Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Big BG Pond

I have a .3-.5 acre pond right next to my new 5acre pond. The small pond has been my bass pond, but now that I have a new puddle to play with, I am thinking of making it into a BG pond. It is already bass croweded, and probably stunted. Most all bass are 8-12in. and can be easily caught. I am ok with this because I like the high catch rates. A fishing/cast net survey provides this small pond has many small bass, one or two nice bass 3-4lbs, some pretty large crappie (4 caught so far), about a dozen native BG about 8in, and only two or three BG under 4-5in. have been caught. So as you can tell there is not much for anthing to eat.

How about if I start taking some bass out, and add some CNBG. I want to keep high catch rates of bass, size of the bass is not of concern. How many BG to add is the question and of what size. I want to keep it were the bass catch rates are high and keep the BG numbers down so I can have a chance at growing some big CNBG.

Any thoughts?

are you going to feed your bg?

I have not decided yet, I could go either way just as easy.

Sounds like you're going to have to add larger, adult CNBG for them to make it with some 3-4lb. LMB in there. The larger CNBG will end up being your 'bigger' bluegill.

As far as numbers, in general, I would add less if not feeding, and more if feeding.

Stocking numbers would also depend on if you are going to eat the larger CNBG.

Hey guys, I think I may have a slight problem. A 'friend' of mine put about 15-20 adult BG in my new pond, and swears he did not put in any bass. I put in 25-30 5-8" RE two weeks ago, but yesterday I caught a 7-8 inch bass, and now I'm concerned that he may have put more than one. Subseuently, I have changes my mind on stocking in Oct., and will now stock with 3-5 BG rather than fingerlings. My RE will still have to be 1-3" fish, and I will put in about 13-15 lbs of FH instead of the 10 lb originally planned. I hope the/those larger bass don't mess with my population. I did notice a group of 1-11/2 inch fry in the pond late last week. Could some of the adult BG put in about 7 weeks ago have spawned? My 'new plansnow for Oct. are 100 3-5" BG, 200 fingerling RE and 13 lb FH. Does this sound "sound" to the experts??

Forgot to mention that my pond is about .75 A. Sorry.

Wouldn't jakeb's pond work like a put 'n take pond for BG? It's hard to imagine many yoy BG surviving with all of those LMB.

GW, I think that is what im going to try.

Jimmydee, it probably would be better to start a new thread for your question, you'll probably get more responses that way.

Jake, are you going to move the big bass out of the smaller pond? Seems like that will be a significant part of the stocking equation.

Yes! but like I said I only know of one or two that size, so catching them is quite an accomplishment. If I do they will come out, along with some of the smaller ones.

I want to re-open this topic. The pond is the same but I have added 500 4-5in. CNBG two weeks ago. I have also taken about 15 8-12in. bass out. I still want to make this a trophy BG pond. I want to eat some cull BG and throw the big ones back. I will feed them.

I took the bass out because I was trying to get it back in ballance, but now that I have swayed back to trophy BG this may have not been the best way to go. My question is was the 500 BG to much for such a small pond? or will they just be big enough to escape the 12 inch bass? Also there were virtually zero native BG in before I added the 500.

I guess time will tell.
comments appreciated.

500 BG for a .3 to .5 acre pond seems like a large number if your goal is to grow trophy BG.

Remember LMB prefer to eat BG 1/3 to 1/4 their own body length.

As CJ stated, 500 intermediate BG is a lot given your new big BG goals. But if you feed the BG to fatten them up (heck, even if you don't feed), you can cull the slow growers, small males, and small to middlin' females and have some nice fish dinners. Later this year and next year they should be eating sized (> 6", to me).