Hey Pond Bosses!

I'd like to increase the size/weight of my LMB and maybe grow a couple trophy lunkers.

I am considering stocking Gizzard Shad. Should I do it or is there a better alternative?

I have a ~22 acre spring fed lake in Central Texas (about 1 hour outside of Austin). The Bass over 15” are about 75% to 80% of the weight they should be according to the Texas LMB weight/length tables.

The lake is full of LMB. In just a couple hours you can catch 50-60 in the 10"-14" range when they are hammering the schooling threadfin shad at the lake surface during summer, or you can catch 20-25 15"-21" bass working the structure in the lake, but the larger bass are all under-weight. All the bass look healthy.

There are some very large sunfish in the lake, but barely any small/med sunfish (I think they get hammered by all the bass).

The lake has some crayfish too, but again, I think they get hammered because its mostly muddy bottom with some weeds, so there isn't a good rocky bottom for them to hide in.

The lake also has a really healthy population of threadfin shad. It has a mostly muddy/clay bottom, with some submerged vegetation during summer, three weedy bays with emergent vegetation (cat tails) and a little submerged timber in deep water. The lake averages about 10'-12' deep, has good depth variations, and is about 25'-30' deep at its deepest.

We started harvesting 8"-14" bass this year, but I think we'd need to take out ~400-600 a year to get the population under control. I filleted probably 150 bass from May to Oct and quite honestly am losing enjoyment when fishing at the prospect of filleting 400-600 a year.

I think there isn’t enough large forage for the bigger bass to put on weight. I’ve read a lot of pros and cons about gizzard shad.

What’s your opinion of Gizzard Shad (or other forage) in a lake like this if I want to increase the size/health of the larger bass and grow some trophy bass?

Welcome to Pond Boss, IBM.

Your lake sounds like one of a few that actually might benefit from GS introduction-however, NOTHING is going to allow you to raise trophy sized LMB with any regularity until you get the bass population under control. No matter how healthy your bass look, if your larger fish are only 70-80% the weight they should be, there simply isn't enough forage for them, or, alternatively, there are simply too many bass for the forage available [sort of two ways of looking at the same basic fact].

Every change that is made to a fish population has ramifications, some of which are unintended. For example, adding GS to your pond might in some ways boost the forage base, but there is some evidence [if I remember correctly] that stocking GS and TFS together may cause suppression of TFS reproduction. And if you wind up with a bunch of 10-12" GS that are too big for your bass to utilize as forage, and are suppressing TFS populations, things could actually get worse.

I'm not suggesting that you hold off adding the GS; you need some really good expert advice, which I cannot give. But nowhere does the law of unintended consequences play out more unexpectedly than in pond management!

I do think your best option is to declare war on the LMB population. Get it under control, feed your BG if you're not already doing so, then see how your lake is doing when the LMB are getting their relative weights into the 100-110% range--then consider adding a new forage species. From a practical standpoint, you might even have trouble getting GS established in such a LMB heavy environment.

How about having a boy scout fishing tournament, LEO appreciation picnic, church fishing day, or some other communal activity to help you clean out the LMB?

Do a search on GShad and see the threads . I would not stock them but would use tilapia instead. Feeding the BG may also help . You will need to harvest 20 to 30 lbs of LMB per acre every year also . See this for a start

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=322390&page=2

i don't know anything about ponds your size and very little about small ones, but i agree with yolksac. i would have some organized fishing events to get some of the cull size bass out. i can see where a lake that size would be tough to manage and keep from stunting and overcrowding. bass like bluegill and no one will argue with that. is there a chance you could add structure? little bluegill love to hang around the smallest of limbs and such.

lake martin here in alabama is a power company lake. my dad fished it all his life. he said back 60 years or so ago that the power company would cut trees along the shoreline for fish habitat. he said the fishing back then was super good. he said it was full of big largemouth bass. now the shoreline is covered with houses and of course they don't cut trees for structure any longer. it is now known to be a spotted bass lake, very few lmb.

with a lake the size you have, could you cut some trees for structure and not take away from its beauty?

Sounds like you have a nice place. I would hire a shock boat for a day or two and use it to reduce the lmb numbers. It will also give you a better look at what u have. Overton's Fisheries did my shock along with recommendation on where to go after analysis. I would also use tilapia before I used Gizzards. Not saying gizzards are out of the question later on but for now I would use the tp and that would take some pressure off the Bg and the Tfs.

ImaBassMan, I wouldn't stock them until I knew for sure I had a LMB population large enough to control them.

Kind of a best case, worse case scenario. If you have a large enough LMB population, then all's well. If you don't, then you have forage that's uneatable by the vast majority of your fish, and can grow to 2 pounds. At that point what do you do with them, and how do you control their population?

As far south as you are, threadfin shad and tilapia would be my first 2 choices. Kind of no harm, no foul forage.

FWIW I agree with all the other guys. I would drastically reduce your LMB numbers. I would remove any LMB one size class smaller than your largest class if a trophy LMB pond is the goal. Also, I would do what is necessary to help the BG population get back to multiple size classes and numbers. With respect to Tilapia, I would keep in mind they need a good food source if they are to thrive. Do you have a lot of FA or plan on feeding pellets? I understand they also die every year if the water temp goes too low. That can make them a recurring expense every year if cost is a concern. One of the other guys can probably approximate what it would cost yearly to stock a 22 acre lake with Tilapia.

Good Luck!

Like most little boys, I always wanted my own lake. But, not the work and expense that goes with it.

Bill, you are correct, but based on multiple years of personal tilapia experience, I'm glad they do. If they didn't, then you'd basically have gizzard shad sized fish with benefits by the second or third year.

I can also tell you that there's going to be very little that's cost friendly on the size pond/lake that ImaBassMan has. Corrections and transitions can be very slow, and take time to see or affect changes with that much water. Think siege, not battle.

Personally, the fist things I would do is get in touch with a good fisheries biologist for a proper evaluation, and then as has already been mentioned, seriously consider electroshocking or shockings. We'll be getting our 3rd biennial electroshocking in a few months, and the changes to our LMB population have been extremely positive. 22 acres is an awful lot of water to manage, and starting out with a good solid foundation of professional advice and experience can't be underestimated. To me, an initial eval by a qualified biologist is like hiring a good architect when building a house. You may know what you want your house to look like, but a good architect will layout what it takes to get there.

Bill, right now tilapia are in the $7-$10(a pound) range down here, but that's for late in the season tilapia. Usually around $10-$12 in the spring.

I would not stock the Gizzard Shad now, you don't have enough large LMB in the lake to take advantage of the food that they will produce. Gizzard shad will grow too fast from YOY to allow the smaller bass to eat them, and you have no larger bass to control the adults.

I also agree about getting a good biologist there. You can harvest a LOT of bass in a short amount of time with an electro shock boat.

Without removing a LOT of smaller bass, you will not be able to get the lake turned around by stocking forage fish.

Thank you all for the detailed and informative answers. I really appreciate them.

My takeaways from reading your posts:
1) It was good affirmation that I should focus on issue #1 of too many LMB before I worry about anything else.
2) I plan to get BG feeders up and running and I should do that ASAP too.
3) I'm not going to stock gizzard shad. The lake is really nice now, just too many bass, and it seems like I could mess it up by adding the Gizzard shad. Hopefully by brining the LMB population down I can get the forage population up.
4) I might try adding some more structure for bait/small fish cover.

Thanks Again!
IMABM

I have a smaller pond than yours that has gizzard shad in it that i didnt stock. I dont know how they got into it but they are there in big numbers. the bass do feed on the gizzard shad but not enough to keep the numbers down however i do think the hsb do put a dent in them and keep the biomass down to some degree. I agree with everyone on the forum that removing the predators is the number one priority in increasing the size of the bass. my pond is a little bit different because bass are not the dominate predator. My biggest predator removals are catfish and crappie just due to their sheer numbers. I agree with eric the tilapia are great but tend to be an expensive buy each year. For a pond as big as yours you would need to stock about 200 lbs of tilapia which would cost about 2000 dollars but maybe thats money better spent than on anything else including fish food? Eric if you were going to spend 2000 dollars would you spend it on fish food, tilapia or bluegill or some combination of each?

James it depends on the circumstances and goals . Feeding is efficient and works well where the natural food level is low . If there is not enough natural productivity then adding fish will not help over time . Both BG and tilapia are productive but have limits ( they don't use all of a large lakes pelagic potential. It really depends !!

Has anyone done a study of some sort that would be tilapia vs pellets money spent and the return on investment? If your goal was larger bass and better catch rates pellets vs tilapia dollar for dollar including feeders and maintenance cost on the feeders

what is a better investment a pallet of fish food or 220lbs of tilapia in growing bigger bass? The pellets and the tilapia are gone in a season

I have not seen any study/comparison on pellets vs tilapia. It would be very hard to quantify with all the variables. Pellets are efficient because the consuming of then does not require the expension of energy by the BG. It has been measured to be 4 to 8 times more efficient than natural prey capture . Tilapia mass for consumption would vary based on pond productivity , stocking size , temp , predation timing and other factors.

I would think in your area a small shed or garage would be a good place to keep a few dozen large adult size tilapia over winter to restart in the pond each spring.

eric I'm hearing you but here are my complaints with pellets and these are strictly my observations and opinions after feeding pellets from five feeders for six years. 1. the fish that eat them bass especially are not as healthy as the fish that eat natural prey. they don't live as long and they are easy to identify due to their gray color and mushy flesh. I have been told that feed trained bass only live about five years? 2. the fish that eat pellets are harder to catch on lures because they are used to eating nonmoving prey. Now after saying this I'm afraid not to feed pellets because I don't want my pond to crash or decrease

James, that's interesting.

I went back and forth on whether or not to pellet feed on a regular (daily) basis. The pros were the growth of the fish eating the pellets and the likelihood that more fish could live and thrive in the body of water because of the constant feeding. But the cons far outweighed the pros - what if the feeding stopped, how would that affect the fish population? Would the fish eat or strike anything other than a pellet or pellet lure? What if the sheer number of fish artificially inflated as a result of feeding led to a fish kill?

So I went the route of trying to promote enough natural forage in a life chain by providing plants, rocks, releasing dragon and damselflies, and stocking forage in the pond. We do spot feed pellets now and then for the kids to enjoy the fish at the surface hitting the food.