M_S_2015_04_

http://www.MS-Sportsman.com April 2015 | Mississippi Sportsman 65

These effects are clear, but they are effects on individual nests.

Many management biologists have countered that healthy

bass populations have many spawning bass, so success or fail-

ure of an individual nest — or even a bunch of individual nests

— might mean little at the level of the entire population.

Although the persistence of bass populations despite heavy bed

fishing on some lakes suggests bed fishing is not an issue, the

effects of bed fishing on bass populations has not been measured.

A recently completed study in Florida takes managers a

step closer to understanding the effect of bed fishing on bass

recruitment.

A team of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

biologists headed up by Nick Trippel evaluated the effect of

controlled bed fishing on Florida bass in one-acre ponds at

Richloam Fish Hatchery in Central Florida.

Ten male and 10 female Florida largemouth bass bearing eas-

ily readable numbered disk tags were stocked into each of nine

research ponds. Brush and cinder blocks were added for cover.

The ponds were stocked with bluegill, Seminole killifish and

mosquitofish to provide forage for the adult bass and their off-

spring, and to replicate the presence of potential nest predators.

Nests were located and monitored every other day throughout

the spawning season by snorkel-diver surveys to identify the

guarding male and record the approximate size of the brood

(number of eggs), health of eggs and presence of nest predators

like sunfish or crayfish.

Nests were judged as successful if they produced swim-up fry.

In 2013 and 2014, anglers attempted to catch the bedding bass

from the marked nest in five ponds; no angling occurred in the

other four ponds.

Bass caught from the beds were held for one hour in a net

enclosure and then released.

Spawning began in February and continued through May. This

protracted spawning season is typical of Florida bass fisheries.

Across both years, 91 nests were fished in the five ponds, and

bass were caught off 44 of them. Of the 44 nests from which

bass were caught, 21 were successful (produced fry) and 23

were unsuccessful. Across both years and all ponds, 41 percent

of the nests produced bass fry in the fished ponds, and 54 per-

cent of the nests produced fry in the unfished ponds.

While there were only small differences in nest success,

recruitment — the number of young bass at the end of summer

— was the measure of interest. So the ponds were drained in

the fall, and young bass counted.

The unfished ponds produced an average of 820 young bass,

and the fished ponds produced an average of 518 bass.

The higher number of fish in the unfished ponds was largely

a result of collecting almost 3,500 young bass in one unfished

pond. Because of the high variability, the difference in young

bass per pond between fished and unfished was not statisti-

cally significant.

Certainly questions still remain, namely whether these rela-

tively small and simple systems are good indicators of what

happens in larger lakes with more complex habitat and fish

communities or for bass populations at the northern edge of

their range.

But the management implications are clear: Florida fisheries

managers see no need for closed spawning seasons or closed

spawning areas in Florida. These results probably apply to

other Southern largemouth bass fisheries. ■

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