Just as I thought I had things figured out.

Last year I remove 30Lbs of predator fish, Bowfin, FHCF, & bass. So far this year, I have removed 60lbs, mostly FHCF, from our 3 acre retention pond in North FL.

I expected to see a rise in the numbers of all sizes of bream. I have seen, so far, just the opposite. Around some of my structure the small & intermediate size bream have disappeared. In the past the populations in these areas has always been constant. I have never had many LMB & have never seen but a very few YOY LMB. The few LMB I do have seem more visible & aggressive than in the past.

I have almost 100 lbs less of predators, each 2lbs & above. Why have I not seen at least a stabile bream population?

Could it be that you just had a real successful spawn in 2006 and you're seeing predominantly those fish? No matter what your management practices are, you're going to have successful recruitment periodically.

It is not always easy to see them. They may have moved to deeper water or be busy spawning. Mine disappear from time to time and then show back up. Have you tried a seine survey ?

Speculation:

Perhaps the removal of the large dominant predators (previously eating and terrozing smaller bass) enabled the LMB to tackle the small/intermediate BG much more effectively. Your observation on increased LMB aggressiveness goes along with this. I would expect an increase in the number of small to intermediate LMB as well, but perhaps the have been too busy reducing the BG population to be observable by angling.

What is the condition of the larger BG?

Last year, I did relative weights on some of the BG I caught. They were WNL, within normal limits. The 8" BG & above look very nice when I throw feed to them this year.