Stocking Largemouth

[Tanker]

This may be a dumb question, but it’s one I’ve never really received a good answer for. Why doesn’t the state stock more largemouth vs trout in some places.

The example I am thinking of is the small lake I went to growing up to fish for stocked trout.. Lake Irena in Hazleton. The lake does not support reproducing trout and it holds few holdovers to my knowledge. Yet, they continue to dump stocked trout in there to make it a put and take fishery. I always though bass stocking bass there would be much more fruitful and fun for year round fishing. We always went there for a few weeks after opening day and then gave up after several unproductive outings. Perhaps this specific lake has conditions that don’t make it an ideal bass fishery, but you get the point. Wouldn’t stocking more bass lead to more prolonged and productive fishing at places such as this? Such spots are where most people learn to fish and catching more fish will lead to more people out there enjoying the sport. There is probably an obvious answer but would love to hear some thoughts.

 

[jifigz]

Okay, this is actually pretty easy to answer. I had never heard of Lake Irena but I looked up the 2019 trout stocking schedule and the historical WW stockings for the last 19 years. Lake Irena has not received any WW/CW stockings since the year 2000. It was supposed to receive 4 stockings of brook trout this year, the last of which is on October 23. With the colder temperatures that fall us providing these fish should last and survive the winter and provide trout opportunities from now until next summer and even through the ice if all goes well. It is just what you said it is, a "put and take" fishery. People like to catch trout and PA has a long heritage of trout fishing.

If you check the WW/CW stockings it is mostly fish that have a harder time reproducing in PA such as walleye, muskie, and in some areas pike. Bass are raised and stocked but rarely and generally only after a big damn repair and a lake has basically been totally drained or whatnot. Bass are quite easy to establish a self reproducing population and generally don't need much help. If Lake Irena doesn't have great bass fishing it probably isn't the best bass habitat, but I'm sure that there are LMB in there and if you aren't catching them well then, get better at patterning and fishing for LMB in lakes. "Bucket biologists" have spread LMB to many waters where people wish that the fish hadn't been introduced. There has to be LMB in Lake Irena.

I feel like I rambled and may or may not have addressed the question. Trout are stocked because people have a positive image of them and enjoy fishing for them. I'm sure LMB are present in Lake Irena and stocking more of them probably wouldn't do much because they already most likely have their population as good as the tiny lake can handle.

 

[Tanker]

Makes sense. I haven’t fished this lake in 20 plus years as I moved away many years ago. I’m sure there are some LMB in there, but the place was always known as the spot for stocked trout. I suppose it is simply angler preference as it is usually populated by the guys that fish for a few weeks a year for stocked trout. In any event I suppose it is meeting the needs of the public, and perhaps the lmb population is near capacity.

 

[Tigereye]

A few years back an angler caught a 5 lb bass in lake Irena. His picture with fish was in paper. A few friends of mine catch bass in the back end of lake (opposite of breast).

The lake gets hammered all year. Very little C&R practiced. If your looking for WW species, alot of old strip mine pits in the area with little pressure and some decent fish.

 

[Dave_W]

Tanker wrote:
This may be a dumb question, but it’s one I’ve never really received a good answer for. Why doesn’t the state stock more largemouth vs trout in some places. Wouldn’t stocking more bass lead to more prolonged and productive fishing at places such as this?

It's not a dumb question.

Stocking trout is easier and more cost effective as the trout grow faster than bass. Once they're stocked, they are easier for anglers to catch. Due to this faster growth rate and higher catch rate, they are more cost effective. And as others have noted, there is a strong angling tradition in PA that revolves around stream fishing for stocked trout.

Bass are usually only stocked in PA to introduce or reintroduce them to a fishery and they're usually stocked as fingerlings (there are some exceptions).

In theory, yes, stocking bass would provide more prolonged and productive fishing. Bass thrive in warm water and can live for many years, far longer than a typical stocked trout will live. However, as noted, they are hard to catch and by the time they get to "catchable" size (about a foot, which takes years of growth) they tend to move out to deep water and can be hard for inexperienced anglers to catch. Finally, the focus on bass management in PA is by natural reproduction so, in the eyes of the PFBC, if bass are already in a lake or river, the agency can stock trout as an additional attraction that entry-level and often shore based anglers can catch.

 

[Swattie87]

There is more demand (in PA anyway) for stocked Trout angling than Bass angling. Quite simply. If there was more demand for Bass angling, and the cost of stocking adult Bass would justify itself through license sales, they’d do it. (Not that the Trout stocking program is exactly cost efficient either, but the demand for it is clearly there.)

Most serious Bass anglers in PA are actually Smallmouth anglers primarily, given the abundance of good Smallmouth rivers we have. Largemouth anglers have and know their hot spot lakes, but most of this kind of fishing is done via boat as DW notes. Also, nearly all impoundments that are stocked with Trout are capable of, and already have, naturally reproducing LMB populations.

 

[Mike]

LMB adults would not be stocked and are not stocked with one exception...LMB adults salvaged from lake drawdowns. Aside from expense and the better option of stocking fingerlings to establish reproducing populations, when you go to fish culture manuals they say that raising LMB to an “adult” size is a loosing proposition because they contract bass tapeworms, which I think would be exacerbated by normally high densities of fish in a hatchery environment. They greatly weaken the fish, are hard on fish survival, and one would not want to spread them around to various waters even though they do occur naturally in the environment.