Forage, forage, forage. Genetics are important...but all the best genetics in the world won't do it, if you don't provide ample forage for the bass in your ponds.

Winter time forage is particularly challenging to generate as many of the warm weather options are not available. To push those bass over the top, I like to use the same rainbow trout that TP&W uses for stockers in their put and take operations around Texas. Crystal Lake Fisheries wholesales those same trout to pond owners at $7 per pound.

Fly fishing for the trout all winter is an added bonus....not to mention the culinary delights of fresh rainbow trout....but the incredible weight benefit to your big bass can be stunning. I don't do it every year, even every other year, but when I observe the bass need a boost, I call on Crystal Lake Fisheries...and they do the job.

$7 per pound? I think I could find a cheaper food.

How many would you need to stock in a 15 acre lake to make a difference?

Hmmm....fatheads or shiners around $11/pound. Tilapia more'n that. Crawfish is cheap, but really, how much is meat and how much is shell?

Bluegill or shad by the pound, don;t wanna think about it.

Now, of course the pond raises a lot of its own food, but that ain't makin' no ten pounder, not likely anyway. Well...maybe Meadowlark's well managed and extra productive ponds...anyhow...

Then you gotta figure in food efficacy. Well, a bass gotta work darn hard to catch enough fatheads, shiners or shad to equal one of them trout. Ya know,

"growth=energy gained by eatin' - (minus) energy expended gettin' the meal"

So here for only $7 pound you get the perfect sized food, no spines to make 'em hard to swaller, an' talk about nutrition, they's loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, high quality protein with lotsa lysine, just about the most dense nutrition you could pack into a fish package. Nutritiously efficient to the point that it takes a lot less of trout to make pound of gain on a bass than jest about anything else. $7 a pound is a bargain.

For several winters we did a ninety acre lake in Brazoria County. We'd take on three loads of about 5000 pounds a load every winter. We'd use what they called "3's" or 3 count per pound (one third pound each on the average), which is what most state waters get as well. In spring we'd do about 10,000 pounds of shiners, a half million or so threadfins, and add around 10,000 pounds of tilapia along with gizzard shad, bluegills, and whatever else I could buy or raise all summer. Maybe that in 15 acres would "fiull 'em up," but with as many fish as I could buy and/or raise, I could never get that 90 acres of bass satiated for more than a few days at a time.

With rainbows, unlike shad, tilapia, bluegills, etc., you really only get the poundage you buy. With the others, you are "seeding" them into the system such that it them produces an abundance of those species internally. Usually with the help of fertilization pellet feeds, weed management, etc. to enhance productivity. That is what Meadowlark does as a part of his successful program.

So, I'd say in fifteen acres to make much difference in the bass growth, you would need 500 to 5000 pounds.

Of note, when stocking large trout (4-6 pounds each) into large water bodies, even at less than 1 fish per acre, we'd recover almost all of them by fishing.

Fishbreeder answered it far better than I could above...but

it would depend on a lot of variables, BrandoA, not the least of which would be how many bass, what size, and what the existing forage base looks like.

In my case, I use them(trout) when I see the forage base begin to fall off some. When the copper nose numbers begin to decline, I like to add trout to take winter time pressure off the 'gills and promote a rebound in their numbers. I realize, of course, trout don't reproduce...but when I have used them in the past, I get a bounce in my copper nose numbers the subsequent seasons and that to me justifies the trout stocking....which if you have purchased copper nose lately, you will understand.

I'd like to get a fish in the share-a-lunker program, just for the heck of it...and am confident these trout will help provide a bass that qualifies...but catching it this winter will be a different story.

You should talk to Donald Harper on this site!! He loves fish management and also enjoys finding small ponds to fish and work on/with the owners to grow bigger bass! Send him a PM if you get a chance!

Thanks. We have an extremely strong forage base of fatheads, Bluegills, and Rednose as well as threadfin shad. We stocked 1000 Camelots/Lonestar Legacy 18 months ago. The ones I have caught are approx 2.5lbs. The forage fish were stocked 3.5 years ago.

1000 sounds good to me for a 15 acre lake....and with your forage, I wouldn't go for trout for another year or probably two, again depending on the status of your forage in the future. The fatheads will be gone and its likely the others will start to show the pressure from those bass as they get larger. The forage tells the story of the pond, in my experience, and I try very hard to listen to it.

As I recall, years ago I used trout in about the 5th year or maybe 6th year of a new pond...and produced a LMB of 11.5 pounds.

Thanks for the advice and information.