Standing at the Magnolia Park boat dock lapped by tea-colored waves, Marty Hale described his plan.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, of which Hale is a fisheries administrator, stocked the lake with about 400,000 baby sunshine bass, the offspring of a male striped bass and a female white bass. The cost was about $20,000, or a nickel a fish. And 200,000 more are coming in 2010.

They were hatched at the state’s Blackwater Research Center in Pensacola, raised to fingerling size in a state aqua-lab in Sumter County, and then trucked in a chilled tanker to Lake Apopka last April.

State biologists checked the lake the other day and found that the sunshine bass is growing fat and happy.

“They’re predators and primarily eat gizzard shad,” Hale said.

More About the Lake Apopka

The lake was once lined with 29 fish camps and resorts that, in the 1930s, drew the likes of movie legend Clark Gable, tourists and anglers from across the world, and well-heeled mobsters.

But decades of abuse and neglect, and a massive reduction of the lake’s size for muck farming, turned it into a 31,000-acre pool of algae, fed by phosphorous and pesticide runoff from farms that later led to fish and bird kills.

While phosphates are a crucial ingredient to all life, too much in the water feeds the tiny floating plants — algae that suck the dissolved oxygen from the lake. Largemouth bass and other sport fish are gone.

What remains are scavenger fish that thrive in the rank ooze and algae-laden water. The gizzard shad are among the lake’s villains. They eat algae and dirt on the lake bottom and release phosphorous into the water.

The state has tried several plans to eliminate the shad, including giving licenses to commercial fishermen to catch them with gill nets. The captured shad are destined for doom as crab and crawfish bait.

Since 1993, about 1 million pounds of gizzard shad have been harvested yearly, but it hasn’t been enough.

That’s where the sunshine bass comes in. Hale said they would spend their four- or five-year lifespans eating the shad. Though they won’t grow as large as their cousins, the largemouth bass and sunshine bass are hearty enough to thrive in the lake, Hale said.

“They’re doing quite well, getting to be about nine or 10 inches,” he said. “By this time next year, they should be 6-pounders about 16 inches long.”

And when sunshine bass is harvested, the phosphates come with them in the fish meat and bones. The phosphates are safe to eat and are in most foods, including soda drinks.

But local anglers are skeptical.

The lake used to be great, “Ten-pounders were common. We hear of a new plan to bring it back every few years, but I’d have to see it to believe it.”

Hale said he thinks this plan will work and that, in time, the sunshine’s cousin, the largemouth bass, can thrive there, too. But he wouldn’t put a time frame on the recovery.

“How long will it take? Who knows, I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said.

Would Hale eat fish from Lake Apopka?

“Sure, but I have to have hush puppies and cheese grits with it,” he said.

Till next time tight lines, I hope you enjoyed this article on Sunshine Bass Recapture Lake Apopka fishing page, and if so, you may enjoy the following articles on good fishing….

From Staff Writer – BassOnline.com / 888-829-BASS