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

Started doing some management on 4 acre pond last year. Too many bass too skinny. Took out 57 bass totaling 39#. Did a sample the other day. 3 bass 11 to 14". All were 30 to 40 % underweight. My goal was to take out 10# per year per acre. Should I up that to 15 or 20# per acre. Pond is not ferterlized. Need advice.

up the forage base, will need to add some fhm or shiners

wouldnt think either would last very long. rode around pond the other day and counted 47 bass. im thinking thats just a fraction of whats in the pond. have caught upwards of 70 in a few hours of fishing. the funny thing is when feeding the bg no bass seem interested in the large school feeding on the pellets. I would think every bass around would gang up and have a field day.

Calvin you are right to doubt they would last. If seeing few medium size bluegill (and doubt you do) adding more bluegill woudl be a benefit. However most important if you indeed still have 80% or less Wr bass and the goal of producing larger bass you need to take way more than 10 lbs/ac/yr.

Your lake may be fairly fertile naturally and once bass heavy to correct the 10 lbs if way off base. I say more like 30 lbs/ac/ this year. If you start having a diifficult time of reaching goal at the end probably about right if you reach 120 lbs with ease believe it or not you need to take more. Good luck, tough job culling bass but someone gota do it, usually more fun than work.

Calvin, First thing you need to do is get those stunted LMB out of there. You could remove 20-30 lbs per acre of LMB with out any problem.

It sounds like you keep records. That's a good thing. You can use those to help you determine when you have taken enough LMB.

I have the same problem in my pond. It has actually been pretty fun trying to fix it and I have been getting some results. RWs are up and so are the BG numbers. My friends are pretty happy too. I have been giving away fresh fish like crazy the last few years.

Keep feeding, and keep culling LMB. The LMB will respond pretty quickly. I started seeing results the first year after I started culling LMB. The first year RWs started to rise then the second year The LMM started to get a little more length. It takes time but at least the journey is fun.

thanks for the advice