Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Stocking more channel catfish in my pond

C44 - Do you have help removing the bass? Removing 300 bass - were all those removed in 2015? When you are seeing your bass getting bigger you are making progress getting enough bass out of the pond creating a more balanced fishery. One of the reasons your pond has lots of big bluegill(BG) is due to lots of small bass eating lots of small BG; actually an unbalanced situation of too many small bass that result in fewer BG but big BG. Then remaining BG get ample food for growth. For a more balanced fishery, I would not remove any BG until there seems to be more 3-5" BG present indicating they as fry are able to survive long enough to become adults.

Restocking larger catfish(CC) may not be real beneficial at helping produce high numbers of large BG. Larger CC are predatory and are eating fish (small bass and BG) primarily at night.

To help produce larger BG you want to have numerous of smaller bass 8"-12" to prey of small BG to keep their numbers lower. When you have more balanced fishery and want numerous big BG you should harvest the larger bass 16"+ since these bigger bass are eating numerous larger 3"-5"BG. You want a good number of 5"-6" BG to be present to take the place of those bigger BG that are harvested. Consider establishing a pellet feeding program (2or3 locations) to help increase the BG growth rate and keep their number at higher density.

You can stock smaller catfish (6"-8") if the LMbass are not bigger than 12"-14".

Adding TM (tiger musky) could be a option to help remove some of the 6"-12" bass when the TM grow to 24"+. TM can sometimes eat too many bass. If you decide to stock TM start slow and not more than 0.5 to 2 per acre because you want good numbers of bass less than 12"long for producing mostly big BG. Each TM could eat 180-300 fish per year and most(40-70%) of them could be bass.

You have to decide on your main goal for the fishery then manage toward achieving that goal.