BassBlaster

Science Follow-up: Florida Genes Down South

Justin Hamner of Birmingham, Ala., with a couple Mobile-Tensaw river delta bass.

Last week we talked about why Florida strain and F1 hybrid largemouth don’t do well in the northern states. As a follow-up this week, I read a news piece from Auburn University (‘Delta Bass Resistant to Florida Genes’) that was interesting. Turns out that there are some places in the south where they don’t do well, also. One such location is the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in Alabama. Some snippets from the research.

  • WFFD stocked Florida-strain bass from 1988 to 2000 with more than 236,000 fingerlings released into the Delta, but the brackish water proved to be a hostile environment for the Florida bass.
  • Despite this extensive stocking effort of Florida strain bass into a dominantly northern strain water, no genetic trace of the Florida strain bass has ever been found.
  • Mobile-Tensaw Delta (AL) fish in the study “live fast, die young” with only 7 bass out of 2,000 studied ever exceeding 5 pounds.
  • State research has determined that natural mortality on the Delta is between 30 and 31 percent annually and fishing mortality is 7 to 14 percent.
  • Minimum and slot size limits are no magic cure all for a fishery. Each is a “tool” that works best when applied specifically to a body of water with known reproductive, growth and harvest rates.
  • In 2008, a total of 249 anglers caught 541 bass that averaged 1.28 pounds each. More than 87 percent of Delta bass anglers weighed in at least one fish during 2008. For bass fishermen, size does matter, and not one bass that weighed more than 5 pounds was landed during any of the tournaments that turned in reports.
  • The WFFD-funded studies done by Auburn University indicate Delta bass are negatively affected by salinity and high amounts of nutritionally inferior blue crabs in their diet.

Now, about those “nutritionally inferior” blue crabs…Does that mean I can eat all I want and not gain any weight? Pass the crab sauce, please!

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