Stocking for a trophy bass fishery: searching for size differences among largemouth bass and hybrids in southern Arkansas reservoirs

Lamothe KA, Allen RM, Winningham K, Dennis C, Johnson RL. 2016. Stocking for a trophy bass fishery: searching for size differences among largemouth bass and hybrids in southern Arkansas reservoirs. Lake Reserve Manage. 32:194–207.Within the southern United States, game and fish agencies have introduced nonnative Florida bass (FB), Micropterus floridanus (Lesueur 1822), as an alternative to native northern largemouth bass (NLMB), M. salmoides (Lacepede 1802), for decades because of suspected maximum size differences between the 2 species. The goal of this study was to determine if bass with differing levels of FB alleles demonstrated differential size structure within 6 southern Arkansas reservoirs stocked with FB. Despite millions of FB being introduced into these reservoirs over the last decade, FB made up