Working on LMB reduction - 05/23/13 01:47 PM
So I've decided that I want my small pond to be something different...it's a 1 acre rock edged BOW - water clarity good to excellent, fairly deep (max of 16 with average above 8 feet) steep sides, clean watershed with little in the way of ag runoff etc. We use it mostly for swimming. Built 10+ years ago, prior to my purchase of the property.
Fish population is messed up to say the least. Very top heavy. There was an initial stocking of CC years ago, they're all in the 7-12 lb range at this point. They are the top predators AFAIK. There is little structure in the pond, I've added some Christmas trees this year and plan to do some more structure work later on. Have caught LMB, GSF, CC and HBG out of it, all large and not high quantity.
My future goal would be to stock it with SMB and YP. Maybe a couple of HSB just for fun.
So I'm starting down the road of getting most if not all of the fish out of it. Right now I'm going with the hook and line approach.
In about 45 minutes of fishing with a buzz bait Sunday evening I caught 19 LMB, from 1/2 lb to 2 lb. All of them but maybe 3 were undernourished to downright skinny. I would guesstimate 3 of them were 'healthy' looking. They were all removed.
I'm going to attempt to remove all the LMB and CC I can catch, fishing 4-5 evenings a week. I'm trying to decide if this will be 'good enough' or should I just go ahead and get the trash pump started?
Fish population is messed up to say the least. Very top heavy. There was an initial stocking of CC years ago, they're all in the 7-12 lb range at this point. They are the top predators AFAIK. There is little structure in the pond, I've added some Christmas trees this year and plan to do some more structure work later on. Have caught LMB, GSF, CC and HBG out of it, all large and not high quantity.
My future goal would be to stock it with SMB and YP. Maybe a couple of HSB just for fun.
So I'm starting down the road of getting most if not all of the fish out of it. Right now I'm going with the hook and line approach.
In about 45 minutes of fishing with a buzz bait Sunday evening I caught 19 LMB, from 1/2 lb to 2 lb. All of them but maybe 3 were undernourished to downright skinny. I would guesstimate 3 of them were 'healthy' looking. They were all removed.
I'm going to attempt to remove all the LMB and CC I can catch, fishing 4-5 evenings a week. I'm trying to decide if this will be 'good enough' or should I just go ahead and get the trash pump started?