California/Florida/Georgia bass...

[FivePoundBluegill]

Just wondering what is so great about the bass liveing in California ,Florida, Georgia that makes them grow so big. Yes I know the southern strain bass grow much larger than the northern strain bass but I hear everyone saying that in these three states even the southern strain of bass get larger than the the southern strain bass in other states. Why is it like this. Just wondering. Also I live in california and have still never been able to catch a double didgit bass. Maybe its because I usually just fish my two small local lakes and dont go to larger lakes enough.

[eastkybass]

It has to do with the growing season.  Since there isn't as severe of winter in places like Florida, Cali, Texas, and Mexico you don't have the slow down in the winter months.  Fish are a cold blooded creature so there metabolism is like a snakes they can't regulate it themself so they have to rely on outside influences to control it.  So if the body isn't burning calories they aren't going to eat and so then they are not going to grow.

[Gatorbassman]

Putting the Florida/Northern Strain factor aside, there are several factors that cause these lakes to grow larger bass. The warmer climate has everything to do with it. The lakes rarely if ever get below 40 degrees. This allows shad and other fragile bait fish to live and thrive in these waters. The more food the faster and bigger the fish grow. The other thing is the length of the growing or feeding season. Some of these lakes get above 60 degrees as early as January and stay warm till late November. This causes the bass's metabolism to stay high for longer and therefore the bass are able to eat heavy for most of the year. In California it has a lot to do with the trout. Trout are fast growing packages of high protean with fins. They are stocked often in the popular lakes and the bass love them. The only problem with the trout is they don't live long in warmer water.

[Raul]

1.- Genetics: Florida strain grows larger than northern strain

2.- Environment: like warm water ( which means larger growing season and less loss of food sources ), Florida doesn 't have a chance to grow fish to mammoth size frequently because there are several environmental causes that put the odds against it, predators like gators and water turkeys, pelicans, and very important, loss of habitat due to human activities. Mexico has very little predators like gators, there are gators but their geographical distribution is very limited, lakes where there are gators like Aguamilpa don 't produce mammoth size fish frequently.

3.- Food: not only the nutritional value but the abundance, Cali, lots of hatchery raised trout dumped into the lakes frequently, Mexico, lots of Tilapia which spawn 2-3 or even 4 times depending on the height above sea level. Texas, panfish, lots of panfish.

[.dsaavedra.]

i think this would be relevant but if not ill make a new thread about it:

what makes a florida strain and a northeren strain??? how come they are different and why are they different!?!?!?! are they totally different species? could you tell a difference just from looking at them (excluding the size)?

[Raul]

i think this would be relevant but if not ill make a new thread about it:

what makes a florida strain and a northeren strain??? how come they are different and why are they different!?!?!?! are they totally different species? could you tell a difference just from looking at them (excluding the size)?

Physiological adaptation to the environment.

EX: People living in high altitudes like the sherpas in the Himalayas and the Peruvian, Bolivian and Chilenan native americans of the Andes have anatomical and physiological characteristics that belong to them after thousands of years of living in high altitudes, these characteristics are not found in people from other places; they are shorter, have wider thorax, higher red blood cell count and higher content of hemoglobin in the red blood cells, all this because they adapted to low oxygen levels and colder temperatures.

Not enough differences to make them a separate species.

You can 't tell the difference between them unless you count the scales along the lateral line, FB have 70-72 scales, northern strain have 65-67 scales.