Ya those 12-14lbers didn't grow there. They dumped some big adults in there. There was a 10lber caught when the lake opened

Same with Fork. I started fishing there in '81 out of a Water Spider when the lake was still 12' below normal pool. The lake finished filling and opened in '83. Mark caught the SR 17.67 in Nov 1986.

Yep, if you go back and look at all SAL's caught from Lake Fork, you will see that the early flood of teenagers were mostly those brood fish. TPWD said St. Clair's fish was probably either from an early Florida fingerlings stocking, or the offspring of one of those original fish.

Min 5-6 years in private waters with excellent genetics, habitat, forage, and warmer climate. Typically in public waters in warmer climates is 8-10 years. Cooler climates would be 10+ years.

Might be

I didn't know it was a cross between the two, so maybe our fish will get a little bigger!

F1's have been shown to grow quite quickly. Good luck!

Here's the good news: Those fish will have a lot of potential to reach 10lbs and they will be a lot more catchable than pure flordia strain bass. Here's the bad news: Northern strain genetics are dominate in F1 integrates, so overtime you'll have less and less top end size potential as the Florida strain genetics start to slowly disappear from the gene pool. That'll take a while though, so you'll have many years of DD potential ahead of you.

I'm going to get on the Camelot Bell management program! Ken A has also volunteered his services in helping me with this great endeavor. I will give these fish 1 more year to grow then I will start removing everything under 6 lbs. We have two other ponds, one is about 3 acres and the other about 6 acres, so I can relocate the bass. Oh, and I probably owe Fouzman a trip since he so graciously help me take a trip to Camelot Bell a few years back!

Justin several SAL fish over the years have been F1 out of Fork... they just put them back without going through the spawning process with them....seems like I remember at least one that was 15+

This northern strain guy gets teased hearing all these teener bass episodes lol. I once was planning to get a couple F1's shipped up here for one of my ponds but was advised not to with the ponds freezing over.