Thanks fellas for stopping me from dropping $200 for something that wouldn't come close to what I was hoping to do. Which was look for a shortcut to finding out what I really have in my pond.
My issue is this. I bought this place with a 3/4 acre pond in Dec 2003. The lady told me there were bass, crappie, and bluegill in the pond. She did not lie to me. Because this was in my pre-pond boss days I had no idea what questions to ask so I didn't ask any of significance. She did say that 3 years ago a friend had caught a 10lber in the pond. First, I know now that a lot can happen in 3 years, even if she was telling the truth, which I have no way of determining.
I first started fishing the pond in Jan 04 on a 60 degree saturday and caught 4 or 5 bass (all in the 10-13 inch range and maybe a little skinny) and 1 nice size (10 or 12 inches)crappie and released all of them. I found Pond Boss and because I hadn't seen many BG (the ones I saw were 5 inches or less) and figured I was overstocked with predators so started taking out all crappie and, to date have taken out about a dozen bass from 10-14 inches. Then about a 10 days ago the bass and crappie completely stopped biting. In the last 3 days I have caught 2 crappie and a couple of bass. Fed the crappie to my dog and released the bass. My reasoning is fear. Fear that maybe i wasn't overstocked in predators after all. In addition to the lack of bite on LMB and crappie I have an abundance of small bg that don't seem to be getting thinned out by the predators.
I have 5 Navy buddies coming down this weekend and my original intention was to take out every LMB in the 10 - 15 inch range and all the crappie we catch,but now am wondering if I really have as many bass as I thought compared to the BG population. Still going to take out all crappie we catch.
I have about 18' visibility so the bottom of the food chain seems to be intact. I have also started hand feeding the BG. Would like to buy a feeder but can't bring myself to part with that much money as being a first time home-owner I don't really have it to spare.
Thanks for taking the time to read this long winded post and I look forward to suggestions. Any questions I can answer I will be happy to do so.


PETA, People Eating Tasty Animals