Bill, the reason I ask is that I wonder, after reading your initial comment, if there were any non-scientific metrics relating to the populations of fish that you can actually see in the water compared to how many fish you cannot see, like a ratio.
This is basic, but something like "if I can see (3) LMB in a 10'x10' area of two foot depth, I can assume that there are roughly X LMB in 1 acre."
I see a lot less fish in my pond this year than I have in many previous years, however, there are acres of water area that I can't easily observe even from a boat.
The first two years I had my pond, I could sit on the shore at one point where you are looking down on some 10' water, and this big LMB would just slowly cruise by everyday around 4:45PM in the summer months. I could never get it to hit anything including shiners, but I feel the bass was very healthy as it was about 22 or 23 inches long, and very "football" shaped.
So when you mentioned about pond owners having a good sense of what is in their pond, I was very curious.
