Historical stocking rate of hybrid striped bass fingerlings in hypereutrophic Newnans Lake (2800 hectares) was tripled to 64/hectare and fry were stocked at the rate of 179/hectare in April 1996. Fry and fingerlings possessed different genotypes. We assessed the relative effectiveness of stocking fry versus fingerlings and high density stocking to maximize hybrid catch rate. Of 62 hybrid striped bass captured with gillnets, DNA analysis revealed 52 were stocked as reciprocal cross fingerlings and 10 as original cross fry. Relative survival of fingerlings was 12 times greater than fry. Hybrid striped bass harvest and angling effort increased significantly compared to that previously estimated according to creel surveys. Hybrid harvest (14/hectare) was the highest ever documented for a Florida water body and hybrid angling effort accounted for 94% of the total effort. However, overall angler utilization of Newnans Lake failed to increase in response to the improved hybrid fishery. Assuming equal susceptibility to angler catch, the stock to harvest ratio was 5.3 to 1 for fingerlings and 77.2 to 1 for fry. Based on 1991average commercial production costs, the stocking cost to provide for one angler harvested hybrid was similar between fry ($0.70) and fingerlings ($0.80). High density stocking provided an increased hybrid catch rate in a lake that suffers from degraded fishery habitat and has little potential for providing a quality fishery with native fishes.