"spottie" - a big, fat management success story

[paul.]

for those who don't remember, i've said for a long time that i'm the poster child for "if THAT guy can catch big fish, anybody can!" now you may also say of me, "if THAT guy can grow big fish, anybody can!" i'm gonna show y'all something. i finally got serious about bass management last year. that's when i caught a long, skinny bass that i now call "spottie" (because of a black spot on her bottom jaw eerily similar to the famous "dottie"). it bothered me that she and other fish in this particular lake were not living up to their full potential. i got permission from the landowner to try and "manage" his water for trophy fish. studying some info from bob lusk and other sources, and applying a little common sense, i went to work. i could tell you how difficult, expensive, and time consuming it has been. but that would be a flat out lie. anyone can do this. you don't have to be rich. you don't have to spend hours a week. you don't have to be a fisheries biologist. you don't even have to own a pond or lake. if anything, i will say that i am utterly shocked at how quickly success has come for me. look at spottie's "before" picture taken less than a year ago. at barely over 7.5 pounds, she was obviously malnourished and living a hard life. fast forward to today and prepare to be amazed by the power of small water bass management. i will confess that i did not weigh her. the spawn is nearing and i wanted to get her back in asap. but ladies and gentlemen, this fish weighs 10 pounds if it weighs an ounce, and honestly i think she weighs more considering how "thick" she was. she will get even bigger than this with warm weather coming up feeding for the spawn. and as proud as i am of spottie, i must confess that she is a regular old northern strain "mutt bass" without any type of fancy genetic pedigree. doing the math, that's a gain of about 2.5 pounds in less than a year. and this is tennessee, not south texas. and this is not the only sucess story by any means. i could show you others that pound for pound and according to their age have vastly "outgrown" this one. those would just make ya sick though. hopefully, this will inspire some of you who have been thinking about this management stuff to give it a try. thanks to gene and ryan for convincing me to post this. if not for the awesome stuff they've put up about richmond mill, y'all woulda probably never seen this. now i'm gonna go ahead and tell ya that i ain't givin' up any secrets. if i did, that would discourage you from reading and studying and finding your own path. and then you would only be able to do as good as i have. and i want you to be able to do better. good luck!

[Paul Roberts]

Hey Paul, glad to have you back. 

[CJ]

WOW! Bud, she looks good! 10 lbs. easy.

[Mattlures]

Good job Paul the recipe for growing big bass is not complicated. Keep the small fish, let the big ones go. Soo many people cry about bed fishing well thats the best time to keep them especialy in a small body of water. you will never catch all the males but if you keep some durring the spawn you are helping alot. First you imediatly remove fish that can never grow big. Second you keep the population from outgrowing the food source.

lots of food, small populatoin of predators (mostly female bass)=trophy bass. pretty simple.

of cource in northern states or lakes where they have a small population of bass they should all be released. But in most southern states bass can out grow their availible food and should be harvested.

Dont know if your doing the same thing but what you are doing is obviously working. Good job!!!

[paul.]

you are so right matt!  the spawn is the one chance you have to identify the male bass.  i like to keep a few big males in to hopefully enhance the genetic pool.  but the dink males have to go.  and i only care about a few fish spawning.  the more i can interrupt, the less small fish i'll have to worry about practicing "selective harvest" on later.  as a manager, it is so important to be able to accurately diagnose which fish have the most trophy potential.  and believe it or not the best way to do this in my book is to be able to to see the big picture.  you have to look beyond the obvious.  in considering which fish need to stay and which fish need to go, i rarely consider the actual size of the fish, unless of course it's one that's already grown to be large.  but rather what i consider is the apparent overall health of the fish in question and it's apparent growth rate - i.e. how fast it seems to be growing.  it is hard to get rid of 3, 4, and even 5 pound fish.  but if those fish cannot show me consistent growth over an adequate trial period, they have to go.  in short, i'll keep what appears to be a young, super healthy, fast growing 2 pounder over an average looking 4 pounder.  in order to get very big, fish have to be able to make the most of every growing season available to them.   and they do most of their growing by far when they are younger.  to illustrate, we'll use the fish above.  yes, she's a beauty.  yes, i've been able to reverse her fortune dramatically with some decent management.  but the truth is, judging from her "before" picture, her best growth years were at least partially, if not mostly wasted.  had she been able to live up to her potential, i have no doubt that she would be a teener right now.   i have some fish coming up behind her that if everything goes according to plan, might weigh at least a pound more than she does now when they are a year younger.  we'll keep our fingers crossed.   i'm still very new to this and very green at this management stuff.  who knows what i'll learn in another year? :-?

[Bassn Blvd]

What a giant, Paul.  You never cease to amaze me with the hawgs you catch. 

Not to discredit anything you spoke about, but is it possible when you caught her last year it was post spawn?  If it was post-spawn, would that account why she was long and thinner than she is now at pre-spawn?

[paul.]

bb, you have a good point buddy.   this fish was actually caught off a bed for the before picture.  but it was late in the spawn and she'd already been to bed a couple of times that year.  being that she appeared to be one of the biggest bass in that particular water, i had observed her from the time she first "moved up" a month or so earlier.  i even caught her the first time she went to bed, and she was only a shade over 8 then in prime condition.  at least it was what was "prime condition" for her back then.   i could tell by looking at her (and the other fish too), that they could carry substantially more weight than what they were packing.  it was obvious that some drastic measures had to be taken if those fish were ever gonna grow.    hopefully, now i'm on the right track.  i have some realistic hopes that she will get to 11 or better before the spawn this year.  even looking as good as she did for today's pic, she was still soft-bellied, so i think she could easily carry another pound.  but yes, you are right, and very observant.  the before pic probably represents pretty close to "worse case scenario" for her.  but on the flip side, i don't think the after pic is even close to "best case scenario"

[Bassn Blvd]

Thanks for answering my question.  It seems you're on the right track to cultivating some real monsters. She sure is a beauty. Perhaps Lil' Em can sink a hook or two into her next time

[fishinfiend]

That's another dandy, Paul. 

[roadwarrior]

Nice fish, GREAT story!

8-)

[Dr Pigg]

great story and great fish.  I have a similar lake--I will  buy small  Tilapia for feed in April---what do you think? anything better? We've managed size for a while.  I think we've made a difference, just don't have it documented with photos(and I'm sick I don't)

Great job Paul

[EastTexasBassin]

My friends and I noticed about 4 years ago that the big bass in our pond didn't seem to be getting any bigger.  We harvested some fish in the 1 to 2 pound range and noticed a big difference the following year.  Before, we were only catching bass up to 5 pounds but this past year we caught several 7's and 8's and one 10 plus!

Forage is key, we also introduced a couple new forage species that have flourished.  We're catching fish that are long and fat now.

[T-rig]

Great story Paul, thanks for sharing!  8-)

[UrbanRedneck]

Ive got a quick question.  How are you judging apparent growth rate?  And you talk about age so how are you judging/determining age?  Just wondering if you have come up with some sort of year specific/fish specific fin clipping scheme.

[Mrs. Matstone]

Great story and fish Paul. Keep up the great work.