Bass growth rate...

[WatterBoy]

Obviously one fish doesn't help draw any iron-clad conclusions, but here is data for one tagged fish that I caught on our cabin lake about 4 weeks ago. The DNR did a study in 2007 where they tagged closed to 1,000 bass in the lake.

Here are the results from the fish I caught:

May 07, 2007 -- 11.3” long, 0lb 11oz
Jul 10, 2013 -- 15.5” long, 2lb 09oz
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6+ years growth -- 4.2” 1lb 14oz
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Seems like either a pretty slow growth rate, which wouldn't be at all surprising for MN, or else a fish that has stopped growing (length-wise anyway).

[lilmule]

It takes a spotted bass 5 years to reach 12 in in the ohio river,where ky,oh,wva come together,the farther north one goes the less growth per year to some degree,the rest is forage available.
In ky lake a bass is about 14-15 in in 3 years(largemouth) spots get to 15 and over a hair whereas back in ohio a 13 in is a prize
Ive actually weighed in three spots that were over 15 in,two in one T.
So amount of light,, and how effective that light is up north less so,south more so,length of growing season and forage all play a hand.
And once one passes that temp range largemouth thrive in more south doesnt help it detracts,thus why the record was caught in ga not fla.

[carolina-rig-01]

It would be pretty interesting to know the age of the fish so you could see how fast it grew prior to 2007. I would lean towards believing that the fish being from the far north has more to do with its slow rate of growth than anything else. Not saying you don't have big fish up there because you have plenty of pictures that prove the opposite to be true. But obviously the colder temps up there keep the metabolism of a fish a lot slower for longer periods of time. It would be really cool to see some data of this fish in a few years if it is caught again. Regardless, I think it would be really cool to catch a tagged fish. We always wish that the fish could talk to us and honestly the information gathered from a tagged fish is as close to that as we will probably ever get.

[Jrob78]

Originally Posted by carolina-rig-01

It would be pretty interesting to know the age of the fish so you could see how fast it grew prior to 2007. I would lean towards believing that the fish being from the far north has more to do with its slow rate of growth than anything else. Not saying you don't have big fish up there because you have plenty of pictures that prove the opposite to be true. But obviously the colder temps up there keep the metabolism of a fish a lot slower for longer periods of time. It would be really cool to see some data of this fish in a few years if it is caught again. Regardless, I think it would be really cool to catch a tagged fish. We always wish that the fish could talk to us and honestly the information gathered from a tagged fish is as close to that as we will probably ever get.

I agree. It would be interesting to know how big the same fish would be if it lived in the south with a much longer growth period, all other things being equal. It would also be interesting to know how big it would be if it were a FL strain LM instead of a northern.

[Bassboss]

That aint fast! lol

Makes me appreciate the bigguns all the more! You know if the tagged fish was on a male or female?