How many fingerlings and young adult SAL were put into Bois D'arc?

You are missing the whole point of the SAL program. The program is designed to spread those Fla genes to other lakes that would otherwise never have them or would be diluted over the years. That's why they plant the SAL fingerlings all over the state ecah year.

I agree the fish would most likely grow larger if left alone in its home lake but what folks fail to understand is how many lakes have benefited from the SAL program.

If you have ever caught a bass over 8# from a public lake it was most likely due to the SAL program boosting the genes of the fish in that lake to allow you to enjoy the big bass you caught. Double digit bass do not normally occur in Texas with native fish.

While it might be a good marketing plan and conceptually it makes sense, the data doesn’t seem to justify it. You want bigger bass, give them more food. The “new lake” phenomenon plus standard Florida genetics is probably responsible for far more SALs than the SAL program. Is anyone aware of TPWD taking a couple of fishless stock ponds, putting 100 SAL fry in one, 100 standard Floridas in the other, feeding them identical diets for 5 years and seeing what the condition of fish are at the end? My suspicion is whatever benefit the SALs provide is small, and resources devoted to increasing calories of forage per acre would have more impact.

Fellas Fellas . . . drink the cool-aid.
Covid will kill us all and SAL program is wonderfull!!

Besides, when we ask "where do the millions of dollars collected from boat registrations and fishing licenses go?"
TPWD can say "Well SAL program of course!!"

"Just quiet down and keep fishing, we've got weeds to poison."

That would be an awesome study!

Thanks Ken, making plans for trips there in 2027-2030 lol

I read a couple of times that a Florida Strain Bass grows about 1 pound a year average and live to approx 15 years old. So these SAL off spring stocked these years could possibly live until 2025 or 2026. So say one of these 15 pounders can live another 4 years or so and gain a pound or more a year.........you do the math. I think there is a real chance a state record will be broken in the next couple of years there. I know Ben Milliken on Bass Talk Live a few weeks ago stated he thinks he has seen 6 or 7 bass in the category of20 pounds on his livescope in the last year. Like him or hate him he's done and showed enough in the last couple of years that its hard to totally dismiss those claims.

I'd like to see a more fingerling stocking myself, it just makes sense. I did a lot of research on this issue while I was out of the bass fishing circle and one of the things I come across was fry stocking generally yields only about 2% or less of actual bass reaching maturity because they can be consumed by almost every fish in the body of water they were stocked. Fingerlings on the other hand have a much higher survival rate. I can't remember the numbers but much better.
As McComb's pointed out as well diet is obviously going to make a difference as well. I don't know what TP&W's stance is at the moment but a few years ago they were pushing for folks to remove legal under slot fish on Fork to increase the forage available to the larger fish to create more trophy fish.

Remember years back when I was really on Sharelunkers [censored]? And I asked for specifically this? This study has been undertaken.. Plan was for a four year study comparing Pure Floridas to SL fish to compare growth rates.

Well we still haven't seen the results of this experiment.. I think I know why..

Have made a request with PAW for results..

Didn't they do this already? Operation World Record. They stocked about 6 small lakes with Florida's, SAL's and the years down the road when they take surveys they find out the genetics of each fish and the compare growth rates between native fish, Florida fish and SAL fish.

They did a study/comparison of native bass and SAL bass.. And no doubt the Florida SL bass grew faster..

No surprise there..

In many animal and plant species the first generation (F1 crosses) display hybrid vigor; growing faster and bigger than either pure parent. However, this hybridization size benefit disappears with the next and subsequent generations.

Tyler’s video showed a picture of a SAL lineage on the wall at the Athens center. Showed a bunch of offspring off of one fish.

Prolly underthinking this but it appears(unarguably to me) that the states stocking of Florida strain bass in Texas was and is a HUGE success. The SAL program? Maybe not so much?