I purchaced a piece of property about a 4 years ago and it has a 3 acer pond on it. The pond has alot of bass in the 8-12 inch range and few Bg. and Red ear. The bg and red ear are all on the large side. It seems to be a case of bass overpopulation so I begin taking out as many of the 8-10 bass as I catch. The largest bass that I have caught was about 6 pounds. The pond is about 16 ft. deep and has a spring that runs into it 12 months out of the year which makes it seem pointless to fertilize because of the amount of water it discharges year round. The pond was stocked back in the 80's and has been out of balance sent the 90's. I was wanting to know what is the best option to get the pond back on the right path to becoming a trophy bass pond. I have four ponds that I have been trying to manage for trophy bass including one 2 acer pond that I stocked Tshad last sping. So far 8.7 pound is the largest that pond produced. I caught and released that fish this past fall. My goal is to produce a bass over 10. Any suggestions that yall may have on getting my 3 acer pond back on track I would be thankful for.

Hi jsand13,

Welcome to the forum!

Do you feed? Feeding will boost the forage, which will provide more food for the bass.

Hello Js glad you found Pond Boss. Bob Lusk has a great book that is aptly named "Raising Trophy Bass." It has quite a bit of information that is bass specific and IMHO a great reference.

The fact that you were had an 8.7 pound bass is a good start. Dang I only wish I had bass that large in my pond.

Hang on and one of the resident experts will be around to answer your question.

Reducing the overpopulation of bass is the essential first step. The finer points are available in Raising Trophy Bass, as JHAP mentioned.

If the number of BG & RES is really low, restocking with adult bream to reestablish the forage base could be beneficial. How did last year's BG/RES spawn look?

I feed in all of my other ponds every day once the water warms but in that pond i have tried feeding several times for a week or so at the time and rarely have any fish feeding on it. I saw a few bg and red ears on the beds last year but saw very little fry or small bluegill around the edges.

Yeah the pond that I caught the 8.7 pound fish out of is one of my best ponds. I spend most of my time adding cover and culling smaller fish out of that pond. Its unfortunate that that pond has a bad leak from some trees that were left on the back side of the dam before they were removed. I have been pumping water from another pond to keep it full but if it gets dry again this summer I don't think I will have enough water to keep it going.

jsand, Your pond sounds similar to the problem I had. I restocked with BG and take out every bass I catch that is under 16 inches. I also stock with Tilapia when the weather gets right to do so. They provide a lot of benefits, including increasing the forage base. Keep throwin' those bass out and increase your forage base. It seems to be working for me.

I figured that it could only help to put about 400 2-3 inch bg to the acer to help boost the forage base. I did want to add tilapia to help the forage base but i think it would be hard to find someone to buy them from in georgia without having to pay a high delivery fee.

The forage base may be so poor that all those few large (e.g. 8.7 lbs) LMB have to eat is their own offspring. Sounds like a supplemental BG/RES stocking would be a good thing. I would suggest breeding sized adults, minimum of 5"-6", to avoid predation. 2"-3" bream would likely be snapped by those hungry intermediate bass.

In a 3 acer pond how many adult bg would I need to stock and when would be the best time to stock them. Since most of the LMB in that pond are 8-10 inches would adding FHM help them any or would they just eat them to quick for any benifit.

jsand, I suspect those FHM would be eaten before you got back in your truck. They don't fare very well when added to ponds with an existing bass population. Like Theo said add some larger BG. I added 500 4 to 6 inch BG and now I have a lot of them. My pond is around 2 acres. Maybe someone on the forum has had luck adding TS, and could chime in.

Stocking tilapia here in Georgia is illegal which is a shame because it is an awesome fish. The FHM wouldn’t benefit you and they would be wiped out in a hurry by the bass. We generally recommend 250-500 3-5” per acre bluegill to boost up the forage. I have even read people stocking well over 500/acre to boost the forage. Without shocking the pond I don’t know how many bass you need to take out but if they are averaging 10” harvest anything 10-12” or less. You can go to our website, http://www.lakework.com and click on the articles tab and scroll down to the relative weight chart so you can start calculating the Wr of the bass (bass you may think that need to go back into the pond). Also you said that the other pond with the big bass had plenty of structure in it. Does the 3 acre have any? If not you need to add some to let those bluegill grow to bigger sizes so those bass can conserve energy to grow. It sounds like the bluegill recruitment is low, which can be contributed to not enough dense cover (protection) and too many bass. You may also want to consider threadfin shad and even stocking some F1 bass or pure northern bass later down the road to help improve the genetics of the bass. But all in all reduce the bass population (harvest) and increase the forage population (stocking).

Thanks mmorgan, I would like to have the pond shocked to see what is really going on. Do you know anyone close to augusta that does it or how much would yall charge to drive here and do it. I just added 15 christmas trees and a few of the pocipine attractors about three weeks ago so hopefully in time that will provide some benifit. When is the best time to stock threadfins I stocked the other pond in late may and I think the bass may have hammered them because I never really saw any schooling action all summer. I was wanting to add some F1 to the 3 acre pond but I figured I would only be making the problem worse until I got the bass under control.

We have a good number of clients in east Georgia off of I-20, and one client in South Carolina so we go through Augusta 5-6 times a year for him. Best time to shock is when we get some warm weather in the spring before it gets too terribly hot. You definitely want to get the pond back in balance before stocking any F1 bass but keep them in mind for the future (may have to do some research to find adult F1 bass for a good price). We stock our shad in April just before they spawn. Shortly after stocking they will spawn ensuring that they establish themselves in the pond. Feel free to call us if you are interested in shocking the pond. We can schedule it out when we are going through Augusta to help out on the mileage cost. I am normally out on the road so if I am not in the office ask for Greg Grimes. Thanks-Matt