Whether it's big bucks or big bass your're after, a little management goes a long way. Here's how to get started.
 
By Larry Bozka

At age 31, James "Macky" McIntyre has probably forgotten more about managing bass lakes than most avid bassers will ever know. A native Texan who grew up in the Houston area, he received his degree from Texas A&M University's Wildlife & Fishery Department in Aquaculture and Fishery Management in 1990. Immediately thereafter, he went to work building intensive recirculating systems for a redfish production facility in Bacliff that's now known as "Harvest Fresh Reds."

But he'd yet to move into the niche he really wanted to pursue-lake management-and he didn't waste any time making it happen.

"When a position at Bieri Lakes opened up in the fall of 1991, I went for it," McIntyre recalls. He's been managing the scenic Brazoria County bass haven ever since, and has turned the membership-only "country club bass fishing" facility near Angleton into a first-class operation.

After conducting lake management consultations on an on-and-off basis for six years, McIntyre established Lake Pro Pond and Lake Management Services in early 1997. "I was getting a lot of requests for help," he says, "and wanted to get more involved with the stocking and treatment of other lakes. We also specialize in the stocking and management of urban developments for property associations-assessing the vegetation and structure make-up of the lakes as well as installing floating aeration systems for enhanced water circulation and, in general, improving the productivity and aesthetics of the recreational fishing."

Basically, McIntyre and others of his ilk start working on one of two scenarios: designing and stocking brand-new ponds, and creating management programs for water bodies that already exist. As a general rule, we're talking here about lakes ranging in size from 2 to 5 acres.

Managing an existing pond

Say you have an old lake on the family place, and you don't really have a clue as to how many fish of what species live in its waters. "What do you do?" I ask McIntyre.

"You have three basic options," he responds. "First comes renovation, when you kill everything out and start over. Second, you can use harvest manipulation, through which you take out your smaller bass-less than 12 inches long. Or you can implement a supplemental corrective stocking-add more bluegills and shad to provide a variety of forage or perhaps add more bass fingerlings.

"We'll go in and talk with the landowner to get whatever information we can regarding past stockings, what the owner is catching and what his or her long-term goals are. Does he want to catch a lot of bass, or does he want to gear the program for the selective creation of fewer but substantially bigger fish?

"With that determined," he continues, "we sample the lake. We might use 'shoreline sampling,' a procedure of seining along the shores which is usually done in June. This method is primarily intended to determine if you're getting any recruitment of bass or bluegill fingerlings. We also do lake samplings through electrofishing. We take out a boat rigged up with a shocker box powered by an electric generator. It doesn't hurt the fish; it just temporarily stuns them so that we can net 'em up, identify the various species, put 'em on the boat and take length and weight measurements. That information tells us what needs to be done for corrective stocking in accordance with the pond owner's goals."

Some owners have reservations about the effect of electroshocking on the fish, but, McIntyre explains, it's an unwarranted concern when conducted by fishery managers with both sufficient know-how and the proper equipment. "The technology has really advanced," he points out. "Used to be, if you double-shocked fish and then threw them back in, you could break their backs because they're still in a rigid state. But with the Coffelt shockers we use it is as safe as it gets." (They're not cheap, but if you would like to own your own Coffelt unit you can contact the company at 520-774-8829.)

"We then determine relative weights," McIntyre continues. "The actual weight of the fish is divided by a standard, with the standard on top and the actual on the bottom. The figure is then multiplied by 100, which gives us a percentage. If the standard weight for a given fish of that size is 5 pounds, you want that fish to rank 100 percent. If the fish is less than that weight, say 85 percent, we enact management procedures to bring the bass up to the standard.

"Two primary factors enter the picture at this point-the forage base and the habitat. Without sufficient vegetation and structure, there is no place for the forage fish to hide to escape predation. A lot of ponds, over years in which the vegetation aggressively develops, actually contain too much habitat. Vegetation can ultimately cover the entire impoundment, and since a large percentage of ponds and tanks tend to be shallow, so much grass grows that it can actually over-protect the forage fish-of which," he adds, "are most often native bluegills. When that happens, it can have a seriously adverse effect on the resident bass."

Aside from bluegills, McIntyre also introduces other forage species into lakes he manages-mostly redear sunfish and shad. Some managers opt for coppernose bluegills imported from Florida, but McIntyre isn't a big fan of them because of the simple fact that they do not reproduce in near as prolific a manner as native bluegills.

Following the determination of relative weights, McIntyre then determines proportional stock densities which compare the ratio of bass to bluegills. "We compare 'catchable' bass-say, fish over 12 inches in length-to the larger bluegills" he says. "The decisions we make in regard to corrective stocking are based on that comparative relationship-whether to add more bluegills, either small or large, whether to harvest bass due to overpopulation or whether to stock more bass in order to counter an overpopulation of bluegills or an overharvest of bass."