Caught this 15 inch crappie on a spinnerbait while bass fishing.
I'm guessing Black Crappie?
4 of the 7 small bass I harvested and cleaned
Eric while the pic is not the best for this purpose, all of those LMB don't look under fed. The 2 middle fish look ok.
I could be way off here, but I just thought of something:
Eric(dc),
If your pond was more or less the neighborhood fishin' hole prior to you buying the property (subject to heavy angling pressure), that could partially explain why you have so many "small" bass. Maybe it's not that they're stunted. Instead, it's possible that with heavy angling, significant portions of each year class have been removed. That could explain why you're catching a few larger bass from time-to-time (the ones that "made it"), but mostly just fairly healthy and small bass (more young than stunted) that haven't been pressured yet. The same could be true for the BG.
That theory doesn't explain the large crappie, except that the average weekend angler might naturally target LMB/BG as the typical default species in a small pond if they don't know crappie are present. Also, crappie are such unpredictable spawners compared to the other species, and maybe the larger LMB and CC have been able to keep their numbers in check. Thus the fewer and bigger fish. At any rate, it could be something to think about.
It seems to me that in most of your photos, there are a fair number of both skinny and healthy bass. Any other thoughts (more rational than mine) as to why there isn't a more uniform appearance to them?
The healthier looking bass in the above picture were full of eggs. About a month ago and last fall I was catching skinny bass with the rare healthy one. I think the healthier appearance is due to the spawn but I could be wrong. I'm new at this. As far as angling pressure. Most of the pressure would be on the bass but the people I've talked to were mostly catch and release and one guy usually caught what he kept.
When the water is clear like right now and temps are warm I can walk around the pond and spot bunches of small bass in the shallows hunting for food I suppose.