Overcrowding Common Problem in Bass Lakes
By DAVID RAINER
When Arlie Fortner took over the management of quail operations and fishing lakes at Old Spring Hill Plantation in Barbour County almost four years ago, he realized quickly the main 85-acre lake needed to be put on intensive care.
Catching bass wasn’t the problem. It was the size of those bass that indicated the need for significant action.
 “When we got the lake, you were going to catch plenty of 14-inch fish but no big ones,” Fortner said. “There was no available bait – no mosquito minnows. You couldn’t see any small bream around. It was so overpopulated by bass that anything that moved was being eaten. Unless you were a mature bream, you were in trouble in that lake. If you were a bream, thousands of bass were wanting you for dinner.”
After having an electroshocking survey done, the results showed a significant overpopulation of bass with an imbalance in the size of the fish, as well.
“The first thing we did was put in 30,000 threadfin shad,” said Fortner, who teams up with plantation manager Phil Anderson on the management decisions. “What that did, it gave the bass an alternate source of food without eating every little minnow or bream that was hatched. It gave bass something else to concentrate on. Shad spawn every 28-30 days, so you’ve got new ones coming on all the time.
“This allowed the small bream to grow and it brought the mosquito minnows back. We ended up with mosquito minnows against the bank that the smaller bream and bass could eat. The regular-sized bass were gorging on the shad.”
The second step involved significantly thinning the bass population.
“The first year we took 2,000 bass out and the second year we took 1,500 out and then 1,000,” Fortner said. “Now we are able to maintain with 800 bass from 13 to14 inches being taken out of the lake. After we started, we didn’t catch a single big fish that first year. The second year we had a couple. In our third year, we started catching 8-, 9-, 10-pounders.
“Now instead of catching 100 to 120 fish with no size, we’re catching 60-70 fish with the average of 2½ pounds and having 3- to 10-pounders in the mix. Just about every time I’ve been out with customers this year, they’ve have had a chance to catch a 9-pounder or better. Hook-ups on those fish are getting more frequent. They all go back into the lake. That allows that big sow to continue to put her offspring in the lake. We’ve already caught a dozen fish over 10 pounds this year.”
With the forage pressure shifted to the shad, the bream have also made a comeback to the point to where they now need management.
“Our bream are back so strong, we’re taking some out now,” Fortner said. “We take 600-700 males out each year. We return the females to spawn. Plus, we feed them twice a day. That keeps them fat and happy. The bass are also aware of it. It’s not uncommon to see a 10-pound bass come up and pick off a bream or two during the feeding.”
Fortner said lake owners need to get a fisheries biologist to check the lake to ensure the management plan is working.
“The biggest mistake people make is they build a lake and it’s their baby,” he said. “They don’t take any fish out. To have a thriving lake, you’ve got to take a certain number of bass and bream out of the lake. It has to be managed aggressively.”
Ken Weathers, District VI supervising fisheries biologist for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, agrees wholeheartedly with Fortner’s last statement.
“If you don’t harvest bass, the lake will get crowded with 1½-pound bass,” said Weathers, who is based in Enterprise. “We do pond checks in June and September each year, about 200 ponds a year. For 75 percent of them, the problem is not taking out enough bass.
“You need to take 25 pounds of bass per acre per year to keep the bass from getting crowded. Go to 30 pounds per acre if you’re going for bigger bass.”
The basic recommendation of the Conservation Department fisheries biologists is to stock the lake or pond with bream, both bluegills and shellcrackers (redear), for forage and add enough bass as the predator species to keep the bream population in check.
Weathers said the addition of threadfin shad should be done carefully and is probably counterproductive on smaller bodies of water.
“When you throw in threadfin shad, they are filter feeders and can out-compete the bream for food,” he said. “When you have a good plankton bloom, shad are sucking out the plankton and small invertebrates that bream eat. Shad are notorious about spawning early in the spring, so the fry are not available for bass fingerlings. That is the reason you don’t get much bass recruitment with just shad. You have to have bream, as well. When the water temperature gets to 75, the bluegills and shellcrackers will start spawning and their fry will give the small bass something to feed on.”
 Weathers said the only shad the department recommends is the threadfin because the gizzard shad grows too fast for the bass to utilize. And threadfins are better suited for the larger lakes.
“With threadfin shad, the maximum size is 7-8 inches long,” Weathers said. “That’s fine for forage. If you’ve already got a bass-crowded pond smaller than 10 acres, shad will just be expensive forage. If you’ve got a bigger lake, you can knock the bass population back and then put threadfin in there and get them established. Everybody I know who has put them in there is catching 5- and 6-pound bass.
“If you’re going to make a commitment to threadfins, you’ve got to be committed to a fertilizer program. You’ve got to get that algae bloom. To do well, you’ve got to keep that pond green during the warm months.”
If you’re looking for trophy-sized bass, it takes more than shad, according to Weathers.
“For a bass to get 8-10 pounds, they’ve got to have big bream to eat,” he said. “They need to eat something a third of its length to grow that big. They can eat shad more efficiently, but to really grow out the bass, you’ve got to have something more than shad. Usually the lakes with big bass have good bream populations, as well as golden shiners. For those situations, it’s best to have feeders on the pier to keep the bream healthy.
“For smaller lakes, five acres and smaller, you can put some golden shiners in and have big bass. Shiners are not as bad to take over like threadfins. The shiners are a good shape for the bass to eat and if you can get shiners established, you can grow some nice bass.”
Yet, lake owners still have to have fish fries on a regular basis.
“You still need to harvest bass,” Weathers said. “Anything less than 16 inches, take them out when you catch them. If you catch 3- to 4-pounders throw them back and they will make the bigger ones. But, if you don’t take but 12-15 pounds per acre per year, you’re going to end up with stunted bass.”
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Photo ID:
Top: Arlie Fortner unhooks a chunky largemouth bass that hit a lipless crankbait at Old Spring Hill Plantation's 85-acre lake.
Bottom: Mike Kopf of Birmingham had a lunker day recently at Old Spring Hill Plantation with bass that weighed 9 3/4 and 7 1/2 pounds.
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