fish per acre?

[wagn]

Out of curiousity, how many fish per acre, some other measurement, is average in a lake. For example I fish a lake 139 acres large and with a max of 15 foot deep. how many bass are probably in this pond?

I know that there are many enviromental factors, but just trying to get a rough estimate.

Just wondering how much of the fish population is caught over and over again, or are there just more bass in the water then i would ever expect

[roadwarrior]

Man, maybe George Welcome will see this and correct my reply.

As I recall from one of his posts, an "average" on a fertile lake was

something like 300-400 lbs, but Stick Marsh/ Farm 13 is 800 lbs!

8-)

[LCpointerKILLA]

that is way more that I would have guessed

[JShrock07]

Well d**n if RW is right I must not be a very good fisherman... hahaha ;D

[FD.]

I read somewhere, maybe the FWC website, that the stickmarsh/farm 13 had a total fish biomass of 800 lbs per acre with bass making up 30-35 % of that.

[George Welcome]

RW"s number are not far off based on an estimate of fish per acre for extremely good lakes. However you asked two question: fish per acre and bass per acre. Fish per acre includes all species inhabiting a given body of water, and bass per acre will be a portion of that.

Every body of water is different, and they can be grossly so. Without multiple samples over time it would be impossible to even hazard a guess as to populations. Also, a particular species can grossly outweigh all others. As an example, a pond may hold 100 pounds of fish per acre with the predominate species being the many varieties of sun fish. Believe it or not, this smaller cousin of bass will win the battle for forage over bass if the numbers are there. Whatever species inhabit your lake, more than likely the lowest per-centage will be the bass population.

There are many publications on ideal populations per acre from farm ponds to larger bodies of water and these tables are used in stocking policy.The one common thread in any body of water is less bass per acre than any of the other species.

Going back to RW"s comment: Stick Marsh/Farm 13 in Florida is sporting an estimated 800 pounds of fish per acre with an estimate of 30% of that being LM bass.

Contact your local fish and game: they might be able to give you a pretty good estimate for your area.

[wagn]

Thanks everyone. That's all the info I needed. i wasn't really looking for specifics, just a real general idea. More just to solve my curiousity then anything else.

Since the small pond i fih can average many 20 fish days, even if they aren't all huge, i always wondered how many fish look at my bait and just turn away or ignore it, and the answer is a whole lot more then i realized.

Good info as always. Thanks peeps

[Catt]

As per a recent samplings Toledo Bend has an average of 750-850 lbs of game fish per acre of that 32% is LMB; the problem is the majority is on the main lake which gets less pressure due to winds keeping most anglers off the lake. The samplings also showed Toledo Bend to have an higher average of bass over 10 lbs per acre than Fork but again these fish are not being caught since most anglers are not targeting bigger bass.