Economic and Conservation Impacts of Stocking Wild Florida Bass into Large Florida Lakes

AbstractSupplemental stocking of fingerling or advanced fingerling Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides is a common management strategy for augmenting natural production in low-recruitment systems. Few studies, however, have evaluated the impact of stocking adult bass taken from donor lakes. Over a period of 6 years, University of Florida researchers stocked Florida Lakes Griffin and Dora with 24,781 wild Florida Bass M. s. floridanus collected by electrofishing from other Florida lakes. During stocking years, stocked fish made up to 10% of the population in Lake Griffin and 27% in Lake Dora from electrofishing samples. However, 1 year after all stocked fish had been released, the proportion of stocked bass had declined to less than 5%, and 3 years after it had declined to less than 1%. We did not detect an increase in recruitment (catch of age-1 bass) following stocking, so any benefit from stocking was likely short-lived. We also could not conclude that stocking was responsible for increasing fishing e...