Northwest Fishing Reports

I was just curious if anyone knows how long a bass will live. Do smallmouth have different lifespans than largemouth? Also, is it possible to roughly estimate the age of a fish by its weight? I would imagine that there is probably a large variance depending on food availabilty and water conditions, but I'm really curious to know approximately how old some of the fish I'm catching are. So whatchu got for me? :bounce:

http://www.windycityfishing.com/bass_age_chart.htm

There's a real rough estimate. Obviously due to different weather here in the Pacific NW then in Illinois, I'd expect the growing to be even slower and a comparable length fish would be a few years older then in Illinois

Longer than a planter trout =d>

From what I have read in a few random WDFW reports, the average age of Bass is roughly 2-3yrs. Bear in mind that 90% of the time their studies no not involve sending divers down to check under docks and other difficult to survey structure.

Eastside - do you mean the average lifespan of bass is 2-3 rather than the average age? Me is confyoused.

In good lakes with every thing they need to grow they can gain 1.5-2 pounds a year. So after the fish reaches 2+ they can even gain more.Dottie was at least 15 yrs old. This is for fish at 1 pound and larger.

For western Washington largemouth -
It usually takes 3 to 5 years for fish to reach 12 inches. The growth and age of bass varies considerably depending on the population density, lake productivity and other species in the lake.

The oldest bass that I personal saw was 17 years old and weighted less than 4 #s. The largest was 10 1/2 #s which was 12 years old.

On the whole I think the smallmouth grow a little faster than the largemouth the first few years of their lives but tend not to live as long. On some of the better lakes a 3 year smallmouth might reach 14 or so inches. One lake it took those 3 year old/14 inch fish another 4 or 5 years to exceed 20 inches.

If the population structure swings out of balance - too many small fish - growth rates can slow way down and in some cases most fish die of old age without getting larger than 12 or so inches

As always is the case in nature there is always the odd fish that "performs" better than average.

Tight lines
Curt

I asked a biologist on Lake Washington once and he told me that a 4-5lb bass on that lake is probably 9-10 years old. Fish in the north grow slower but live longer than fish down south. I read about a bass that was tagged that lived over 25 years and only gained about 2-3 lbs in that time. Talk about taking it easy.

Edgeran wrote:Eastside - do you mean the average lifespan of bass is 2-3 rather than the average age? Me is confyoused.

If I remember right, it was average age. You have to take the data with a grain of salt considering that most of the larger, older bass more than likely have their pick of the best structure to 'rule' from and hence aren't as easy to fike (sp?) net or eletectrofish for when they are doing the surveys. WDFW even aknowledges this in their reports.

platinumroof wrote:h. I read about a bass that was tagged that lived over 25 years and only gained about 2-3 lbs in that time. Talk about taking it easy.

It is all about genetics with most cases that is why it is so important to throw the BIG fish back because they have a better chance of producing bigger babies than a bass who's only 4-6 pounds and done growing!

Good point bigbasstaz, I don't know if fish have personalities or if it is all genetics but some definitely grow bigger faster. Maybe they are just more aggressive feeders. And the aggressive feeders are the only ones dumb enough for me to catch

That 6.8 I caught this year was an old fish it had been around the block and it will probably never get any bigger but I have seen a few fish this year that look younger but weighed more. It is all a culling process if you had a personal pond you could grow your own giants by promoting the big fish jeans by culling the smaller older fish.

i got a bass in my fish tank. i got it around spring two years. it was about 5 inches then. i feed it pretty good with worms and goldfish. its now 13 inches, so that goes to show they can grow pretty quick if they are fed well.

tnj8222 wrote:i got a bass in my fish tank. i got it around spring two years. it was about 5 inches then. i feed it pretty good with worms and goldfish. its now 13 inches, so that goes to show they can grow pretty quick if they are fed well.

In a tank it will only grow a certain size and stop.

Regarding genetics -
a large bass that is say 10 years old would have all ready spawned 5 to 7 times in its life and provided its "genetics" to the populations. It is difficult to tell the differences between a slow growing and fast growing 5 pound LMB. Yes we can clearly tell whether the fish is currently in poor health but that really tells us anything about how fast it was growing in previous years.

If one is truly interested in the quality of our bass populations one probalby needs to look more closely at the impacts of fishing on the population structure. In many situations remove a exceptionally large fish near the end of its life may be less damaging than kill the mid-size (1 to 4 pound fish). In most Western Washington lakes the issue is way too many young/small bass.

Typically one sees that once that a bass gets to that 1 to 2 pound range it begins to add serious weight on an annual bases. In lakes with lots of small fish competing for food the fish spend most of their life to reach that 1 to 2# size. If there are fewer fish they can reach that size threshold in 3 or 4 years leaving a number of years to add serious weight and reach "hog" proportions.

On that lake where I mentioned that 17 year old fish many bass were dying of old age before ever reaching the above mentioned size threshold. There were 8 and 9 year old fish that were less than 12 inches long. The State stepped in with a slot limit in 1984 and by the early 1990s growth rates improved dramatically with 12 inch fish typically being 5 years old.

Tight lines
Curt

bigbasstaz wrote:

tnj8222 wrote:i got a bass in my fish tank. i got it around spring two years. it was about 5 inches then. i feed it pretty good with worms and goldfish. its now 13 inches, so that goes to show they can grow pretty quick if they are fed well.

In a tank it will only grow a certain size and stop.

well thats pretty obviouse. i plan on letting it go in a private pond at the end of this summer.

bigbasstaz wrote:

tnj8222 wrote:i got a bass in my fish tank. i got it around spring two years. it was about 5 inches then. i feed it pretty good with worms and goldfish. its now 13 inches, so that goes to show they can grow pretty quick if they are fed well.

In a tank it will only grow a certain size and stop.

Sorry 'Taz
I have to be a jerk....that is all myth.
Its a popular one but regardless of species,the fish will continue to grow inline with its genetics. Putting it in a tank will not change the out come of size. I'm not a biologist but have been reading up on this stuff for my new pet.

kevinb wrote:

bigbasstaz wrote:

tnj8222 wrote:i got a bass in my fish tank. i got it around spring two years. it was about 5 inches then. i feed it pretty good with worms and goldfish. its now 13 inches, so that goes to show they can grow pretty quick if they are fed well.

In a tank it will only grow a certain size and stop.

Sorry 'Taz
I have to be a jerk....that is all myth.
Its a popular one but regardless of species,the fish will continue to grow inline with its genetics. Putting it in a tank will not change the out come of size. I'm not a biologist but have been reading up on this stuff for my new pet.

Well I know channel cats grow up to 50+ pounds but the two that where in our horse trough never grew over 2 pounds in the many years they were in there#-o
I will have to read up but that is what I saw:-"

bigbasstaz wrote:

kevinb wrote:

bigbasstaz wrote: In a tank it will only grow a certain size and stop.

Sorry 'Taz
I have to be a jerk....that is all myth.
Its a popular one but regardless of species,the fish will continue to grow inline with its genetics. Putting it in a tank will not change the out come of size. I'm not a biologist but have been reading up on this stuff for my new pet.

Well I know channel cats grow up to 50+ pounds but the two that where in our horse trough never grew over 2 pounds in the many years they were in there#-o
I will have to read up but that is what I saw:-"

All good
I'm not debating and I'm sure as hell not an expert. This is what I have read in a few books and online,while trying to educate myself on more rare aquarium fish.

Smalma is absolutely right concerning fish age:size ratios. That's why C&R is so important to bass fisheries. Just when its big enough to fry he has already survived 3-5 years as a WILD fish.

I took my son fishing today and was seeing 2-3 inch bass in some areas how old are these fish?
Did I miss the spawn that far?