Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations LMB Growth??

So I have owned my pond just over a year now. The pond was dug 8 years ago. It is about 3/4 acre and 18ft deep by the dam. I am wondering what to do about my LMB. Last year all LMB I caught was in the 12in-14in range. A few smaller ones around 8in or so. I figured I would at least catch a few bigger ones?? The blue gill are all around 3-5in and seem to be pretty plenty-full and I started feeding them last year(along with the Catfish).

How can I make my LMB thrive?

Should I add FHM?

Should I remove the stupid CC's and Flatheads??!!(last year i was pulling out 24in-30in flatheads and CC. They are making lent pretty delicious

Also my pond has a few Crappies? I was told to remove all of those due to the size of my pond. Even though I have caught a few of those that were put in the fryer.

I don't know if this matters or not put the pond did have cattails all around it and I had them dug out with an excavator. Should I add some cover in there too??

Any help would be awesome!!

Thanks!
John

Sounds like you have the classic over populated stunted LMB pond...

First thing I would do is remove every single bass you catch. 3/4 acre, you should be able to make a dent in the population. I'd look to removed 50-75 pounds of bass. Start recording weight and length of each bass and all fish caught for that matter. Calculate relative weights on the bass and others and track progress.

I would not waste my money on adding any FHM.

I would also remove every catfish caught of any species and continue removing all crappies caught.

As you are doing this, the addition of some shallow cover would help as well. Good luck!

How many bass are you catching? Weight of them? Shouldn't there be some bigger bg if there are numerous small bass? I agree to remove all the crappie and cc and undersized lmb. Ever think about some HSB? Fast growth and a blast to catch?

I'm new to pond management so am not an expert. But I think I have an illustration that might help give a clear picture of what was explained by CJBS2003 very well as a "classic over populated stunted LMB pond.."

Imagine your pond instead as a "pig pen". Or any other type of animal pen you might wish to imagine.

Lets say that "pen" comfortably "holds" a hundred 40# piglets. they have room to move around, feed, and prosper. But what happens as they grow and become larger? The pen that comfortabley held 100 40# pigs might only hold 50 80# pigs or 15 240# pigs. For any "fixed" size of pen, it will only comfortably hold a given amount of pounds of hogs. Your pond is a fixed size pen. It will only hold a certain amount of pounds of fish.

Your pond can only hold so many pounds of fish. It can hold lots of small fish, but a much smaller number of large fish. It only has so much space and so many resources to sustain the fish population.

So if you want bigger bass, you need to remove many of the small/medium ones to give more room for growth. Getting rid of the big catfish also gives more room. It sounds counter intuitive. Seems like we should just be able to pour the feed out there and get the big bass. But from my non-expert perspective it all started making sense once I understood that there was only so much room for fish. It is your job to remove the undesirable size/species and provide the proper forage for the ones you want to grow.

As CJBS2003 points out, remove a bunch of the bass and catfish and the remaining LMB will have room and resources to grow.

MOST ponds will support about 100 pounds of predators per acre. Everything is a predator of something else.

So take out all Bass? Or just the ones under 10in?

Last year during the spring I would catch about 3-4 bass every trip around the pond. They were hitting pretty heavy but they slowed down in the summer. They were around the 12in size. Every once and a while I would get a fat 14.

So I didn't think were any catfish when we got the pond and I added 20CC and 10 Albino CC. Well behold one day while feeding the new ones about 10 big CC came up

Then one night out fishing with my nephews we caught 3 Flatheads in 30m! They were anywhere from 27in to 30in... When will the channel cats and the flatheads start biting. I want to start clearing them out asap.

thanks for the info so far!

There is a lot to learn.
Firstly, remember the more time you spend fishing in a small pond (<5 ac) the more you condition or 'educate' your fish to become hook shy, hook smart and less likely to bite. This applies especially to the larger fish. Then it takes more & more angling finesse and education to catch the wise old fish. Numerous discussions have occurred here about this topic for further reading try searching the site.

Secondly are you sure some of the catfish are truly flatheads? Those when large will eat 14"-16" bass. IMO get all CC out unless you love to eat CC. CC are pellet hogs and night time predators serving a similar niche as the owl. IMO each CC takes the place of one bass. I prefer bass to CC.

If the LMbass are just 14" after around 6 yrs old then your pond has serious food shortages for the adult bass if your goal is LMB 4 - 6 lbs. Fingerling bass in IN that are well fed should be minimum 14" at the end of the 2nd yr in the pond. IMO you will never get LMB 4 -6 lbs with the current fishery balance. I think it will take a concerted and wise management effort to correct the current problem due to having too many hook smart fish and too many wrong species present. The path to recovery will be slow, similar to how long it took to get where the fishery now stands. Removing and probably adding fish is one probable path. Several paths and choices can be taken based on your goals for the pond and its fishery. Maybe you should reconsider your goals for the pond based on its current conditions? Consider and re-examine if your goals are realistic.

Do you use pond dye? That by itself will reduce the amount of fish a pond will grow by about 50% because it suppresses the bottom of the food chain - primary productivity.

Most of your answers and options will be listed here from our extensive information thread about LMB. Other members can provide additional advice.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

Neither. Just take out all the LMB that are under 90% relative weight.

"How do I figure that out" will be the next question (I assume).

To answer that, you will need a digital scale, a ruler, a calculator and a copy of this chart.

Take the LMB that you catch. Get it's weight, remember it and measure it's length. Find the fish that is that long on the chart. See that weight that is associated with that length fish? Take your fish weight, and divide that by the weight that is on the chart. What is the number? Under .9 and remove it. Over .9 toss it back in.

Thanks for the info guys. That's a lot to take in all at once but I will do the chart for LMB removal and just remove all Cats.. Should I remove the bluegill that maybe stunted too or are they just getting eaten and good source of food? I will keep you all updated!! It's a little chilly and snowy out today so won't be doing anything today. If I threw out some lines for cats , think they would bite in the weather?

I'm over this weather and ready for fishing weather!!

If the BG are stunted, there's either too much cover in the pond for them to hide in away from the predators, or it's not a LMB stunted pond.

Like we said earlier, without knowing the length/weight of the LMB, we're only guessing that they are stunted. They might be fat pigs, but just not long! That's why the RW (sometimes shown as WR) chart is a much needed tool.

+1 what esshup says. When it comes to LMB it's all about the RW then go from there.

RC

How do you adjust the RW on LMB when the females are full of eggs?

Well that would be the one exception to the rule I guess. Taking RW's should not be done with LMB that have eggs in them that would be a false reading IMO.

RC

Good question,

I always take my RW's in mid summer to fall that way I know there isn't any issue with eggs or lack of feeding. Winter could also be a bad time to take RW's as the fish don't eat near as much. So I stay away from those times.

All RW have to be adjusted for time of year. That is very important. LMB can loose a third of their weight during the spawn.

So I do add dye to the pond in the summer.. How bad is that for the pond, I wouldn't of ever added it to the pond if I knew it was hurting fish growth Does it hurt more if I added more than was recommended.....

Sorry newbie here

It depends on one's goal... If aesthetics are the most important factor in owning your pond, then the addition of a dye may be worth the detriment to fish production. As is the case with nearly all the food chains in the world, the food chain in your pond starts with the energy of the sun.

Phytoplankton are agents for "primary production," the creation of organic compounds from carbon dioxide dissolved in the water, a process that sustains the aquatic food web. Phytoplankton obtain energy through the process of photosynthesis and photosynthesis requires sunlight to occur. When you add dye to your pond, you reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the water and thus, reduce the productivity of your pond in producing phytoplankton. So by adding more dye than recommended, you have reduced that much more sunlight from penetrating the water.

Phytoplankton are also crucially dependent on minerals. These are primarily macronutrients such as nitrate and phosphate. This is why liming and fertilization leads to more phytoplankton as well. Submerged aquatic vegetation can out compete phytoplankton for these resources and this is often why ponds with a large amount of submerged aquatic vegetation are quite clear.

If one wants their pond to be naturally its most productive, they should not dye it, work to keep submerged aquatic vegetation to a minimum, generally in the 20-30% range depending on certain management goals and ensure their pond is not overly acidic with good amounts of dissolved minerals.

This should probably be put in a new thread but why do people never put lily pads in ponds around here? We had some in our fish pond at home and the fish seemed to love them. If I put them in containers would they not take over and maybe help the fish with cover a little bit?

That depends on what types of lily pads you are talking about. The wrong types can grow quickly and overtake a pond, making it hard to fish in. But it all depends on your goals. John Monroe doesn't fish in his ponds, and he's happy with them having a LOT of vegetation in them - more than anyone would prefer that fished in their ponds. IIRC he has Spatterdock and White Fragrant Lillies in his pond.

Fragrant White Lilies and Spatterdock are the two most common wild varities that grow in the Northern part of the US. They grow and spread fast, and can can grow in water depths (depending on clarity) of 4-5 feet. Once established, they can spread 5' or more per year, and are difficult to remove. They just don't only spread by rhizomes, they also spread by seeds. So, keeping them in containers won't keep them contained for long.

You can plant hardy lilies, which don't spread fast at all. If you wanted lilies, that's what I would do. Search on here for Hardy lilies, they have been discussed a number of times before.

In even just marginal conditions the wild white water lily and spatterdock will easily grow into 7 to 9 ft of water depth. As they spread they tend to cause the water to become clearer, (competing against phytoplankton) and thus light penetrates deeper and they grow deeper, sometimes as deep as 10ft. If one wants slow, shallow growing water lilies choose the types that are labeled dwarf or miniature usu 1-3ft deep. Next larger sized group is called small spread. The medium and large spread types of hardy hybrid varieties grow the deepest and spread the quickest some up to 6'-8' deep; it all depends on variety of hybrid lily. Hybrid lilies generally do not produce fertile seeds, although there are exceptions. If you want to know all about details of water lilies for ponds get the two back issues of Pond Boss magazine and read my two articles about water lilies for ponds.

Mar-Apr 2010 WATER LILIES IN PONDS? Part 1. Cody discuses features of hybrid water lilies and four types of look alike species. Control methods discussed.

Jul-Aug 2010 HYBRID WATER LILIES. Part 2. Cody discusses the types of hybrid water lilies, size groups, leaf and depth spread, planting, dividing and transplanting methods.

There is also a fair amount of discussion topics in the PBoss Forum Archives about water lilies and similar looking plants.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=110943#Post110943

Thanks guys! Just thinking about something that may provide cover for the fish and fun to fish around. Also something that would look nice but not take over. Looks like a have a few options here!

Thanks again!

Catfish removal started last night, and releasing to the frying pan tonight! Set out a milk jug with a hot dog on it last night. While my wife and I were having dinner and the milk jug was buzzing around the pond like a little boat! 20in CC

So how do you guys fillet your catfish's? Some of those bigger and fatter ones the fillets get huge!

I don't know what variety of wild water lily grows in ponds around here but I was amazed when I cleaned out our old pond. It had been covered about 2/3 with them and had been there for many years.

I could not believe the size of the root, or tuber, or whatever you call the part that grows under ground in the bottom of the pond. Some of the roots were on the order of 4" in diameter and I don't know how many feet long. I know lots of them came up as I was dozing the muck out of the bottom of the pond.

After seeing the roots, I understand why it would be near impossible to control them mechanically (other than draining and cleaning out the pond). I would think a systemic herbicide would be the only thing that could take out such established roots once they had gotten established and any size to them.

Like you would fillet a regular fish, except if you don't have an electric fillet knife don't cut thru the ribs, cut to the ribs, then follow the ribs out and cut thru the skin. Once the fillet is off the fish, (if the table/board is long enough I won't cut thru the skin at the tail - I'll flop the fillet over and use the body of the fish as a handle) cut from the tail to the head to remove the skin. Then remove all the dark meat that you see.

If I cut thru the skin at the tail I'll use a fork to hold the skin at the tail to start the cut.

Maybe a silly question.... I was walking around the pond today and bass and BG were in large schools. There were a couple very nice size Bass. The weird thing was they were very close to the bank. They were staring at the bank looking like they were waiting for something to fall in. Is it normal for fish to swim close to the top? In one corner of the pond where there are a few weeds I counted 6 LMB and about 12 BG swimming around. The bass range from 10-14in. Then i went to another side of the pond and saw the same thing. Is it just because the water is heating up??

Sorry newbie here but very curious! I'm anxious to get my pond into a working foodchain!

Thanks!
John

That's what I would think. They may be remembering conditioning from last year if last year they felt footsteps and followed you around the pond waiting for something to jump in. Grasshoppers, frogs, etc.