Where have all the giants gone?

[Jpurdue]

If I recall last year, there was a 19 caught out in CA. A few years back I think Butch Brown had an 18 and some change. There was 16 out of CA last year. To my knowledge though there hasn't been anything in CA, Florida, or Texas that has changed the top 25 fish in nearly two decades. I'm trying not to be a cynic, but with populations sky rocketing and acres of fishable water flat or shrinking, I can't help but wonder if the best days of bass fishing is behind us. What say the forum?

[Catmantwo]

The future is great!
4 world record spots (2 different lakes) caught in the past year.
Huge weights to win tournaments lately.

The "giant" largemouth - the ones that threaten the "top 25" are not suceptable to tournament tactics. They require dedicated giant fish tactics. Look up some of the "so cal guys" videos on catching monster largemouths.
Most fishermen want numbers (of "good size" fish), not 6 to 10 days of trying to get a "big bite" with large live crawdads.

https://fishwithjd.com/2008/03/03/in-se ... ophy-bass/

[Chad Sweitzer]

I think they've gotten smarter. I found a 19+ pounder (hard to judge, but it was much larger than my dads 17) on a bed, and it laughed at my huddleston as it sat there. That fish was so smart, and was on its bed for only 1 day. With the amount of information on big bass techniques available on the internet, the fish are so much more educated than during the early years swimbaiting. It's cool having the giant spots here, but I agree, the numbers of potential world record largemouth don't seem to be the same.

[Rich hamilton]

Two things come to my mind.

1. Drought, draw your own interpretations.

2. As said in previous posts, fish are more conditioned to swimbaits.




Richie Rich

[WRB]

Florida strain LMB were 1st introduced into San Diego city lakes in 1959. The majority of the initial stocking of those pure FLMB were planted into lakes that already had northern strain LMB populations. The pure FLMB strain has been deluded or intragraded (mixed) with NLMB for decades in California, pure FLMB may no longer exist here. California doesn't manage bass fisheries beyond setting catch limits, bass are introduced once and then must survive on their own from then on.
Another problem is reduced habitate, stopped or severely reduced rainbow trout stocking, severe 5 year drought that came to end this year.
Butch Brown bass was 19.3 lbs, not officially recorded. 19 lb bass was caught in Dec 2016 in NorCal, not sure if it was officially recorded, lots of giant bass don't get listed on the top 25.
Tom

[Otay Michael]

Where have all the giants gone?

Nowhere.

Cooch and Bobby are still on the Delta, Butch, B.Day and I are still in So. Cal!!!

[Winxp_man]

Maybe died off in some lakes?
Maybe people keeping bigger fish?
Maybe the drought?
Maybe wrong handling of fish?


We can list a few more maybe.... Fact of the matter I think all of the things I listed are adding to the problem. I have seen the same decline in stripers, and salmon over the 21 years I have fished the rivers of this state.

[clearlakeoutdoors]

I to believe that the Northerns and Floridas have cross spawned and not many pure Florida bass left. Besides Berryessa there havent been any pure Florida strain put in Nor cal lakes since the 80s. Northerns just dont get as big .Biggest bass out of Clearlake in the last 25 years was the 16.3 caught last year.
Dave

[Kwin]

excessive catch and release mentality

[Steve]

Florida strain LMB were 1st introduced into San Diego city lakes in 1959. The majority of the initial stocking of those pure FLMB were planted into lakes that already had northern strain LMB populations. The pure FLMB strain has been deluded or intragraded (mixed) with NLMB for decades in California, pure FLMB may no longer exist here. California doesn't manage bass fisheries beyond setting catch limits, bass are introduced once and then must survive on their own from then on.
Another problem is reduced habitate, stopped or severely reduced rainbow trout stocking, severe 5 year drought that came to end this year.
Butch Brown bass was 19.3 lbs, not officially recorded. 19 lb bass was caught in Dec 2016 in NorCal, not sure if it was officially recorded, lots of giant bass don't get listed on the top 25.
Tom

Just for the record, California never received pure Florida strain largemouth from Florida.

[callwakeup]

Does the higher water levels for this years span have any impact?
More water volume + shoreline cover = higher survival rate? = more mouths to feed & smaller overall fish size?

[Otay Michael]

Florida strain LMB were 1st introduced into San Diego city lakes in 1959. The majority of the initial stocking of those pure FLMB were planted into lakes that already had northern strain LMB populations. The pure FLMB strain has been deluded or intragraded (mixed) with NLMB for decades in California, pure FLMB may no longer exist here. California doesn't manage bass fisheries beyond setting catch limits, bass are introduced once and then must survive on their own from then on.
Another problem is reduced habitate, stopped or severely reduced rainbow trout stocking, severe 5 year drought that came to end this year.
Butch Brown bass was 19.3 lbs, not officially recorded. 19 lb bass was caught in Dec 2016 in NorCal, not sure if it was officially recorded, lots of giant bass don't get listed on the top 25.
Tom

Just for the record, California never received pure Florida strain largemouth from Florida.

Oh yes they did...http://bassfishingarchives.com/features ... ss-fishing

[Otay Michael]

Florida strain LMB were 1st introduced into San Diego city lakes in 1959. The majority of the initial stocking of those pure FLMB we.... was caught in Dec 2016 in NorCal, not sure if it was officially recorded, lots of giant bass don't get listed on the top 25.
Tom

Just for the record, California never received pure Florida strain largemouth from Florida.

Oh yes they did...http://bassfishingarchives.com/features ... ss-fishing

[Steve]

Mike:

Im aware of what the historical ledger has to say concerning the introduction of the Florida subspecies to California. However, our understanding of genetics and the distribution of the pure Florida gene in its native range is much different today then it was in the 1950's. I wont bore you with all of the details. Based on recent genetic mapping in Florida and knowing what the Florida hatcheries knew and were doing in the 1950's, its safe to say that California never received pure Florida genes from Pensacola, FL in 1959.

[WRB]

Larry Bottroff the biologist who managed the FLMB program did studies on the original Florida strain bass that were initially raised in ponds near lake Miramar before being transferred to Upper Otay. The only San Deigo lake that received pure FLMB was Hodges it didn't have any northern strain bass populations at that time. When Miramar was filled the ponds became part of the lake and some FLMB were still in them and the Zimmerlee fish was a pure FLMB. I will take Larry for his word the Florida bass they transplanted were pure Florida strain back in 1959.
Thanks for posting the link, brings back memories. I recall the Florida bass were wild and came from Cypress Gardens area. Yes I have read the papers about historical genetic studies regarding the origin of FLMB. I was fortunate to have fished the San Diego lakes during the early years and nearly every giant bass lake in California since the early 60's and caught several hundred of these rare bass during my lifetime.
Tom

[Steve]

You know the old saying, you can lead a horse to water.....

[Rich hamilton]

I hate those florida bass anyway, they have way too much sun screen on them for my taste buds! RR

[WRB]

You know the old saying, you can lead a horse to water.....

Educate us old folks to what exactly is a pure Florida strain largemouth bass.
Tom

[mark poulson]

Mike:

Im aware of what the historical ledger has to say concerning the introduction of the Florida subspecies to California. However, our understanding of genetics and the distribution of the pure Florida gene in its native range is much different today then it was in the 1950's. I wont bore you with all of the details. Based on recent genetic mapping in Florida and knowing what the Florida hatcheries knew and were doing in the 1950's, its safe to say that California never received pure Florida genes from Pensacola, FL in 1959.

I don't understand what you mean by "its safe to say that California never received pure Florida genes from Pensacola, FL in 1959".
Do you have facts to support that statement?

[Steve]

Mark, I dont open my mouth unless I know what Im talking about. Take what I say however you would like, CA never received pure strain Floridas.

[WRB]

Mark there is a white paper on the pure Florida strain largemouth bass that maps out their origin and current range within the state of Florida. The location known to have, at the time the paper was written, pure FLM bass is the north west corner of the pan handle, i.e.; Pensacola. I am going purely on memory on this issue the study traces bucket transfers from various areas within the Florida made by fishermen that contaminated the "pure" strain. Therefore the bass transplanted to California by Orville Ball and studies for decades by the fishery biologist Larry Bottroff were not pure they may have had contaminated genes. Larry Bottroff told me on several occasions the bass were in fact pure FLMB, not F1's or any other inter grate or genetic strain. Steve is right stating they couldn't be 100% pure based on the white paper. Larry Bottroff thought they were pure strain and wrote several highly regarded papers on his work. Unless Larry or some other creditable fishery biologist familiar with the program states otherwise I am going with the initial transplants being 99.9% pure FLMB from south of Florida's pan handle region. None of those initial FLMB strain exist in California today.
Tom

[mark poulson]

Mark there is a white paper on the pure Florida strain largemouth bass that maps out their origin and current range within the state of Florida. The location known to have, at the time the paper was written, pure FLM bass is the north west corner of the pan handle, i.e.; Pensacola. I am going purely on memory on this issue the study traces bucket transfers from various areas within the Florida made by fishermen that contaminated the "pure" strain. Therefore the bass transplanted to California by Orville Ball and studies for decades by the fishery biologist Larry Bottroff were not pure they may have had contaminated genes. Larry Bottroff told me on several occasions the bass were in fact pure FLMB, not F1's or any other inter grate or genetic strain. Steve is right stating they couldn't be 100% pure based on the white paper. Larry Bottroff thought they were pure strain and wrote several highly regarded papers on his work. Unless Larry or some other creditable fishery biologist familiar with the program states otherwise I am going with the initial transplants being 99.9% pure FLMB from south of Florida's pan handle region. None of those initial FLMB strain exist in California today.
Tom

Thanks Tom.
I'm sure the initial FLMB strain is gone because you caught them all!!!

[Rod Martin]

Mark there is a white paper on the pure Florida strain largemouth bass that maps out their origin and current range within the state of Florida. The location known to have, at the time the paper was written, pure FLM bass is the north west corner of the pan handle, i.e.; Pensacola. I am going purely on memory on this issue the study traces bucket transfers from various areas within the Florida made by fishermen that contaminated the "pure" strain. Therefore the bass transplanted to California by Orville Ball and studies for decades by the fishery biologist Larry Bottroff were not pure they may have had contaminated genes. Larry Bottroff told me on several occasions the bass were in fact pure FLMB, not F1's or any other inter grate or genetic strain. Steve is right stating they couldn't be 100% pure based on the white paper. Larry Bottroff thought they were pure strain and wrote several highly regarded papers on his work. Unless Larry or some other creditable fishery biologist familiar with the program states otherwise I am going with the initial transplants being 99.9% pure FLMB from south of Florida's pan handle region. None of those initial FLMB strain exist in California today.
Tom

Thanks Tom.
I'm sure the initial FLMB strain is gone because you caught them all!!!

They are still out there. Just waiting for some good fishermen to come and catch them

[WRB]

Only caught few hundred during the San Diego era. Isabella, Casitas and Castiac were F1's when planted. Still trying for that elusive 20 and getting old
Good thread, always enjoy talking about big bass, they are a fading memory but I have Roberts mounts to enjoy
Tom

[mark poulson]

Only caught few hundred during the San Diego era. Isabella, Casitas and Castiac were F1's when planted. Still trying for that elusive 20 and getting old
Good thread, always enjoy talking about big bass, they are a fading memory but I have Roberts mounts to enjoy
Tom

Tom,
How thick were the shad at Castaic before the stripers got in?

[Otay Michael]

Was the George Perry bass a FL?

[WRB]

Was the George Perry bass a FL?

Who knows? The Perry bass is unknown, only info was from Goerge Perry, no authentic photo has ever been found that was sent to Field & Stream magazine along with the length, girth and weight for a contest prize back in 1932. The Perry bass was grandfathered by the IGFA without proof of catch. His fishing partner disappeared soon after the bass was caught. The scale was a reported as a 100 lb postal scale in 1/4 lb increments, no official weight slip. The bass was eaten the night it was caught, depression years.
Montgomery lake was a small oxbow lake, now a meadow. Bassmaster showed a photo of a big bass claimed to be the Perry bass by the family, problem the doesn't appear to be 32" long with 28" girth and it's not of George Perry, the man holding the bass is unidentified. Perry stated he caught the bass during rain in the late afternoon, he went fishing instead of working his farm fields. The BM photo is clearly a sunny day with over head sun. We just accept the Perry on his word, no idea what strain the LMB was.
Tom

[WRB]

Only caught few hundred during the San Diego era. Isabella, Casitas and Castiac were F1's when planted. Still trying for that elusive 20 and getting old
Good thread, always enjoy talking about big bass, they are a fading memory but I have Roberts mounts to enjoy
Tom

Tom,
How thick were the shad at Castaic before the stripers got in?

Threadfin and silversides were big schools, planted trout were everywhere on outside structure.
After the stripers got in the trout population took a big hit and the stripers dominated the outside structure and out compete the bass for prey, stripers are much faster and feed in schools.
The reason Casitas is slowly recovering is the lack of planted trout for the big bass, the Threadfin Shad are doing well, the crawdad population is way down, crappie and redear are growing big.
Tom

[mark poulson]

Only caught few hundred during the San Diego era. Isabella, Casitas and Castiac were F1's when planted. Still trying for that elusive 20 and getting old
Good thread, always enjoy talking about big bass, they are a fading memory but I have Roberts mounts to enjoy
Tom

Tom,
How thick were the shad at Castaic before the stripers got in?

Threadfin and silversides were big schools, planted trout were everywhere on outside structure.
After the stripers got in the trout population took a big hit and the stripers dominated the outside structure and out compete the bass for prey, stripers are much faster and feed in schools.
The reason Casitas is slowly recovering is the lack of planted trout for the big bass, the Threadfin Shad are doing well, the crawdad population is way down, crappie and redear are growing big.
Tom

Thanks. I remember the shoals of shad at Casitas, 10' out from the bank and 50' long, back in the early 2000's. It's a shame that they don't plant trout anymore. Something should be using the fish ladders!

[Robb R]

Lake Amador in Nor Cal also received Florida Strain bass back in the 70's , no idea if they were a pure strain .
The lake record is over 17 lbs caught back in the 80's . I always felt that Amador , had a shot at a world record , mainly because it's a deep lake , tons of food types ( shad , bluegill , crayfish ) and they still stock tons of trout .
Amador is a tough lake , very steep banks , 200plus feet deep and tons of great places for huge bass to hide .
Additionally , what is the strain of that 22lber caught in Japan ? It cant possibly be a "pure" Florida strain ?
Robb

[WRB]

I believe the group of anglers that stocked Chabot also stocked Amador back in the 70's when lake Casitas, Castaic and Isabella were stocked from the same group of FLMB , lots of FLMB being planted around the state in the 70's, all from San Deigo city lakes.
The Japanese got thier FLMB direct from Florida, don't recall where, Gary Yamamoto had some involvement with the transplanting.
Tom

[Jpurdue]

They should be able to figure out the genetic linage of the Manabu Kurita fish. It was put to the knife and a skin mount still exists somewhere.

[Rod Martin]

Seems most of the records we see being broken now are for Spotted Bass. Has having Spotted Bass in some of our LM lakes reduced the chance for a record LMB ?

[mark poulson]

Seems most of the records we see being broken now are for Spotted Bass. Has having Spotted Bass in some of our LM lakes reduced the chance for a record LMB ?

Rod,
That sure was the case with the stripers in Castaic. Before the stripers got through the screens at Elderberry, Castaic was a trophy lake. Not anymore.
If spots can out compete largemouths in the open water, like the stripers do at Castaic, they will cut down on the amount of forage available, and push largemouth into the shallows, where the largemouth can still compete.
Largies and spots coexist in Santa Margarita, and you don't hear about huge fish coming out of it. I'm guessing it has something to do with the spots being there.

[WRB]

Giant Spotted bass are 1/2 the size of giant LMB. We are talking about Southern or Alabama Spots, not northern or Kentucky spots. Like FLMB that grow to giants over 20 lbs, Alabama Spotted bass can be over 10 lbs, northern spots rarely get over 3 lbs. Spots behave very similar to Smallmouth bass, tend to hunt in groups and prefer crawdads over baitfish and stay deeper than LMB most of the time. The Perris Spots couldn't compete with LMB, don't see Spots dominating LMB anytime soon. Stripers are another breed of cat, they do out compete LMB for baitfish, too fast and feed in schools.
Tom
PS, the Kurita bass was reported to be a (pure) FLMB, not a F1 generation.

[Chad Sweitzer]

I do think the spotted bass compete with the largemouth, at least in the lakes I fish. Dropshotting bridge pilings will usually produce 3 healthy spots and a skinny ugly largemouth. I think the spotted bass hurt the true trophy potential of a lake when the fish have to compete directly, such as in a steep, deepwater lake

[mark poulson]

I do think the spotted bass compete with the largemouth, at least in the lakes I fish. Dropshotting bridge pilings will usually produce 3 healthy spots and a skinny ugly largemouth. I think the spotted bass hurt the true trophy potential of a lake when the fish have to compete directly, such as in a steep, deepwater lake

Chad,
All the true giants have gone to the NBA and NFL. That's where the money is!