Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Heavy Cull

I just felt the pond needed it. I got a 3/4a pond, its areated and I feed the fish. I fished it hard prespawn I took out nearly 100 adult sunfish(tryed to take everything but bluegills) some of these were RES, I caught a lot of them which I do like, 3 crappy, four 11-14" bass. I am thinking maybe 10 or 15 more bass, hopefully the big ones. I just felt the pond needed some breathing room.

I stocked 40 bad looking catfish of which 6 confirmed floaters, Have not seen not even one feed.. might be 100% loss.

Do you think i hit the sunfish to hard.... how many bass and what size should I take. of coarse any unwanteds as I catch them come out.

Here is what I did with one of the bass... hehe (-:

Joey, what are your goals for the pond?

I am interested as to why you took out RES but left BG...

Not sure what my goal is but something ate a 10" Koi while I watched so for now I am tageting big Bass or what ever ate the Koi. The sunfish that I kulled, most were not perfect or old or of a spicies i didnt really want, like red brest or hybrids that had to come from a truck that said they were coppernose, I did leave the primo Bluegill/Coppernose. I harvested some RES for two reasons, i was catching more RES then Bluegill and a few people wanted them for there now pond to stock adults. I did take some bluegill, but there the desired spicie of sunfish so I left most of the good ones. Big bass are nexxt to come out. Just feel like the big fish took over and it needed room for younger ones to grow into the pond, is why I hit it so hard.. whats the worse that can happen... hehe

Do you want big fish in your pond? If so, seems taking them out would be counter productive....????

Many people would be happy to be catching RES. Could you take photos of some of these different sunfish you have in your pond and post them on here? I really love to see what species you have and if any are hybrids...

Doesn't take an overly huge bass to eat a 10" koi. An 18" bass could probably handle one without too much issue...

If I go catching sunfish again I will take some pics. I been a bass fisherman since I was 8 so i do know what they can eat, there is at least 1 in there that is about 7 pounds, I caught her last yr on a buzz bait. There may be one Blue cat left, when I first got the pond some farm in NC sold me 14 catfish, pretty big and i was happy to get them, what did I know.. well they were blue cats, look very simler to channels, and tore my pond up. Do not put blue cats in your pond. I def had all but 3 out when they mysteriously stopped come to the feed, it was like they knew I was gonna shoot um.. then I got 1 more and one possably died or something got it, and i have not seen the other but that dont mean he isnt in there. Last year they were 18 poundsweighed the one i caught, they were all very simler in size. I would rather have more bass of smaller size, is why I am removing some of the bigger ones. a pond can only support so many pounds of fish and preditors, so removing a few big ones opens the door for more to grow up.. is how I see it.

Here are a few 9" BG, now what they are I am not positive, the one on the top is differnt then the two in the middle and the on the bottom may be straight BG..?? I am guessing all males, not sure on one on top. the ones in the middle I felt are the hybrids. One thing for sure is there big, i got to thin some of these out.. I feel there eating little fish. Any positive ID as to what they are.

none of them look like hybrids. Hybrids have bigger mouths and orange trim around the fins. See the picture below.

I am thinking maybe these... Hybrid Redbrest That long fin is something, its not straigh BG or coppernose at least I dont think it is

All 4 appear to be mature adult male pure northern BG. If you going to thin your BG out, I would try not to remove your larger males, but rather focus on females. All fins appear to have normal length and coloration for BG and the operculum(ear flap) does tend to get longer than many think in large adult males. If those BG were hybrids, you would see coloration other than all black into the operculum.

Which fin were you referring to?

I agree those are Male BG (regular).

I was refering to the ear flap being elongated. Some are even longer.

I will catch one with the even longer ear... there so smart around the dock they wont go near anything with a hook, part the reason i want to get them out. These are nice fish I never ment I didnt like um by saying hybrids, ok I will go with Northern strain BG.. I am happy with that.. hehe i still want them out, not all, just the smart ones around the dock...

I am catching any bass I can and some of these bigger BG, there is plenty BG in the pond, I just dont see enough little ones

Well, I'd leave the larger males in there and make biomass room by removing females. However, if you're short on smaller BG, it may mean you have too many smaller bass eating them all... Look forward to the pictures of the very long ear flap sunfish.