Part III.] Pond Fish Culture. 103 



While shipping young bass in the fall and spring we fre- 

 quently put minnows in the tanks with them. It is not an un- 

 common thing to see a young bass swimming around with the 

 tail of a minnow protruding from its mouth. When young bass 

 and crappie are shipped in the same tank, it is not unusual to 

 see a bass swallowing a young crappie. However, the crappie 

 is such a wide fish that a bass can not swallow one that is much 

 more than half its own length. 



The above observations have been given so that the reader 

 may know something of the nature, habits and early life his- 

 tory of the Black bass. 



Voracious Eaters. 



The bass are among the most voracious eaters we have 

 among fishes. Their growth and size depends largely upon 

 the supply of food. We find that when the fish are four or five 

 months old they vary greatly in size. If young bass are placed 

 in ponds where there are minnows, young goldfish, carp and 

 other small fish that they can swallow, it will be found that 

 they grow very rapidly. In other words, where the food supply 

 is greatest they make the most rapid growth. The young fish 

 under such conditions at the State Fish Hatchery have reached 

 a length of from five to ten inches in a period of from five to 

 seven months. If young and growing bass are placed where 

 conditions are favorable, we find that when they are a year and 

 a half old they will weigh from half a pound to a pound or 

 more, and when two years old they may weigh from a pound 

 to two pounds. We have had fish here at the Hatchery which 

 at the age of from four to five months were from four to six 

 inches in length, and when four years old would weigh from 

 three to five pounds. However, as a rule our fish at the Hatch- 

 ery do not grow so rapidly, from the fact that we try to raise 

 as great a number as possible in the various ponds rather than 

 to produce as large fish as can be produced in any given period 

 under the most favorable conditions. 



Food for Breeding Stock. 



It is necessary for us to produce food enough at the Hatch- 

 ery for the breeding stock. In the ponds where we breed bass, 

 we usually place a number of yearling goldfish, gizzard shad 

 and other small fish for food for the old breeding fish. In these 

 same ponds we sometimes place spawning goldfish and spawn- 

 ing gizzard* shad with the spawning Black bass. If the young 

 of these fish are too large for the young bass of the same year 

 to feed upon, they make good food for the breeding bass, dur- 

 ing the summer and fall, before the ponds are drained and the 

 fish separated, and this helps to prevent the old bass from eat- 



* Gizzard shad are very prolific and too many should not be put in any 

 pond, enough only to supply food for the other fish. My chief fish man — 

 Mr. R. D. Lindsay — says, "Go slow on shad." 



