Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Crappie and bass havesting & management

I’m currently trying to manage a pond to increase large size bass and crappie. The belief is that the pond is currently very overpopulated. The pond is around 6-7 acres with many structures for fish to hide in deep open water as well as a flooded area of woods around 1 acre. We did a 7.5 hour 2 person management harvest using artificial bait and caught/kept 170 crappie 90% of which where 9-12 inches . We also caught roughly 55 bass keeping 39 between 11-14 inches. The owner of the pond has noticed a decline in trophy size fish being caught overall, while I was able to catch a 9 lb 2 oz bass last year( which in Ohio is a large bass) the frequency of bass over 5 pounds or crappie over 16 inches has drastically declined over the last few years. My question is how many crappie and bass should I be trying to remove yearly to restore a healthy balance to the pond. Thank you .

Attached below is a photo of the fish harvested from the pond. One more piece of information, these kind of harvest have been happening 2 times a year with basically the same number of crappie every time for 3 years now. This is the first year targeting a slot limit of bass.

Nice work. Now you need to come down and work on my pond.

Those crappie aren't dinks. Congrats on the harvest.

You never mentioned how old the BOW is. As big as the BOW is, you may have to settle with keeping things status quo. I hope you like to eat fish .

My belief is that after the 2nd year, never return a bass under 14 inches to the pond. In 7 acres, I would never return a crappie. GENERALLY, crappie should not be stocked in anything less than 25 acres.