I have fished a very small reservoir for five years. This lake is exceptional for trophy size bass. I have averaged one bass over 10 pounds for every five days I fished the lake. I am certain an angler with exceptional skills could get that average down to one every two days of fishing. Unfortunately I don't have time to fish the lake more than about 10 to 15 days a year. This year I was only able to fish it for five days and caught one 10 pound bass as well as a couple over 7 pounds.
The fish are big, but the fishing is slow at this lake. Most days I only get one to three bites from decent size bass a day. There are almost zero bass between 1 pound and 6 pounds. I have caught more 10 pound bass than I have two to four pound bass in the five years I have fished there. I can catch many bass under one pound, but do not fish for them, and if I start catching baby bass of that size I change location, and or tactics.
The reason there are very few mid size bass is the lake is heavily commercial fished for Tilapia. The mesh size of the gill nets used is also very effective at catching mid size bass. The baby bass go through the mesh without getting caught, and once the bass get over 6 pounds there heads no longer fit past the gills in the nets so they don't get caught. There are so many nets, I don't think many bass make it to the larger size. I can only assume enough make it to that 6 pound and up size because of the very high number of baby bass every year. Apparently there are enough to account for successful spawns every year. I have no idea what percentage of the bass the nets account for, but I would bet it is way more than would end up in the frying pan, if an average number of sport anglers were keeping 5 bass limits.
I let the large bass go, not only to hopefully help the population in general, but in hopes that I can catch the same trophy bass again some day. I'm sure that even though I have been successful, there are really not many of these monsters swimming in the lake. My success has been more do the fact the lake is small, bass have not seen many lures, and are not nearly as educated as big bass are in most lakes. In other words, my success is due to the bass being stupid, not because of my angling skill. In the past years I would have to believe most of the bass in this lake never would see a lure in their entire life.
The last couple years a lodge owner from another lake has discovered my secret lake, and has been taking clients there every week. I have noticed a big change in the numbers of fish I catch, and don't think the population has changed, the fish have just adjusted to the added pressure. I have found I am not near the angler I thought I was when forced to fish for more highly educated bass.
I talked to the lodge owner and he is disappointed in the fishing. While his clients have landed some very large bass, most are not happy with fishing all day for a couple of bites. He wants to make a deal with the commercial fisherman to back off on the netting in order to have more bass for his clients to catch. He is willing to compensate them for the lost revenue, in order for them to help improve the bass numbers. He wants his clients to be able to catch a dozen or so 2 to 4 pound bass a day as well as have a chance at a DD bass.
I tried to explain to him that this was most likely impossible. The bass in this lake were huge because of the heavy commercial fishing, not in spite of it. I told him the best thing he could do is back off on the number of clients he takes and keep the commercial fishing the same. The lake his lodge is on is known for great numbers of bass, so why not leave this lake the way it is and only take a few clients that are willing to put in the work for a bass of a life time to this trophy destination. I may be wrong, but I don't see how a lake can produce on average this many DD bass, and also have a large population of mid size bass.
This lake has never had any official management for bass. The number of commercial tilapia fisherman are limited, but there are more than enough gill nets to catch most of the tilapia as well as the bass. The management for bass has been a complete accident, but I don't think it could be managed any better. As far as a trophy bass fishing lake goes, I don't think it would be possible to make the lake any better, and I hope the lodge owner doesn't end up over managing a lake that is already perfectly managed. I only wish I had found out about it, a few years back when no body fished there. I got in on the tail end of the good days, but at least I was able to take advantage of the fishery when I did.
I am not a fisheries biologist, and don't recommend over netting a lake to remove bass in public waters that are heavily sport fished, but I have witnessed that taking out a large portion of the mid sized bass in an underfished lake can result in fantastic fishing for large bass.
I have always believed in catch and release, but I do realize there are times when keeping bass is the best thing an angler can do for the fishery.
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