Kansas B.A.S.S. Federation Nation

We had a meeting today to assess the bass stocking project and we all agreed that we are nearing the beginning of the natural spawn at Hillsdale and further releases there will not result in a competitive advantage. We will still be stocking some fingerling bass that were transferred to the Pratt Hatchery to be reared in a pond to fingerling size and those will be released at Hillsdale soon. Those fish were spawned in early April and will have the timing and size advantage.

We have determined that Cedar Bluff's water temperatures are lagging behind Hillsdale's and we feel that stocking the remainder of the bass produced at Meade into Cedar is our best option at this point.  We anticipate that we will have in excess of 150,000 bass ready to go into Cedar next week. 

We conducted a pre-stocking assessment of the wild  bass spawn at Cedar  last year (as we did at Hillsdale) in preparation for this very possibility.  One interesting note at Cedar is the shad spawned much later than those at Hillsdale, so these young hatchery bass should be able to take advantage of shad in their first year in the lake.

Like Hillsdale, stocking conditions are excellent as the lake's level has risen about 1.5' over the last two weeks.  That will provide additional nursery habitat for the stocked bass.

Again, I want to reiterate that we hope these bass will make a significant contribution to the 2010 year class, but we won't know for sure until mid-summer seining is completed. This is an experimental project that has made big strides this year at the hatchery, but how the fish will do in the wild is yet to be determined.

The Meade staff enumerated the bass to be stocked at Cedar Bluff next Monday and we were pleased to find that we will have 1/4 million bass ready Monday!  Dave Spalsbury, the District Fisheries Biologist, is working to determine the best locations for release. 

We should have additional bass for Cedar's second stocking, but don't know how many that will be yet. 

We will be wrapping up the spawning effort soon and will be discussing how to produce even more bass next year.  Jason Vajnar, Hatchery Manager, has a lot of ideas on how to do that.  The Meade Hatchery Bass Propagation Facility has had a great bass spawning season. Jason Vajnar and Josh Jagels have really stepped up to create new protocols that should lead to continued success in future years.

The bass were stocked in Cedar Bluff Reservoir today in the cold, windy, wet weather.  However, the report from Steve Price, Regional Supervisor, indicated the fish acclimated well and looked very good.  Some were kept in confinement and staff will be checking them tomorrow to estimate initial mortality.  It was determined that we should stock in the west end of the reservoir to take advantage of flooded cover, abundant zoo-plankton, protected shoreline, and the warmest water.  They were released in knee deep water in and around flooded vegetation.

I didn't get the final number today, but it was around 1/4 million.  Meade Hatchery will have some more to go into Cedar over the next two weeks.

We are looking forward to beginning the evaluation phase and it will be nice to have two separate reservoirs to assess.  I'm glad we had enough bass to stock both locations.

We will finish up the 2010 early spawn bass stockings next week with over 400,000 bass being stocked in Cedar Bluff.  That exceeded my expectation as the second round of brood bass were younger smaller fish, but they really put out the eggs.

The last count I received indicated we have collected over 60 spawns from the Meade Hatchery Bass Propagation Facility's spawning raceways.  That's a tremendous success for our new building!