I've been doing some LMB culling in the pond. This one was returned to grow some more. Signal is too bad to send a pic from the phone to the computer, so that will be done later on today.

I removed 7 LMB from the pond, some were held in a fish cage for almost 3 weeks until I got around to filleting them. This one spent 3 days in the cage. I did feed them and whoever was smart enough to eat pellets, ate. The LMB removed ranged in size from 15" to 19", and the average weight was slightly over 3#, even after the time spent in the cage.

Yes Bill, I did get gape measurements. Those will be posted tonight or tomorrow.

This one was tag #003. It was stocked in the pond 6-2009 at roughly 1#, and it IS a pellet trained fish, and has stayed pellet trained. The floy tag is still in her. 18 3/4", 5.51# This is post spawn, you wouldn't believe how thick she is.

As promised:

Very nice. Hope to have some like that in my pond in a few years.

I wondered how long a person could keep fish in a cage. I ended up making a 40" square cage similar to your instructions and picture from a previous discussion post we had. Have had a couple CC in there for a few days and wondered how long I could keep them in there. Also have been dropping in some feed at least once a day. Sounds like for quite a while if needed. They seem fine when I checked on them.

This cage is really going to work well for the CC. Taking your advice and not releasing them after being caught, it is often very inconvenient to clean a single CC that we happen to catch while fishing for BG. (I've actually caught more CC by accident while fishing for BG or LMB than I have fishing for CC - but then we have not really fished for CC that much as the biggest are only up to about 3/4#). And wife does not believe in wasting things, so they have to be cleaned. So the cage holds them till we get a batch of them making it worth her time to clean them.

I have sure gotten a lot of good information and ideas from you esshup. Thanks.

Esshup, wow congrats that is one fat largemouth. That one looks like its well on its way to be 10 pounds.

That thing's a cinder block!

Very nice Scott! Together, ours equal a RW of 200. Yours at 155, and mine at 45.

very nice fish

I wanna see a photo of that one!

Thanks James!

Bruce, I got a LOT of catching up to do!!!!!

Beautiful Shup. ... Keep up the good work buddy your doing a great job and I admire your tagging and record efforts.. Seriously good job man..

Believe me, you don't. Actually, the last LMB I caught was 22" and 4 pounds. That should put her around a 65% RW.

Scott, you know my plan of attack, but it'll take a year or two to get things back on track.

You'll get there! Maybe we can fine tune it a bit when I'm down there in Feb.

very impressive esshup