Videos

 

Florida bass living large in Tennessee

BY Mike Organ, The Tennessean
Published Thursday, April 21, 2011

Soaring gas prices will keep a few people from vacationing in Florida this summer, but that doesn’t meant Tennessee anglers can’t grasp Florida largemouth bass.

For several years state diversion and fish agents have stocked the subspecies – that typically grows incomparable than the more familiar Northern largemouth found in many lakes opposite the nation – in a few Tennessee waters where the weather is believed to be fitting to their innate habitat.

“We looked at the heating grade days (index of the median temperature) criteria for Florida largemouth bass and in Tennessee the area went from about Reelfoot Lake (in Lake and Obion counties) all the way to Chattanooga,” mentioned Bobby Wilson, arch of fisheries section is to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

In 1998 the TWRA proposed stocking Florida largemouth bass in Chickamauga Lake in Chattanooga, and given 2000 has stocked them in Williamsport Lake in Columbia, Browns Creek Lake in Natchez Trace State Park, Lake Graham in Jackson and Gibson County Lake in Trenton.

A investigate is programmed this year to establish how good the Florida largemouth bass race is flourishing in those lakes and if it is carrying out good Wilson mentioned stocking could be stretched in to other lakes, that could add Old Hickory and the southern segment of Kentucky.

“We haven’t ramped up the number of Florida bass we’re going to stock,” Wilson said. “We’re still perplexing to establish if the way we’re carrying out it is going to work.”

If the beast 16-pound, 15-ounce Florida largemouth held out of Browns Creek Lake is an indication, the race is thriving.

That fish was repelled – a way used to make fish burst from the H2O where they are held in nets – by the TWRA for genetic analysis and then released.

It was bigger than the state record for largemouth bass (14 pounds, 8 ounces) held in 1954, according to Wilson.



“The Florida largemouth live longer and thus they obtain bigger. That, of course, is because fishermen similar to to grasp them,” he said. “The luck of infectious a unequivocally large one improves when you’ve got the Florida bass genes in the system.” The downside is Florida largemouth are not scarcely as assertive as the Northern largemouth, creation them more tough to catch.

“The bigger the fish, the smarter they are,” mentioned Mike Davis, a Middle Tennessee-area fishing guide. “It’s going to take a lot of luck and appeal to have that bass bite onto an synthetic bait. And then once you do, it’s going to take a lot to get it into the boat. Here’s a fish that’s going to be zigzagging back and forth doing all it can to spit the lure out of its mouth. It’s definitely an exciting challenge.”

Still, Davis believes many anglers are in preference of stocking more Florida largemouths in lakes where they are able of surviving.

“Seven, eight, even nine pounds is a large largemouth bass for our lakes around here, so if you catch one that weighs 15, 16 or 17 pounds similar to a few of these Floridas do, it would unquestionably be a prize fish,” Davis said. “Just having them out there knowing there’s a chance to catch one that big is very exciting.”