Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Thinning the population

Hi everyone, its been a while. How about the market..haha what a joke. Anyway Some of you kinda know, had my existing pond a few years. Added some fish I regret(cats) but culling them everytime I catch one. I have not really thinned the B/G or Bass for 2 years. The first year I did because I thought I needed to but then better assesing I felt I need more fish in the pond so stopped. I am thinking I want to cull lightly now. I feel I got a decent balance, I am not sure but seeing what I see I think I do. Let me know your thought please on culling B/G and bass. Pond is 3/4A. Bass definatly gained wieght and I see plenty of bank runners. would you take a few big one out or maybe a little of each size or the small ones. I like to catch fish so overpop of bass would be ok as long as there not to small. How about the B/G should I cull big ones or medium or both and about how many. I feed the pond pretty heavy but do not fertilize. Also take every crappy. Do not cull and redears either. There are several H stripers, they never bite only eat the pellets but not many of them so there I feel ok.

Well a bunch of bank running bass is usualy a sign that you need to cull a few. Don't let me be the judge of that though. When you fish take records. It's simple, I just write down the length and weight of all the LMB I catch. If the bass is below standard weight I take it if he is at or above standard weight he gets put back in the mix. The records are the best thing I have done to improve my pond.

this link describes how to keep good records and gives a little insight to what they mean.
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1193/

In almost every pond we fish, including my own, we have a standard practice of culling every bass under 12" and strictly catch-and-release for everything over that. I know we can't catch them all but, that's how we try to manage our LMB population.

For bluegill, we take all of them out that we catch - regardless of size. Of course, we rarely catch anything under 6" and we figure that anything under 6" is bass food.

Just from the information you provided Id take 12-14 in. bass out. Not more than 25 lbs per year. Id also remove bluegill but release the big females back into the pond. You can probably take 50 lbs of bluegill out. Every pond is different, you need to keep accurate records and adjust your catch rates based on what you see.

Took a few bass that looked thin, the rest I just couldnt because they look so healthy. Took several sunfish that looked either old or thin but most I couldnt take. What I need to get are the catfish. Now that the pond is clear enough to see the bottom, I can easily see the albino cats and there anywere from 5-9 pounds easy. I can see at least 15 now that number dont sound so bad but considering I put about 50 albinos and 120 regular channels...I am sure I just cant see them and has to be upwards of 30, plus the 3 monsters pushing 20 pounds. I opted to leave them, caught them several times this year but those albinos are hard to catch. Since I only had the pond 3 years and really felt the fish population was sparce, now I feel I got some good numbers so next year I will start culling bass and sunfish regularly.