Texas Share a Lunker Program

Somebody mentioned this in the debacle’s earlier, but have you guys heard of this program? Basically if a monster bass is caught during the pre-spawn to spawning period, it is kept and given to the fish hatcheries program where it is then bred w/a Florida Strain bass in order to produce a larger, healthier Largemouth bass?

In comparison, I’d say it’s no different than us trying to manage a deer herd by letting the biggest bucks do the mating, thus passing on the best possible genes.

Here is some more info on it:
Official Rules
Texas Park and Wildlife page

Tom Redington–You out there? I’m sure you have some input on this program….or probably even contributed some bass to it.

Question: do you think a similar program would be beneficial here?

I’ve heard the theory that the world record fish was actually a hybrid. Considering where it was caught that might be true. There’s an effect called “hybrid vigor” where the first generation of a hybrid grows especially big; bigger than subsequent generations. I think they’ve seen they’e same thing happen naturally in Texas, after they stocked Florida strain fish into lakes that contained Northern strain fish.
I guess the question would be whether a fish carrying Florida strain genes could prosper under the ice.

Rootski

Rootski has a great point. I would suspect it wouldn’t work quite as well here. The reason I question it is the growing season we have vs. the southern states. If it would be possible, it would be a great thing

I dont see how it wouldnt work- maybe not with Fla strain bass but the concept is you use the biggest fish (genes) to make bigger offspring.

The problem that I think we have is the almighty dollar. Seems in many of the northern states (maybe IA/ILL more than MN/WI) there just isnt much government money earmarked for sportfishing improvement. I think that program is sponsored by Coca Cola or something and they seem to have more money and man time to devote to it in Texas than I can imagine here in Iowa.

The Share Lunker program was originally sponsored by Lone Star Beer but is now sponsored by Budweiser. If you catch a fish that weighs 13 pounds or more any time of the year you can call a number and some guy drives out in the truck rigged up with a huge tank in the bed and a couple cylinders of oxygen. He’s on call 24-7 365. Budweiser gives you a free fiberglass replica of your fish and some other stuff if you do it. They then try to get the fish to produce in spawning troughs when the time comes. Although they’ve had some problems getting the fish to mate in artificial circumstances and a few times the big female eats the male bass. If you want any more info than this read the book sowbelly by monte burk, its all about the quest for the world record.

Florida strains wouldn’t work up here. Too cold. About mid Missouri is as far as they would succeed (Truman-ish). Atleast this is what I foudn in doing research on this while back in MO. However I couldn’t get the support to make it happen there.

Taking that out of the equation though, we could do the same with northern strains. However the program would really only work with a few bodies of large water.

The HUGE problem is that the purpose behind this program is to have LARGE bass for folks to catch. That in turn makes the water a tourist attraction, which is what Texas wants. In my short time in MN, I’ve felt that most of the largest waters here don’t want to attract fisherman. So getting the support would be nearly impossible. The river would be the best bet, but not sure you’d get DNR support to manage fish on water where fish could travel out of the pool they are managing.

I’d LOVE to see it happen. I just think getting it to fly is slim to none.

Fluker

Actually we’re talking about two big obstacles here. The first is whether or not Florida strain fish could live with the colder water. The second would be to convince the MN DNR that there are other species of fish besides Walleyes.

Rootski

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The second would be to convince the MN DNR that there are other species of fish besides Walleyes.

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I like it.

The replies have described the program well. No Florida bass wouldn’t likely make it up there, as there is a famous study where bass from central IL were tested in MN waters and most couldn’t make it through the winter. Still, the program would work up there. It’s no different than cattle or dog breeders selectively breeding for the desired traits. For fish, in TX we take 13+ lb females and spawn them with 5+ lb males, most of which are descendants of previous 13 lb females from the program. It doesn’t take a biologist to figure out that if Shaq has kids with a 6′ woman, the odds are most of the kids will be pretty tall. Of course with humans, most kids make it to adult ages. For fish, if a 15 lb’er spawns in the lake, only a very few of her eggs make it to adult sized bass. In the hatchery, if she spawn successfully, most of the fry survive, so 1000s of potential Shaq bass get stocked into the lake. AFter the fish spawns in the program, most are released back to the lakes they came from, while a few are kept permanently for breeding purposes by the state and a few others are stocked into other areas (the angler’s private pond or Bass Pro aquariums). The fate of the fish is the dontating angler’s decision, thankfully, most go back to the lakes so we can catch them next year when they weight that much more. As for the fry, 50% go back to the lake where the fish came from and the other half are stocked where the state chooses. So, the lake where she came from benefits and other lakes that have good lunker bass potential also benefit.

TX is working to track the offspring in the future to see what type of impact this program has. One would assume it has a positive impact but nothing has been proven so far. After having lived in IL & WI in my earlier years, it is very nice to now live in TX where the Parks and Wildlife Department actively works to improve bass fishing through the ShareLunker program, slot limits on trophy lakes like Fork (16-24″ protected slot) and many unique limits on different lakes to try to optimize bass fishing for size and/or numbers. Not all of it works, but it’s good to see them try and they truly do listen to angler feedback.

Tom

Tom,

You might have the answer to this. Do you know what the “mission” of the program is? I understand that it’s to breed to biggest bass, but why? I assume the underlying goal / mission is for tourism. I know Lake Fork publizes all over the world as where to go to catch the 10 lber. Just wondering if the basis behind this is to bring people in.

Thanks!

Fluker, it’s part of Texas’ Operation World Record. TX would love to have bragging rights as home of the world record bass. If that happened, it would not only be bragging rights, but I’m sure it would draw lots of folks to TX to fish. Out of state licenses fund a lot of fishing programs, and the fishing business, both freshwater and salt water, are big business in TX. Bass are definitely king in TX, though, and most residents want lots of big bass running around in their lakes. The ShareLunker program helps produce that. So I’d say tourism is great benefit, but not the main goal. Our fishery managers are truly trying to make our lakes the best possible fishing for TX anglers as they possibly can.