3/4 acre pond dug January of 2017. Average of 6 ft deep with two holes that drop over 13. Stocked with 70 YP 6-8 inches and 12 that are over 11 inches and 5 bass that are now. 10/11 inches and 4 gallons of FHM. I plan on adding minnows and perch every year.

Around middle of August I started noticing tiny bass in my pond. I throw them in the garden or on a hook when I find them in the minnow traps. Since then more and more 3/5 inch yoy bass have shown/grown up.

My long term goal is 5 fat bass and ability to pull out 10/20 perch a year for the table. My question lies in removal of YOY bass. In a small pond such as mine. Is it a realistic option to fish or trap out all YOY LMB. And if it's an option I try would I be hurting the perch and adult bass by removing a food source. At what size is a YOY LMB to big for a yellow perch to track down ?

PS. Go easy on me I be been lurking in the shadows for a year. Enjoyed gathering info from hours and hours of searches on perch.

This is going easy. These are just the YP truths as I have experienced them over the last 31 yrs. Truths remain truths regardless on how one spins them.

With LMB in your pond, IMO and experience of studying perch ponds for 31 yrs you will never have good recruitment of young YP in later years. You will have a pretty good YP fishery until the current stocked adult YP die off. Why? because the prolific bass will annually add a new crop of LMbass to attack the new YP fry, fingerlings, juveniles and young adults. Older LMbass 12"-15" as wolves will eat real high numbers of 2"-7" YP. In SD it will take 2.5-3yrs to grow a YP to 7" and this is a very long time to avoid constant, year round 'wolf' type aggressive predation. Only in fairly weedy dense cover ponds will young YP make it to 7". Dense weedy cover makes angling difficult at best. Your 5 adult bass will very soon in 2-3yrs be 30-50 maybe 70 larger bass. Each one eating 200-300 YP (3"-6") per year. Dense cover ALSO favors survival of young bass. Now you are caught in a predator-prey circle.

With frequent fishing, I have seen perch survival in "fair" numbers to 7"-8" in ponds where every LMB caught was removed. With attentive removal of bass you might get 10-20 harvestable YP per year, but that will not provide very many remaining adult brood stock YP.

No - you can't plan on removing very many bass by trapping. All the pond LMB over 3"-5"+ I've seen in ponds are by nature very trap shy. I've done a lot of trapping (wire mesh) in mixed species ponds and it is the very rare LMB that I catch. I have never caught a LMB over 6" in a trap. SMB yes; LMB no.

Also don't count on YP to eat very many small bass. Most Small bass are pretty quick and IMO they can outmaneuver an adult perch. YP favor eating slower foods such as insect larvae, snails, and small 1"-1.7" minnows. So the Bass in the 0.7"-1.2" are about the only ones that will fall prey to larger YP.

IMO if you wanted a good harvestable YP pond, instead of LMB, you should have stocked a few non-reproducing walleye or a few SMB, not LMB. I am very interested in how this stocking combination works out for you. I hope you can prove me wrong. As time passes, please keep us advised of the pond grown YP that you are able to annually harvest. If you can keep the LMB size to a minimum (8"-12") and regularly add-stock some 7"-8" wild caught YP you could have a successful YP pond with the LMB as main predator.

It seems the minute I made the move to try and do YP and LMB I started finding and reading your comments on SMB as a predator in a YP. Pond Mr. Cody. I am removing all the small LMB I can, and will see next spring where I'm sitting. Before deciding to remove adult LMB.
We are building a house on the property so am very anxious to have pond access 30 ft brim back deck instead of a 30 minute drive. Have found your advice and others very beneficial, during the building of the pond.
I will keep you posted. I do have 2 16inch WE in pond also but didn't think they would have much impact on larger perch.

Is there any circumstance where WE grow and do well in small ponds. I know recruitment would be next to impossible for my set up . But have guys had much success putting lb s on walleye in less than an acre?

Walleye (WE) generally tend to grow slower in ponds than in lakes; there are numerous exceptions. WE generally in ponds do not grow bigger than 5 lbs (23"-24") which is still a decent fish. Females grow faster and larger than the male WE. Expect the 17"-18" WE to eat 5"-7" YP and 3"-4" YP are very common in the diet of WE of 14"-18". Treat WE in ponds as a put and take bonus fish. Plan on each walleye eating 200-300 YP per year.

Even if you remove the current adult LMB this years offspring will soon be spawning at 7"-8" long.