Excellent post Ewest and Bill. It seems to me that Gizzard Shad will, under the wrong circumstances, become another fish that needs to be managed. The photos of how big they get are amazing.
I am going out on a limb here, but IMO most ponds with good forage fish populations do not produce trophy bass because the bass numbers are not maintained properly (proper harvest) to produce an optimum number of trophy sized fish (reduce competition to optimize growth of remaining fish).
This was is the one concept that I think most new pond meisters need to grasp. Sure you can have trophy bass (what ever your particular definition for trophy bass is, over 6 pounds? over 8 pounds? over 10 pounds? higher?) but what a pond meister must grasp is that you can only have so many 8 pound bass swimming around a 1 acre pond. That bass will eat, what 80 pounds of forage just to gain another pound?
I guess that I post the obvious like this every once in a while because I had to grasp that concept before I realized that I really didn't want a trophy anything pond. I just wanted a pond where I could throw the line in the water and catch a variety of fish. That's it.
Oh and Happy, this wasn't aimed at you, I know that you didn't mention a trophy bass pond. I just feel the need to point out the obvious every once in a while so that sounds like I know what I'm talking about. Carry on.
