Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations LMB not growing or I cant find lunkers?

Hey guys,

New to Pondboss and have a question for the experienced. I have a LMB and Pumpkin Seed pond a little over 2 acres in SW Ontario Canada. I have measured up a great sampling of the LMB throughout the season and all of them seem to be well in the healthy weight range most above 110-130% of RW. That being said I imagine its over-populated because I can catch a fish literally every cast if the sun is out. More than one occasion I have pulled in two on the same hook. The pond has great structure, excellent water quality, and based on the Rw I assume a good enough food supply (although the pumpkin seed numbers are about 1/20th of bass). THE PROBLEM - I never catch bass longer than 11 inches and subsequently they are all just under 1LB.

My question to you is this. Based on that information given do you think no lunkers exist or am I just poor at catching them? For the record I have pulled in about four 2-5LB bass in the last 15 years but 99% of my outings I catch about 40 8-11oz bass and nothing else.

I would like to think that I need to cull some fish but they are all heavy based on the charts and therefore aren't starving. Is there some anomaly in SW Ontario ponds which I don't know about or am not accounting for or am I just not good at catching the big ones.

Welcome to pond boss. My quick thoughts about your situation is that you have an overpopulation of stunted bass. Even though they have a good RW, it sounds like you are overcrowded. I am not an expert, and some of them will be by to give you some better advice, but I think you should be doing quite a lot of culling to get the bass numbers down.

The only way I catch the big bass in my pond (20+ inches) is to catch a small BG and put it on a hook by my dock. My big bass do not hit lures, but will hammer a struggling BG.

Overcrowded is probably why you are you catching them every cast.

Thanks guys, I always felt like it was overcrowded but they are of a healthy weight so again do you think that means I have big ones which I just cant catch? I surveyed about 80 fish and only about 5% were under 95% RW. I guess for now I will adjust my strategy or invite out some big bass hunters and see if we can pull out a lunker. If not I will plan to adjust numbers in August to make sure theres more available food for the remaining in the subsequent year.

Aymore ideas would be very appreciated!

How old is the pond, and how long ago were the LMB stocked? If the RW is good on them, maybe they just need more time to grow?

Or, there isn't enough food for them of the correct size for them to grow any larger.

What's the forage fish in there like? (size, how many, and what species?) How much cover is there for the forage fish to hide in? What size is the pond (I see 2 ac) but what's the depth like, and has it ever winterkilled?

The pond is 50+ years (maybe since before humans as its not man made). Grandparents bought the land when they moved here from Denmark after WW2.

There are pumpkin seed sunfish but in small numbers in the shallows. The pond has a max depth of about 20 feet but most of it is around 10ft. There is a substantial shallow area riddled with vegetation where the smaller bass and pumpkin seed hang out. I can hook baby bass and pumpkin seed in that area every cast if I dont snag.

Hey ER,


I would venture to say if you can catch LMB every cast almost, there just may be a few to many starving fish in there. Not sure how well Pumpkin seed spawn? I know BG spawn in BIG numbers thats why most folks that have a LMB pond have BG also. I bet they are fighting for every piece of food they can find and eating their own when they spawn as well. It doesn't take much at that size to hit the right RW mark. It would be intresting to see what a 17 or 18 inch LMB would weigh in your pond if you could catch one. I bet his RW would be under 100 percent. You will alwasy here Bob Lusk talk about BG being the backbone for food for your LMB and he is right. Once I put BG in my pond I went from having 12 inch bass to 17 inch bass in my 3rd year.

RC

Great advice RC51. I am going to figure out where I can source bluegill in my part of Ontario. Thanks again guys.

Hey no problem just remember you will need some larger ones as your 11 inch bass will just eat your BG that are 2 or 3 inches long. I would say you will have to get BG in the solid 4 to 6 inch range or most of them will be ate in the the first week! Not really sure how many you would need in that size? This is just a guess but I would say 300 to 400, 4 to 6 inch if you can get them. That may be a little low but should get you started in the right direction. Maybe someone else can give you a better number per acre.

RC