With lots of pages on the forum. There seems to be a trend of ponds or lakes with too little forage. Can the opposite be true? You've created the picture perfect large pond with diverse structures and plenty of cover. You have a established % of large bass. You have stock bluegills and tilapia from grow out ponds. You have a semi heavy quality feed being delivered. Your stocking spring and fall loads of crayfish. Trout annually stocked in the winter. You have a established minnow base. You decide you want to give gizzard shad a try. By the books it says you have the right % of large LMB to keep recruiting down of GSHD.

What happens after stocking? I can understand that the GSHD may have negative effects on BG recruitment. Does it reach a point which the LMB have too much forage and the pond would go out of balance not because the size of the bass are not the issue, but the amounts of diverse forage causes the pond to because Shad heavy?

a trophy lmb pond is not a balanced pond, is it? Heavy amounts of forage fish is not a balanced pond as I understand it. When I follow your list of forage, I think of it as more of a money disposal pond. lol I have one like that.

Balance would be a wrong choice of word. What point will the other diverse forage species cause the LMB population to limit predation of the large GSHD?

Ha Ha....I think most of us have experienced some of that.

Corvettes, race horses, beauty contest winners or ponds. Take your pick as to the most expensive.

SB,

One thought.

Getting to 80% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is easy and cheep.
Getting to 90% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is a little more expensive.
Getting to 92% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is more expensive.
Getting to 95% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is way more expensive.
Getting to 98% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is far more expensive.
Getting to 99% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is far far more expensive.
Getting to 99.9% of the way to a trophy LMB pond is far far far more expensive.

You should also substitute time in the equation as well. Time and money costs go hand in hand as you approach the perfect Trophy LMB pond, and try to keep it that way.

SB,

Interesting question. In your case, it sounds like you do a lot of supplemental stocking of forage. If you go ahead and stock the GSD and then think they are getting out of control, is reducing your supplemental stocking plan an option to get the LMB focused on the GSD?

I think you can choose to be as serious as you, and your budget, allow. What I have just recently decided for myself, as far as ponds go, is the need to always be mindful that it's a two way street.

All the time, effort, and money spent is pointless if all the while you're twisting your pond into your definition of appropriate, it's twisting you into something else entirely.

Another complex question that would merit an article by "The Pond Boss - Lusk". In this example, IMO yes you can have too much of a good thing. There is a "healthy" biomass load per acre based on numerous biological life-process conditions. Keep in mind that as forage amount and their biomass increases, there will be an associated increase in predator size increase and recruitment numbers, both increasing the pond's biomass. Excess survival of predators complicates the management (see Lusk's example below).

Added biomass of forage & predator increases carrying capacity, decreases water quality, and increases the number and type of related problems such as fish health, additional plants/weeds, and in turn will likely slow the growth of fish that are the ultimate goal. When near the overload capacity and usually when least expected, Mother Nature will adjust the overload if nothing else eventually does.

Bill Cody, you are so wright when you speak of Mother Nature making her move to correct an over abundance of most anything. As an outdoorsman, I have seen how she will correct quail populations through virus, or deer populations through virus and fish kills though virus. Fish kills? Lake Fork was and maybe still is the number one lake when talking of extra-large lmb. One day I caught 53 lmb over 5 lbs each, some in the 7 to 8lb range. Then the bass virus showed up and a fish kill took place. Large lmb were floating most everywhere. Today one can still hook into a large lmb but the numbers have been reduced, no more of those days I once had on the lake.

On our property in MO. we do have quite a few varieties of forage only ponds. My uncle uses them as bait ponds for Mississippi River quide fishing, and I on the other hand extract forage to flow into larger basin ponds for supplement feedings.

On a note of expense. I was in the process of building a race car dumping $$$ left and right, before you know you have quadrupled your original budget and the dang thing doesn't even crank up yet. I lost interest in the project now it's a really big pretty storage unit bill.

When it comes to fish and fisheries management, I've always felt a strong passion for the field. When you enjoy something like that the money is a little easier to hand out, as long as your getting joy back in return.

Back on subject I'm still have limiting factors that will make never make two of our MO. larger ponds trophies. One is crappie in one which still produces a few 8lb bass per year. The other pond is blue cat which steal forage away from our LMB still a few 10lb fish hidden there. My ponds in TN are as of now forage only. Property purchased this year will be towards larger more sustainable trophy ponds. That's really where this forage comes into my personal benefit.

Made me lol!! This might be one of the most profound statements I have seen when it comes to pond ownership!

Tub I was just about to post the same sentiment...thus spake Yogi Tony.

Just curious, but has anybody here on the forum ever had to add apex predators to their recreational LMB ponds to compensate for too much forage? I'm sure not saying it doesn't happen, I just can't remember seeing a thread where that was the scenario. Not different sized forage, not different types of forage, and not a different type of predator to control a certain sized forage. Just too much forage.

I'll hit this one from a different angle. The original question was, Can you have too much forage fish?
My answer is....no.
If you do, it's a temporary phenomenon, based on how the question was couched. The key point conveyed in the question here is "...right percentage of bass..." Here's an important point to keep in mind. Remember that it takes about ten pounds of forage to yield a pound of gain at each trophic level of the food chain. So, if you have a ten acre lake and have managed to add an extra thousand pounds of forage, you grow 100 pounds of predator fish, or 10 pounds per acre. Understanding that, there's really not much way to truly be "forage heavy" for very long at all.
When the restaurant is open, the bass will eat. There are cases where certain species of forage can become abundant in specific situations. That's a big reason we won't stock gizzard shad into a lake where we're not confident there are enough big mouths to eat significant numbers of shad as their growth rates push beyond 7-9", which happens within about 90 days of hatching. In that case, shad can outgrow the predator mouth-size, if we don't have enough large bass to prevent that situation.
Another unique situation I'll always remember was Bruce Condello's pond in Nebraska where he was stocking his best males, with no other fish. (except a few leftover hybrid striped bass). I took my 100 foot, 10' deep seine there one time, and we seined a neck of his three acre pond. We caught one hybrid striper and 40-50 big bluegills, and tens of thousands of large insect larvae and nymphs. That pond was teeming with every bug you could imagine, because there wasn't a slot in the food chain which could eat them. Sure, the bluegill could eat some, but weren't in large enough numbers to be significant for harvest. That was a cool study.
Regarding money spent, think about what it costs to buy a new bass boat, outfit it, buy all the stuff, and go to a public lake. And, you can't pull a new bass boat with a worn out truck. Add a new pickup truck to the mix and you have a lot of money in stuff that depreciates the minute you drive off the lot. Throw in bait, fuel, snacks and time going to and from that lake, and those crawfish, trout, bluegill, hatchery ponds and those dollars don't seem as bad.

As I sit here, thinking about this question, let's take it to another logical level.
If someone is motivated for this type of intense management, that pondmeister also needs to understand the consequences of that strategy. So, theoretically, we grow an additional 100 pounds of bass in this picture-perfect situation. That growth isn't evenly distributed amongst all bass. It's disproportionate, based on the most aggressive fish in the system, even more so for those with the "right" mouth size for the dominant size class and species of forage fish. There will be "class warfare" under water. So, keeping within this theory, as these predators eat, they grow. As they grow, they eat more. So, given some amount of time, the predator/prey pendulum swings toward predator-heavy. Conscientious pondmeisters weigh and measure their fish, and can predict when this pendulum moves, because specific size classes of predator fish begin to show signs of slow growth, headed toward weight loss. As that fact rears its head, there are two fundamental choices. Keep money-whipping the lake with forage fish, or harvest the under-performing bass (mostly boys). Or, some of both.
That last choice is becoming more chic for trophy bass managers...if bass managers can be chic.

I'm afraid it's neither profound, nor spiritual, boys. Bob's recent post includes the term intense management, and that's what's been on my mind lately. Basically, I'm stepping back from that philosophy, not that I was ever that intense in the first place.

I'm done with planning, worrying, scheming, and obsessing over ponds and fish. There's just so much more out there. In a totally out of character lucid moment, I once advised Bruce Condello to quit trying to improve the fish for awhile, and let the fish improve him instead. I think I like the sound of that right now.

Sometimes ya just gotta stop and smell the roses.

Welcome tony.


I've been there since we lost George. But I still work at it some...but only the fun parts for now.

If one reaches his or her goals, then its not so hard to lay back and smell the roses that snrub speaks of. Like most of the things in my life, I cant seem to lay back until those goals are accomplished. But I do sneek in a few minutes some days to relax and enjoy what has been accomplished.

Eric recently said it best. A balanced pond, of any kind, is very temporary. And by the time the "problem" it is realized, it is difficult to correct.

Reducing predators by fishing works until they get lockjaw. Adding forage takes a well thought out plan that you can only find out later how well it worked.

Thank you Bob for your words of wisdom. These largemouth bass are definitely eating machines I'm sure there will be trials and errors on my end. I also hope to get better in the future at looking up the little bass skirts to hopefully get close to a female only bass pond one day.

I also agree on what some the others have spoke of when just sitting back and enjoying the ponds and fish in them for a while. I can honestly say one of the most relaxing things is to watch fish feed.

For me, I can honestly say one of the most relaxing things is to feed on fish!

amen brotha

What PB and the Forum provides is knowledge. With that knowledge it is easier to do the management part and allows more time to smell the roses. The roses smell much better as a job well done.

The one bit of advice I would give is to learn about how things work. It allows one to both see the forest and the tree at the same time. This makes choices much easier.

About 5 years ago, I loaded my little 1 acre neighborhood pond up with Gizzards. Huge bass were the product. To be honest, I didn't see any horrible results of such a move, we did put several flatheads in the pond from the MO river which seemed to have helped clear the shad a bit, LMB alone will not control them. I recently had a fish kill from city tap water being released into the pond. Quite a few Shad in the 6"-8" range washed up but not as many as I would have thought. That tap water came in for 4.5 hours so I'm pretty sure there isn't much left in the pond, currently debating what direction I want to go this time...I don't mind breaking "the rules"