Using Largemouth Bass Habitat Use, Home Range Size, and Movement to Guide a Lake-Wide Habitat Addition to Create a Trophy Largemouth Bass Fishery

Trophy Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) fisheries are often the goal for many fisheries managers. Habitat manipulation may be one way to achieve fast growth rates for Largemouth Bass because habitat availability affects energy spent capturing prey and total food consumption. Knowledge of available habitat prior to manipulations combined with knowledge of how Largemouth Bass use the available habitat, daily and seasonal movements, and home range size can aide in directing habitat manipulations. We used a side scan sonar unit to map available structure in Grand Lake, a 45 hectare private lake in eastern Texas. Forty Largemouth Bass were implanted with radio tags and locations from weekly and 24 hour telemetry were combined with habitat data to quantify habitat selectivity, daily movement, and seasonal and annual home range sizes. Results from our side scan sonar mapping indicated a paucity of Largemouth Bass habitat in the lake. Daily and seasonal Largemouth Bass movement patterns also indicated habitat may be limiting growth. As a result, a lake-wide habitat addition was implemented with the goal of significantly increasing desirable habitat and usable area for Largemouth Bass, reducing movement and energy spent capturing prey, increasing consumption, and ultimately increasing growth.