Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Too many weeds make sunfish hide from largemouth?

There is a public pond I have been fishing since 2004 (since it became public) and it's about 2-3 acres. I don't think it's real deep either.

Anyway it seems to be chock full of weeds.

Do too many weeds prevent bass from adequately preying on sunfish?

The fish population in this pond seems to be largemouth/redear/warmouth/bluegill with no big specimens

Biggest fish seen is a 14 inch largemouth

Thanks

Yes that's a definite possiblity although there are exceptions. Pelican Lake in Nebraska is like that yet it still produces big, big bluegills. I understand it's so weed choked in the summer it's difficult to fish.

Dr. Willis could fill us in more on this subject as could others.

Absolutely. I helped Clint of Overton Fisheries with an electrofishing survey last year and the lake that we sampled was the same way.

Coontail covered most of the lake and all of the bass were underweight even though we caught bluegill of all sizes.

There could be bigger fish in the pond but I have never seen them.

About 20% "cover" is just about right. A choked up mess can mean too much YOY survival of both predator and prey species. What kind of vegetation is it?

Here's the deal. Plants generate oxygen during the day. They absorb it during the night. If you get a couple of still, overcast, days they don't generate as much. However, they do absorb it when the sun isn't shining. It's something like inhaling and exhaling. If they inhale too much of it without producing enough, you get a shortage of dissolved oxygen, often accompanied by a fish kill. Also, a heavy mat of weeds keeps sunlight from penetrating. Our Buddy Ray(sunlight) is the giver of life.

Gambusia -- a couple of thoughts. First, what is chock full? If the pond is mostly covered, yes it certainly can be the problem. My other thougtht was "public water." Are the bass protected by a length limit or some other regulation? In small public waters, it's easy to overharvest the predators (tragedy of the commons).

Bill - good memory! Pelican Lake is unique in that it doesn't grow vegetation like a pond. The vegetation there is patchy and interspersed around the lake. As you well know, in most ponds the vegetation grows from the shoreline outward, and 70% or even 100% coverage can happen. That does keep the predators from getting to the prey (panfish).

I believe it's slender pond weed. Not sure. I see it from shoreline to the middle with very few openings.

The bass regulations are 5 fish daily, 3 of which must be 12 inches or more.

Thank you Dave for that inhale/exhale analogy - so easy even a bean counter could understand it.

I have the exact situation that you are talking about Gam. Way, way too much vegetation cover (Elodea in my case). I tried manually removing it (big mistake) so now chemical warfare will commence.

Bill?

WOW Cecil, you just became the Rodney Daingerfield of ponding.

Hmm. I stopped and tried to think of some way that I could go back and edit, but then none of this string would make sense. My apologies, Cecil. Always in a dang hurry around here! I just don't see anyway to dig out of this hole except to apologize to Mr. Baird, who, as well all know, is HIGHLY observant.

P.S. Good thing this is not some monumental post (e.g., 1000) -- that would have really been unfortunate.

Of course, it now probably appears that I am using the technique that Theo taught me to bump number of posts.

So you intentionally called him Bill, eh?

Prepare for a verbal lashing by Dwight. He yelled at me for using this technique to get to a thousand posts and made me go back and deduct "responding to my self posts" from my post count before I could celebrate.

I figure I'll hit a revised 1,000 post count sometime in 2009.

Anyhoo, Cecil shouldn't complain. I've been called a lot worse four letter names.

DOH, replied to myself again!

Yeh, that's right. It was on purpose. Yeahhhh. [I'm imaging Jon Lovitz saying this on Saturday Night Live.] Yeahhhh, that's the story, and I'm sticking to it.

Dr Willis knows Bill is smart about water things. Thus he calls lots of people Bill when they say intelligent things that relate to water/ponds/lakes. Okay - everybody smile.

Thank goodness Bill and Bill (oops, I mean Theo) have my back. Guess I owe Cecil a beverage of his choice at the conference, eh?

This is for you "Bill" -- .

Hey , it happens to the 'best of us' - and most of us aren't close to being in the 'best of us' category yet.