November, 1954 
bass per acre, table 10. Fourteen schools 
of fry were counted on May 29; they 
were estimated to contain 26,000 young 
fish (1,444 per acre). No larger counts 
were made after this date. The smaller 
number of broods in 1942 than in 1941 
may have been due to a smaller number 
of spawners, to interference with their 
spawning by “yearling” bass, or to a less 
favorable spawning season. Very few bass 
of the 1942 brood appeared in the 1943 
draining operation. From this fact it was 
assumed that most of them became food 
for the 1941 brood during the summer. 
With the removal of 2,783 small bass 
of the 1941 brood in the spring of 1943, 
the population was reduced by more than 
50 per cent, tables 3 and 4+. Bass of the 
1941 brood were old enough to spawn in 
1943, but many were rather badly stunted. 
The sexually mature bass, which included 
15 of the original stock, produced a rela- 
tively small spawn estimated at 18,000 
fry (1,000 per acre, table 10). 
In 1944, Ridge Lake contained a rela- 
tively large population of adult bass. At- 
tempts to census the young were only mod- 
erately successful (page 246) ; the highest 
estimate of young seen on any one day 
never exceeded 1,000, or about 56 per 
acre, table 10. 
In the years when the fish population 
of Ridge Lake during the bass spawning 
season was one essentially of largemouth 
bass only (1941-1944), the bass spawn 
became progressively smaller each year, 
although in each year some spawn was 
produced, table 10. Bluegills were intro- 
duced into Ridge Lake after the bass 
spawning season of 1944, and, when the 
lake was drained in the spring of 1945, 
only large bluegills were replaced in the 
lake along with all of the legal-length 
bass, table 5. Several hundred bluegill 
fry produced in late summer of 1944 un- 
doubtedly escaped the census by remain- 
ing in the stream channel and in pools 
within the lake basin when the draining 
operation of 1945 was completed. ‘These 
later escaped to the lake as it refilled. 
The bass spawn of 1945 was the largest 
ever produced after the lake basin was 
full—an estimated 116,000 fry (6,444 per 
acre, table 10), spawned by a population 
of 36 adult bass per acre, table 5. How- 
ever, on a per-acre basis, the 1945 spawn 
BENNETT: LARGEMOUTH Bass IN RipGE LAKE 
249 
was not as large as that of 1941, when 
the lake area was about 9 acres. From the 
1947 draining census, table 4, it is evi- 
dent that the 61 adult bluegills returned 
to the lake in 1945 and their progeny of 
1944 that escaped the 1945 census pro- 
duced large numbers of young in 1945 
and 1946. Moreover, the survival rate of 
the young bluegills must have been high 
in spite ot the presence of unusually large 
numbers of small bass. These young bass 
might have been expected to control the 
survival of bluegill fry in 1945 and 1946, 
but it is evident that they did not. 
At the beginning of the spawning season 
of 1946, Ridge Lake contained a large 
population of both bass and bluegills, plus 
somewhat larger populations of bullheads 
and green suntish than had been present in 
previous years. The estimated total popu- 
lation of fish was 3,470 per acre in 1946 
prior to spawning and the bass spawn was 
estimated to be about 139 fry per acre, 
table 10. 
The 1947 spawn of bass was estimated 
at 2,056 fry per acre, table 10. Following 
the draining census in March, 392 legal- 
sized bass and 1,761 large bluegills had 
been returned to the lake, table 5, giving 
a population of 120 fish per acre. The 
1947 bass spawn per acre was much 
smaller than that of 1941 or 1945 and 
slightly smaller than that of 1949, but 
larger than that of other years, table 10. 
There was no visible indication that 
bass fry developed to the schooling stage 
in 1948 or 1950. In 1948, several adult 
female bass caught by Natural History 
Survey personnel early in June contained 
well-developed eggs; female bass caught 
by anglers later, after the lake was opened 
to fishing, appeared to be spent. Yet no 
schools of bass fry were seen by Survey 
personnel in making daily trips around the 
lake, and no young bass were taken in 
extensive seining in the shallow upper 
end of the lake. Yearling bluegills and 
bluegill fry were abundant. 
An estimate of the 1948 fish population, 
based on the anglers’ catch of 1948 and 
the 1949 census, gave 149 bass and 1,419 
bluegills per acre, table 10. This is a 
large population but considerably less than 
that of 1946, when the lake contained 
3,470 fish per acre (87 bass, 3,334 blue- 
gills, and 49 other fish). 
