

Good info Fishbreeder.

When Mark Stevenson caught Ethel from Fork she went 17.67 pounds and was figured to be ten years old.

It is a scientifically proven fact that bass grow at the most rapid rate from the Saturday they are caught to the Monday when the angler gets back to work and starts telling about it!!

I've seen them gain four pounds in that 48 hour period.

True Dat'

There are management strategies that need to be considered. I don't eat fish, so I don't harvest. But, thinning the herd is needed to allow for full potential growth. Imagine a big girl who successfully conserves her energy having to compete against a ton of smaller fish.... There is a careful balance of taking some smaller fish to keep the big growth potential. They practice it in crappie fishing on fork with the 'must take' periods.

It is the same as planting for a harvest, one has to remove some of the seedlings.