My friend has a 1 1/2 acre pond in Central CA that is the normal over populated and stunted LMB situation. We have been removing every LMB that we catch for about a year now. We are seeing a very small improvement on the weight of the bass but still have days where we catch fish on every other cast. The pond is about a hout from home so we only fish it about 10 times a year. On 3/8/2008 we planted 20 adult BG that I am pretty sure were too large for the LMB to eat and 25 channels cats (7.5-10.5"). The LMB we catch are skinny 7-13". There hasn't been any other species of fish seen or caught in the lake in the last few years, including the BG & CC.

There is another 1 acre pond on the property that has no bass in it and we planted a small amount of RES & BG in last spring along with 25 CC. I also have my pond but I do not want to remove my relatively few BG that are large enough to avoid predation from the LMB.

A group of us want to head to the pond and have a fish fry sometime soon. We are also getting pretty close to the LMB spawn. Do you guys think we should try to remove a bunch of fish before the spawn or wait until the spawn occurs? Create forage or prevent as many new mouths as possible? Obviously we need to add more adult BG but I don't think we put enough in the other pond to be removing any yet. I will let my fish supplier know that I am in need of adult BG next time they come across some.

What do you guys think?

I would take them out now. He is still going to have thousands of LMB fry no matter what.

No question-take them out now.

Remember, those bass got stunted and skinny trying to forage on their own offspring.....if young LMB were worth trying to use as primary forage, LMB ponds wouldn't stunt so quickly and severely.

Or, looking at the problem from another angle, even a small number of surviving yoy LMB will put a real hurt on your yoy BG as they grow throughout their first year. I really put the hammer down on my 2acre, bass heavy pond two years ago, with an almost immediate improvement in fish quality, but slacked off last year as I got busy with other pond projects. So far this spring, I've caught a lot of 8-13" fish that I'm sure I should have been removing more aggressively. I won't make that mistake again.

Have a big fish fry on those small LMB. When you get the numbers down add adult BG and some small BG as well.

We are heading out in the morning to add more BG to the BG pond and take out more LMB from the main pond.

One more thing, after you fillet the LMB out how do you fry them up?

Thanks.

Batter them in cornmeal and deep fry in 375 degree oil till they float and start to brown.

Without getting to far offtrack, I have a stunted bass pond as well it is .3 acres. I have started to remove all bass, got out 10 today form 8-12 in. (that is the only size range to be caught so far). Is there any way I could take too many out? Or just take them all and never look back until I catch something bigger than 12in.?

You can't catch them all. Keep culling.

jakeb, eventually, after you see some improvement from the culling of every LMB caught, you might then star to look at a slot limit cull where you let maybe the biggest LMB go back considering length and WR.

Sounds like what I am dealing with at my 4.5 acre pond. 9 out of 10 bass I catch are between 10 and 14 inches long and all below 100% RW. A fish smaller than 10 inches is more common than a bass bigger than 16" in my pond. I can count on my hands the "quality" bass I've caught in the pond. One of my main problems is there is too much aquatic vegetation.

As far as frying bass. I like to fry the fillets whole. I rub mine in yellow mustard before I batter them with the seasoned cornmeal.

Mmmm... Nothing like some deep fried bass! I like to mix some chili powder and some other secret spices in with my corn meal when frying up fish.

jakeb yes you can remove to many LMB. It is not to hard to do on a .3 acre pond. You should shoot for removing about 10-12 lbs worth of samll LMB (12in or less). See what effect that has and go from there. If you catch a big LMB (3 lbs+)that looks healthy put it back.

When you think about it, a 0.3 acre pond is a 1/3 an acre... It might be able to support 25 lbs of LMB. That's only 12 2 lb bass or 25 1 lb bass... If you feed your fish, those number may go up 50%. Small ponds are so hard to manage for that exact reason...

Thanks everyone, Someone else stocked this pond with everything and anything. It was once a well balanced pond with some nice bass. Now its only small bass and even less BG (which will add more soon). Maybe it can get back to the way it once was. Thanks for advice now back to helping mtalley!

Thats a good pond for raising hugh bg.

I am having trouble keeping down my LMB population in a 12 acre pond. It has blue gills, coppernose, crappie, and LMB stocked in it. The bass are all very small & overpopulated, 7-12 inches.
We had LA wildlife and fisheries come out last year and shock it. They concluded that we had too many bass and not enough bream. The bream we have are really large, but their offspring are getting devoured by the bass. The crappie, which we were advised not to stock due to risk of overpopulation, are barely hanging in there. Every time I think the crappie are wiped out completely (couple years of not catching any), I will snag one or two.
We live on the pond and fish it pretty hard. Last year we caught around 300-400 LMB's, but we just can't keep up with them and get them under control.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to really pull out large quantities of LMB's. I have had some success at night using a hoop net with a submersible light tied in it and of course the old fashion rod n reel way, but I still can't catch enough of these little LMB's out. Does anyone know of any hoop net baits that will attract LMB's?
Not sure if it is even legal to own w/out a permit, but I even looked into buying electrofishing equipment after witnessing how easy the wildlife and fisheries brought up bass. I have searched the internet w/no luck and I am almost to the last resort of complete kill off and starting over, but I would really hate to have to do that. If anyone has any suggestions or information, I would really appreciate it.

That is one of the problems with bass in larger, private impoundments. You have to stay after them. You're doing about all you can unless you invite others to help.

Sounds exactly like my pond except I'm only 4.5 acres. Do you have any aquatic vegetation problems (water lilies, hydrilla, bladderwort?)

Here is a thought. Hire someone to electrofish the pond and take out all the small LMB and Crappie you catch. That has two advantages. One you get to take them out quick and select any real healthy ones to leave in. Two you take out LMB across the spectrum of catchability. If you just fish for them then you are taking out the fish that tend to bite lures (catchable) and leave in those that are not catchable. Just fishing over time makes the job of removing them harder because the ones left tend not to bite lures.

Not sure if tiger musky would survive the warm weather of Louisiana but stocking 5-10 12"-16" tiger musky might really knock your LMB population down in a few years. Then when you are satisfied you can catch the tigers out. They are hybrids so their isn't worry of reproduction.

We have very few water lilies, just in the shallow section and patchy hydrilla next to the bank, but not a problem by any means. Its pretty deep, so I guess that helps.
In response to CJBS2003, I will definately look into the tiger musky idea. Thanks for the info.

I have a similar issue. We have about a 3 acre pond that my buddy and I regularly float tube on and we consistently catch a lot of very small LMB in the range of 6" to 10". I can catch many in a row that are smaller than the spinner bait they are hooked on. The pond seems to have heavy vegetation during the summer months that dies back in the winter. The majority of the pond is between 6' to 12' deep with a deep canal near the damn that gets to 20'.

I caught a big carp by accident in the pond last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWBj_ep5Bs

You can see the overall pond at the end of the video there.

Here is a link to google maps of the pond
http://tinyurl.com/reclake

You can see from the satellite view some of the vegetation that it gets in the early spring. In the summer the pond is loaded with tufts of vegetation that make it hard to fish.

A few weeks back a buddy of mine and I caught 75 fish in 4 hours of fishing. All of them were 10" or less LMB.

There are a few other ponds that we fish in the area that have a much better population of bigger fish. For some reason this pond has a LOT of very small LMB. Any suggestions on how to help nature along with growing the population?

Welcom to Pond Boss, hemna.

Culling 30-50 lbs. of LMB per acre is usually a start to addressing overpopulation of LMB which sounds like what you have going on (without knowing more details.)

A second aspect is to understand what kind of forage base you have going on in your pond. What is the bluegill population like?

There are some bluegill in the pond. It's hard to tell how many though, as I don't typically see a lot of them. I also don't fish for them either. The other ponds in the area that have good size LMB in them have a lot of bluegill. I usually take my son to the other ponds with a fly rod for bluegill fishing.

Sorry for being dense here, but why does culling LMB from a pond increase the size of the remaining fish? I thought the reverse would be true as there would be enough small LMB around for predation. I guess I don't follow it, but there must be something to it as the last 3 years this pond has consistently produced a LOT of very small LMB. I'll usually catch 1 or two LMB that range greater than 2lb per year in the pond. But I can catch very small LMB all day long.

Less LMB mean more food for the remaining LMB to eat which increases growth rates and produces larger bass...

Its sounds like you need to start keeping every LMB you catch. After you have caught about 50-75 lbs of LMB, which would be about 100 to 125 8" bass, then you can think about adding more forage.

Hemna its your birthday and you have to split the cake with 10 guest how big slice you goign to get? What if 50 show your slice will be much smaller, get it? less competetion for same food source means more to go around the remaining bass will be happy you took out brother and sister.

Cool thanks guys. I guess I figured that the LMB would just eat each other when the population got high compared with the BG. I think I'll start pulling some of the fish I catch out and put in another pond I know has no fish in it (it went dry this last year due to low rainfall).

They will have to eat, too. Better build a forage base before you begin transferring.

Its about energy conversion... Its takes about 10 lbs of prey fish to make 1 lb of LMB. So if your 5 LMB is eating a 1/2 lb LMB, it took 5 lbs of BG to make that 1/2 LMB. So your LMB is only getting 1/2 of food that took 5 lbs of BG to make it...

Welcome to Pond Boss Hemna, it's good to have another Californian aboard!

thanks jeff. It looks like you are up in Weed, CA. I know right where that is. My folks live up in Happy Camp, so I drive by Weed often.

I'm going to start culling the pond when I float it now and hopefully I'll be able to catch enough to make a difference.

he he he....yup JHAP is in weed......

hemna, welcome to pondboss. i'm about a half hour to 45 min. south of you - here in lovely el dorado. you have received great advice on this text book thread started by our other CA brethren mtalley.

you probably wont be able to catch enough by rod and reel to make a difference quickly, but keep at it, and over time, you will see changes. while you are culling several hundred of those small bass out, you might consider screening off a portion of the pond that stays with water year round or use that other smaller pond w/ no fish in it, and grow out some BG and GSF forage. keep them separated from the adult bass for at least a year so they can grow big enough to not get eaten. once yer matured BG and GSF have successfully spawned over a season in yer 3 acre pond, and you have culled as many bass as possible, the following season you should start to see some real positive changes in the body conditions and growth of those bass you want to grow big.

Now I feel guilty. Actually Hemna, my place is down in El Dorado County near Dave in El Dorado (aka as DIED). It's a long story as to how I ended up putting Weed, California in my profile but I feel sufficiently guilty as to being motivated to change it.

DIED and I are glad to have another Californian aboard. I'd like to arrange a get together of the Californian Pond Bossers at some point. Sort of a California Regional Pond Boss Meeting. We wouldn't have as many folks show up as they do in Texas but it would be fun.

Happy Camp, now that sounds like a fun place to live. I love all the names in the motherload area.

Welcome hemna.

Dave,

We were talking about using the "other" pond in my original post as a grow out pond for the BG. We were going to plant small LMB in it this fall but have decided to hold off. Our current plan is to use it to stock BG in the bass heavy pond until they can get established.

hi mt.

man, you expect me to remember what was discussed on page 1?

no really, sounds like an excellent plan, i just wish my pond kept more water over the summer let alone have another pond to play with.

the ranch pond below me had a major fish kill last summer. this pond was also a classic bass heavy pond w/ huge GSF (few and far between). i got permission to fish it just this last weekend and the surviving bass look incredible.....fat and happy. a really nice case of a totally human unmanaged pond perfectly managed by mother nature.

Good to know there are other pond guys near me here on the board. My buddy and I are always looking for more public ponds to float tube. I presume you guys have ponds near you that you manage? The pond I mentioned in my first post here is part of the Auburn Lake Trails community. I don't manage it, but fish it quite often. It's a community pond that is run by the ALT management. They have a few bubblers in the pond for oxygen, but it doesn't get much actual management throughout the year.
We were just stumped as to why it's so full of bass, but nearly 99% of the fish we catch are tiny...12" and under. I'm probably going to float it Sunday

I pulled 20 LMB from the pond today and transplanted them to a smaller pond near my house. Each of the fish was 6" to 8", which is pretty standard size for this pond. I'm going to continue to move every fish I catch this summer and see if it makes any difference.

hemna, I dont know the size of state of the pond you are taking the fish to, but be careful that you dont create the same problem in the other pond. Unless thats what you want.

The pond where I put the fish had dried out by the end of last summer. I'm hoping it will hold up this year....