Nursery pond gives Lake Ouachita bass a boost

By admin at Thu, 2006-07-27 20:10 | | Arkansas Fishing News

HOT SPRINGS - Largemouth bass fingerlings are more than doubling in size at the Lake Ouachita Nursery Pond, enabling the AGFC to stock bigger, healthier fish into one of Arkansas’s premiere game-fishing lakes.
Assistant District Fisheries Biologist Brett Hobbs said the growth of this year’s batch was especially impressive.
“These 40,000 largemouth bass fingerlings averaged about two inches when they came to us from Joe Hogan Hatchery at Lonoke in May. After 37 days in the nursery pond the average was up to five inches. That much of an increase is excellent growth,” Hobbs said.
The 21-acre nursery pond is connection to Lake Ouachita’s South Fork near the Corps of Engineers Joplin area.
During the fingerlings’ stay at the pond they enjoy a predator-free and food-filled environment that allows for rapid growth. Drains directly deposit the fish into Lake Ouachita after they deplete provided food sources and reach the “bull” size of about five inches.
“These fish go on a feeding frenzy and if we don’t release them when the food is gone, they’ll find ways to keep up the pace. Some of those bull fingerlings will turn on the smaller ones. We watch for when to release them so we don’t start loosing the crop to itself,” Hobbs said.
While careful monitoring is needed, the nursery pond eliminates other traditional hatchery stockings problems. Fingerlings allowed to reach larger sizes before release are more resistant to natural predators and close lake proximity reduces the risk of transportation shock.
Hobbs said: “The situation is ideal for many of the fish species we produce. We’ve had great success with this kind of setup for walleye and crappie as well as largemouth bass.”
Typical largemouth bass production years involve a series of management practices.  Sealable gates allow the pond to collect rainfall runoff in winter. In early spring the pond accumulates food sources. Stocked fathead minnows begin to spawn and inorganic and organic fertilizers like alfalfa pellets, hay and cottonseed meal stimulate plankton growth. By late May the pond is teeming with fathead minnow forage, enough to feed the 40,000 fingerling bass typically stocked. The fingerlings feed until the minnows are exhausted and drain directly into the lake in early July.
Largemouth bass have been the nursery pond crop since 2004 and continued largemouth production is planned for 2007. Walleye and crappie production years are also planned for the future.