Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations overpopulation small bass

have a 10 acre pond with 20+ deep areas and shallow spawning ground. INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL. Very old and never been managed. I catch a lot of tiny bass. Rare to catch one over 5. almost never catch 2-4 pounders. have 3 year old small pond also on the property and it is 100 percent florida's. it would be easy for me to catch 3-5 pound florida's out of there and transfer the to 10 acre pond I want to turn into a trophy fishery. Should I do this? at what rate? what else should I do? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Teddy.

You haven't said anything about the overall population and environment. How about forage base, other predators such as catfish and hybrid stripers, your geographical location, water quality, fishing pressure, biomass, etc.

Teddy: First off, I'm not one of the experts so if there is a conflict in opinion, go with them. Dave is requesting more information because it helps explain your situation better. As you provide more details, think of it in terms of painting a picture. An analogy might be that you have a brand spanking new Corvette right off the lot and you're asking if it will go fast. The description you've provided so far goes beyond saying it is an automobile, but not enough to say it is a new vette and how fast do you consider fast. That said, I assume you are down south as you have put Florida strain bass in your other pond. A 10 acre pond with shallows, depth, and etc. should have incredible potential. If the existing bass are small enough to serve as forage for the Florida bass, that might be an ideal situation and solution. If not, you may wish to start yanking a lot of small bass out. I'm assuming that large bass are your priority. You might have the ideal 10 acre pond if it is currently loaded with large bluegill / coppernose and that is your priority. You need to make sure you have plenty of forage in the form of bluegill and possibly threadfin shad and/or tilapia if you are down south. Otherwise, you might just end up putting your Florida strain bass on a bad diet. Jeff

Thanks for the replies! I just subscibed to the magazine and I am very excited. I am definitely focusing on a trophy bass fishery. the only other species present are bream/minnows. Except an older gentleman told me he put about 20 2-3 pound catfish in about 10 years ago but I have been heavily bass fishing the pond the last decade and have never caught one accidentally while bass or bream fishing, even with live bait. So I can't say they are there or not. Also, a friend of mine caught about a 10 inch shiner looking fish last year by accident. Outside of those two instances, I only know of bass/bream/minnows. The pound is in south louisiana. The land has a lot of bottoms and ridges, and the pond appears to have been naturally created a long time ago by a beaver dam from a creek that must have run through a valley between two ridges. I don't know much about water quality but I can say we have never had a random fish kill in my memory. It does get quite muddy sometimes from runoff, if you can picture it being between two ridges. Very little fishing pressure. I think this has contributed to being overrun with 1/2 pounders. In addition I don't believe there are any shad, just little minnows. But there is a decent bream population.

Water quality is step one in having a healthy water hole. Do a sechi disk test. Instructions are posted elsewhere on the site. Next, check alkilinity; ranges are also posted. Your pond might not be fertile enough to support a proper food chain. You might need to fertilize but prior to that, you might need to lime.

Identify the bream. You don't indicate that they are super plentiful. You need either native bluegill or coppernose. They are extremely prolific and become the forage fish that bass need.

To get the right recipe, order Lusks book, Raising Trophy Bass. It puts everything in perspective.

Raising big bass is a simple recipe with not so simple results. Start with a good food chain, add good water, good habitat and good genetics and you have the potential to grow great bass. But, your issue will revolve around the dynamics of your fish population. Be positive you have bluegill. They are the backbone of the food chain. Do as Dave suggests, too. Check your water chemistry/quality. That's a big deal, too. Since you have lots of tiny bass, stocking Florida bass from a known source makes sense only if they are large enough to eat the dominant size range of bass in the bigger lake. We have given you a good starting point. Next, set up a good record keeping system. Keep track of lengths and weights of bass you catch. Plot them on an x-y graph, and compare over time. As you remove enough small bass, you will see noticeable weight gains in remaining fish. Plus, lengths will become variable, rather than similar.
Study ways to increase productivity of the lake, and you will be able to grow more fish as you rearrange the existing population

Bob:

How many bass should one continue to take out? Is the 10 lb. per acre the rule of thumb to go with? What size bass should be the take sizes all under 15" or should you establish a slot size say 12" - 15"? In my lake the bass are mostly 13 - 18", lake is 100 acres and has bluegill and channel cats in it. I have removed over 1,500 bass to date since last year, all those removed are under 15", so I'd say I have taken out about 2,000 - 2,500 lbs. average total or 20 to 25 lbs. per acre so far. My bass sizes have increased dramtically and so has the RW fiqures. We still aren't seeing any bass yet over 4 lbs. yet and really want to produce a mix of big fish too. We are working on getting threadfin shad and tilapia in there soon.

Should I keep culling at a rate of 10 lbs. per acre or more?

Dave

Dave,
WIth the Wr on the rise you will start to see 4 lb bass but it will tkae time. The lake did not produce skinny bass over night it took a few years, so it will not produce big bass over night either. With all I know about your pond they should grow well.

However a 16" bass will take another year to reach 4 lbs. I think they will get there though with your harvet effort plus you other mgmt efforts and forage increase.

Dave you have a success story on your hands soon. Dave keep up with Wr like you're doing and also average size. My prediction is that by this fall the avg size bass will be much larger and Bob might consider letting others read about how you got them there in POnd BOss. Continue harvest but now that your close to target take just males. THis will allow survivial of a bass that can reach trophy status.

Greg:

So keep taking all bass under 15"? Should one reduce taking these fish based on the season? Right now my water temp is 63 degrees. The fish are stcked up in 13 - 21' of water on secondary points getting ready to move up and start setting up nests. The females are full of row. A good number of males cruising the shallows and looking for nest sites. Should I not take out females with eggs at this time of year and let them spawn? I can tell the males from the females based on their egg filled guts. Should I target the males I see in the shallows?

After the spawn I won't be able to tell males from femailes - so should I just take out all I catch under 15" as the rule and keep taking around 15 lbs. per acre or 1,500 lbs. total per year?

Dave
Dave

Dave hard to say for sure but continue harvest. I can say this if you find it easy to take out 1500 lbs it is probably not enough. You can tell females easily for about three months, look for red swollen urogential opening. You may not get it 100% but try to target males vs females. SInce you are acheving harvest goals ok to let females go for the main reason they are the ones that reach trophy status. thanks for DNA info and let us know your results.

Greg:

I have been releasing my share of female egg laden bass lately..I have a hard time killing them actually. In my neck of the woods I could be shot for killing a bass lol! The practice and belief in catch and release is so strong in the bass fishing community these days I have to explain over and over again the benefits of culling bass to sell it to people not in the know. Other than this time of year where I can see the red vent, I have heard that throughout the year I can tell a male from a female based on color of the vent. I have heard the males vent is generally yellow..females red to pink color? Is this true? Realistically how long does a F1 male bass get? If they don't get much larger than 15", then it safe to say on the bass I remove under 15" the bulk of these maybe males?

I am getting ready to collect the livers in the couple of weeks and look forward to getting my data back on what my bass genetics are. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again Greg!

P.S. - You should post those giant bass photos you emailed me the other day and tell us a story on the lake they came from as they were very impressive bass!

Dave