New to the forum and have alot of ? First is- we have about 5 acre family pond that is very old and used to be a pay pond in South Ga. It is now a private pond but does get unregulated fishing from time to time(probably more often than I know).Over the last couple years I have noticed a steady decline in the numbers of bass and especially large bass(3+lbs) and decrease in brim population but an explosion of shiners. I never new the pond had them until my wife caught one last week that was 7". Talked to an elderly man that was brim fishing today and he said in the past he would catch one ocassionally but nothing like this, he had a pile of about 15 he was throwing in the woods. What could be the problem? To many large bass have been taken out? Do I remove the small bass? What can be done to fix this? I've always catch and release in this pond, but can't really say what others are doing. Should I keep some of the smaller bass? any suggestions would be appreciated!

Who is the owner of this pond? If it is you, or family who are on board with wanting quality fishing, you need to shut down the trespassing and poaching. It may be challenging at first, but if your private pond is open to anyone, you'll never be able to reach your goals. Work with your family to closely regulate who is fishing the pond. Until you and your family does this, the rest of the action you taking will be futile.

Your pond sounds like it is being over fished. Plain and simple. You need to limit the fishing pressure and stop the removal of bass. When that many golden shiners reach those sizes, it generally means there are few bass, especially larger bass, too many weeds or a combination of the two. I am betting in your case you just don't have many bass to control the golden shiners. I wouldn't throw those shiners into the woods though. Those shiner makes babies which are prime bass food. Let those "cows" stay in there and make babies to feed the new bass the remaining bass will hopefully make once they stop getting removed from the pond by poachers.

So, first: Limit access to your pond. If it was me and my family pond, it'd be only my family and close friends who were only allowed to fish when I was present.

Second: Work with your family and get weights and lengths of all bass and bluegill caught from the pond. Calculate the relative weight on these fish. This will begin to tell you which species and size classes are and are not getting enough food to eat. It will then begin telling you if you do in fact have too many smaller bass and need to remove some so they can begin growing larger to replace all the poached larger bass. Keep in mind though, you may in fact have some larger bass in your pond. However, with the heavy fishing pressure your pond has been seeing, they have gotten very smart and hard to catch. 5 acre ponds can easily be over fished if everyone and their brother fishes in them.

Third: Any other species present in your pond besides bluegill, bass and shiners?

Welcome! I second CJ's comments. There is a relative weight chart in the archives. You can print it and take a hard copy to the pond.

I'd start a log book, logging length, weight and species of every fish caught. In a month or so you will have an idea of the dynamics of the fish in the pond if you fish it on a frequent basis.

How's the catfish population? What fish were stocked for the pay portion of the operation?

There are no other fish besides shiners,bass,and BG that I know of. Ownership of this pond has come back to my wifes granparents. There is a coupl that are allowd to fish the pond for food for the last 50yrs and 1 other farm worker. This is an old pond and has been in the family forever! It has not been a pay pond for 20yrs. There is alot more vegitation this year most likely due too very mild winter.I had no idea shiners existed in the pond until this year.
These are the 2 best from late Feb of this year-this used to be the norm.



Can shiners overrun a pond? They are popping everywhere!

I bought these signs on e-bay this week.
There is more liability for unposted property.

Very nice, heavy duty metal sign for good price:
18 gauge thick, weighs almost 5.5 pounds, 18x18.

e-Bay link




ordered this too, but it has not arrived yet:



e-bay link

As mentioned to meet your goals you need to strongly regulate the fishing and harvest. Have everyone who fishes keep track of what they catch. Let people know there is a 'new sheriff in town'! No doubt there are several trespassers and their friends who know about the fishing in the pond and they all are raping it. Some people think the fish are free and it is there right to harvest them similar to the air they breathe and property they litter. Reduce the illegal harvest and the fishery will gradually return. Then allow a regulated harvest.

Nice for target practice Zep!

Got some neighbors who would think so

Signs around here have to state the MCL # also. Basically the law which the sign is referencing, for it to be valid.

Law makers sure make things difficult

Yeah that's possible, but very few solutions in life are 100% effective,
that's why in my mind each item is a "piece of a puzzle".
You can dismiss my signs, but I think they will be just
one part of a very effective "piece of a puzzle" to
reduce trespassers, my liability & are certainly a lot better
than nothing.

Medic, the elderly man you speak of, I assume the shiners he was throwing out, were caught from the pond in question? I'm not trying to be dense, just trying to clarify.
This leads me to think of something else to consider. How many of the small brim are being thrown out also? If larger Bass are in fact being harvested, that could definitely lead to the large shiner population. With a larger population of big shiners present, you can bet they are spawning very well. With a reduction of your brim population, there is even less of the shiner spawn being eaten by the brim, naturally,
resulting in the explosion of Shiners.

I've also came to understand that Shiners are great robbers of nests. If the shiners are too abundant, they could be wrecking the spawning success of the Brim.

I am by no means an expert, just a layman who has gained a bit of understanding from this site.

I hear all the time, from people I know who claim to be experts. They know how to catch fish, so they automatically understand the dynamics of a fishery. I hear many talk about while fishing public and private waters, if they catch what they consider to be an undesirable fish, to the bank it goes.

One guy told me, he doesnt like to eat bluegill, so he throws everyone he catches, out onto the bank, regardless of size.But yet he searches for large Bass.

I'd go ahead and put up a couple of signs. Even though some may shoot them full of holes, at least they will be announcing their presence with the sounds of gunshots. Put the word out, that the days of free-for-all are gone. I'm not going to go off on one of my rants here. I think Bob Lusk put it best on another thread. "People think Pecans, Watermelons and Fish are free".

I would be willing to bet that stocking this pond with more bass and bluegill would quickly remedy the balance in the pond, but I have no clue to how many.

I agree James. We hear our new property before we bought it had people fishing and taking out lots of fish for their fish frys. So yesterday we kind of started the process of announcing there is a new owner and the days of freely coming/going are over.

For Sale sign is gone. We put up our first "No Trespass" sign and we also put lettering on top of the entrance gate where before there was none. Of course we also put a new heavy duty lock on the previously unlocked gate. It's always about "pieces of the puzzle"...if people want too bad enough they can break into Fort Knox, but there are things we can all do to reduce our exposure to behavior we are attempting to discourage.

medic1 is going to have to try and limit who comes and goes or most of his efforts will go to waste.

At risk of even more severely hijacking this thread, I gotts tell my story...Years ago when my pond was first built, by my dad in '77. He'd let about anyone who wanted, to fish. there were big bullheads, and he fed them.Within a couple of years, it was amazing the people who were down there fishing. People were showing up from Kansas City area, 60-70 miles away. There was once 10 people, all whom we did not know. Dad was getting ready to put the brakes on, but soon an event caused it to be nipped in the bud.

Dad being a cropduster,we have our own airstrip on this farm. One day, dad went outside, and there was a car parked right in the middle of the strip. This strip is on the FAA aeronauticals, and you never knew when a plane may want, or need to land.

Dad, went to the car, to move it only to find it was locked. He got on his tractor, now fuming, and drove to the pond. He was trying to keep his cool. He gets to the guy who owned the car and asked the stupid question, "Is that your car parked up there?" The guy ansewres, "What the hell business is that of yours?" Oh Boy....

The old man in his Marine Corps style response.... I'm the SOB that owns this place, and your dumb "donkey" is parked on an airstrip.I hope you can run fast, because if I beat you back to your car, I'm hooking up this log chain, and your car will be in the pond."

Fishing poles and all tackle were left behind, and dad let him win.

After that the fishing days were over.

It's bad, but I dont even talk about my pond to people anymore, it always leads up to the same old question..........

By the way ZEP, beautiful picture, I love Tejas. The scenery is magnificent.

I am not dismissing your signs at all! They are actually needed. I like the metal signs, but so do idiots around here.

We went to plastic coated cardboard signs based on local law enforcement recommendations. They are dirt cheap if you buy them at the Sheriffs Office. They only last a couple years, so re-posting is mandatory.

I have yet to see one with a bullet hole, or torn down.

We do have to have the MCL# referenced on the sign for insurance and liability concerns. A flat out "No Trespassing", "Private Property", "Violators will be Prosecuted" sign won't cut it around here.

JKB, isnt it sad, that you have to define "no trespassing" for it to be valid?

I hope I didnt come across as making fun of your sign reference.

Here in Missouri, all you have to do is paint corner posts, or any post that is a boundary marker, the color purple.That is a legally binding no trespassing marker.

JKB....I am sure some of the locals may take a shot at my signs eventually. Sad isnt it? But such is life. I may take your advice and see if the Sheriffs here in Texas have anything like the signs you speak of. Heck it couldn't hurt.

It's also nice if you have at least one good neighbor you can trust. Of course that's not a given, but if you have at least one that likes to play "cop" and keep an eye on the place, maybe run people off while you're not there. My brother will probably be living out there 3-4 days a week in the next couple of years so that will help.

I had a friend tell me this morning that he bought some land for deer hunting several years ago and caught some guy hunting on it once and the trespasser got pissed off and told the land owner "hell all you city slickers come out here and buy these places and think you own it when we've lived out here all our lives".

Thanks James....btw great story about your Dad!

Not a problem at all James.

I live in Michigan, and the previous administration tried to turn this State into California II Glad the #@%&! from Canada is gone

Gonna take more years than I have left to fix the damage.

Booting out hollywood was a good choice by the current guv!

JKB....at least most of us don't have it as bad as this poor fellow:

Trespassing Nightmare

My brother in law is not a city slicker. He bought 50 or so acres of heavily wooded property.

He was walking out one day, and Dumb and Dumber both had shotguns pointing at him asking why he was trespassing. My Bil, who ain't a chicken, turned things around really quick, and escorted D&D off the property with specific instructions never to return.

I posted a story about D&D a few years ago when they blew up their garage playing with gun powder. Took a chunk off the mobile home as well.

Place is abandoned, and D&D might be in jail.

My Mom worked with the gal that claimed D1 as husband, and D2 as son. Mom really tried to help her out.

James,

Purple paint is recognized by many people, even in MI.

Problem is, Way too many laws on the books that have to intertwine with law enforcement, insurance, lawyers... Keeping my butt out of jail... as a property owner.

Posting correctly and having law enforcement on your side is a necessity. Otherwise, the family of the drunk who fell in a test hole or other property hazard, could clean you out for the rest of your life! Not kidding at all!

Just the way it is.

I think the purple is done here in Texas too. I wonder how the purple works if a trespasser is like me and color-blind? Honestly purple is a color I really have a hard time with.

Such signs are good but only in case they can be taken seriously. Let me explain.
Some people would avoid your property after seeing such "No trespassing" sign but other poachers might start thinking how do they get to fish without being seen. And if they keep visiting your pond 3 times a week and never see the pond owner then I doubt they will give much about that sign. That's bad but it's usually so.

i really dont anticipate much of a problem.

new locked gate, property completely fenced,
no trespass signs, watchful neighbors.

may do cameras later down the line, but that's
more for a fun novelty than for trespassers.

like i said people can break into bank vaults so it's
all a matter of reducing your risks and enjoying life.

2EachHisOwn!

Purple paint is about as old as signing something by making a distinguished mark.

Guess people who could not distinguish the color, got shot!

Not to worry ZEP. Signage was born! Yep! no particular colors, just some squiggly stuff that is supposed to mean something, If you could read

I still think a lot of people got shot when this transition occurred Maybe even more!

Talk to AP about inexpensive cameras.