Business is hopping, or rather flopping and splashing, for fish raiser Harrell Arms of Dublin, who has been supplying game and forage fish for private ponds for most of the Big Country since 1955. There's nothing like a drought followed by the refilling of the ponds to pick up the fish business. His fish arrive by truck every Thursday at Jackson Brothers Feed and Seed in Abilene. Farmers and ranchers who have placed orders for fish tote them home in large plastic bags. At least an acre of surface water is needed to raise good bass.
Smaller ponds can sustain good populations of catfish.
The bass eat the other fish, but not so rapidly that the small fish disappear. A good fishing hole can be a good investment, he said. People pay good money to catch big bass and let them go. Galen Jons agreed. He is a fisheries biologist in the Abilene inland fisheries department of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.