Bass: An expensive luxury
Urban areas Close to Home waters harbor more affordable cannel catfish, bluegill

By Ed Godfrey

Published: October 5, 2008

Rose State College history professor Jim Hochtritt is frustrated with the poor bass fishing in Oklahoma City.

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Like many fishermen, Hoctritt doesn’t own a boat but enjoys walking the banks on a nice day and catching and releasing a few bass.

But it’s an experience he’s doesn’t enjoy very often around Oklahoma City.

"These so-called ‘Close to Home’ fishing lakes are pathetic,” Hochtritt said. "If they were stocked, those fish were fished out long ago.

"I am a very good bass fisherman. I catch decent-size bass wherever I go. But I spend hour after hour at these parks and I am lucky to catch one fish, and usually that fish is under a pound.”

Hochtritt visited St. Louis this summer and had much better success at that city’s urban ponds.

"The bass fishing was tremendous,” he said.

Gene Gilliland, fisheries biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, said the designated Close to Home waters for the most part are home to channel catfish and bluegills.

Largemouth bass are rarely put in the ponds. In some cases, the habitat is not there to support bass, he said.

But primarily, it’s too expensive to keep them stocked with black bass, he said.

It takes about 75 cents to grow a 12-inch channel cat. It takes about $4 to grow a largemouth bass to the same size.

Channel cats eat artificial pellets, while largemouth bass require live minnows, he said.

Constantly replenishing numerous urban ponds and lakes with $4 fish would get expensive.

St. Louis can afford it because Missouri’s state parks and Department of Conservation receive sales tax revenue in addition to the money from hunting and fishing license sales, Gilliland said.

"They got all kinds of money to buy fish and stock ponds on a regular basis,” Gilliland said. "They have a (fisheries) biologist for every lake. We have 10 for the whole state.”

Bills have been introduced before in the Oklahoma Legislature to allocate tax revenue to the state Wildlife Department but have never gone anywhere.

Meanwhile, Hochtritt offered to chip in some of his own money if that’s what it will take to get some good bass fishing in nearby ponds and lakes.

"It just seems absurd that they lack a decent largemouth population,” he said.

Ed Godfrey: 475-3159

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