Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations bass size to remove

Is there any down side to removing 8" to 14" bass in a bass heavy pond until I get bg pop back up. I know most talk about removing 12-14" fish on a regular basis. Just thinking that because their all under weight it wouldnt hurt to go smaller till my bg regan some numbers.

I don't think there is any downside to removing the 8"-14" size bass. In my 5 acre pond I take out any fish that is shorter than 12" always unless its just really fat and show potential, not to many of those though. I usually throw back any bass that is longer than 14" unless its really skinny. You want to get as many of those hungry stunted bass out as you can so the bluegill population can recover from all those years of bass crowding. In my 5 acre pond in one year ive removed 168 bass that were smaller than 14" and still catch alot of bass that are skinny. Ive added 1500 bluegill and still need more. You could take out as many as 30 lbs of bass per acre the first year.

In my vast experience [n=1 pond], absolutely not. In fact, optimal removal size is probably 1-14". The more small bass you remove, the more yoy BG will survive and the healthier the BG population will become. Unless you're using rotenone or some other poison, there's simply no way to really overcull the LMB in that size range.

A couple of years ago, after I had done a lot of reading on this forum, I went to war with the LMB in a 2+ acre pond, even had it shocked and removed all the bass we were able to shock up in an afternoon. It still took a solid year of fishing and removal to get the populations of BG and LMB into alignment, so I don't think you can take out enough many bass in the size range you mention to cause any harm

I agree with what has been said... Keep every bass under 14" In your situation, you just can't remove too many!

Sounds fun. I caught 20 under 14 in about 30 min on 1 point. 10.5# total weight.

IN fact this pratice is encouraged. Yolk sac had it right. The little guys hurt the chances of YOY Bg making it to the preffered 4-5 inch size your 14" bass need. Once your back in "balance" then you need to be more specfic, run Wr on bass pull skinner return fatter also remove males vs females. Until that time keep pulling all bass under 14 inches.

I would say one of the top (maybe the top) pond management mistake is not harvesting or not harvesting enough. It is as important as anything else you do for the pond. Hook-and-line, cast net or electrofishing are all tools that can be used to remove the prescribed numbers (actually biomass).

As are seining and trapping depending on species and size you need to remove. One thing you can do with a seine is to remove your next problem ( the 2-3 in. yoy LMB after the spawn). It is much easier to take out 200 yoy LMB than catching 50 of them a year from now. Shoreline rotenone application to LMB beds is also a method but it should be left to the experts once they have the data to gauge population status.

Because it is possible to take out to many LMB (not often done in the south) it is crucial that you learn how to do a pond balance assessment. To few LMB leads to to many BG which leads to BG stunting and possible 0 LMB recruitment. This is more common up north but can also occur in the south.

a little update to this 4 acre pond. up to 125 bass around 65#. about half way there. took a little break during turkey season. went out yesterday caught 27 in about hour and half. 2 were over 16" mark put them back. here some pics of the ones my son caught.

the one to your left was 13.5" the other was 14" as u can see they are skinny. all 25 kept had empty stomachs except for one with a plastic worm and hook.

Has to be some fun catching those bass, albeit a bunch of work though at the same time! You frying those bad boys up?

yes. we have been eating alot of fish this spring. hopefully I will be able to get 120# out. I started adding 7-8" cnbg to help in my bream production. Maybe next year I will see some improvement.

You seem to have th exact pond situation I have. 4 acres, bass heavy, low BG numbers.

Keep harvesting, we took out 250 between March and April. then added 1000 adult CNBG and 60 lbs of Tilapia.

Now you have to fish a while to catch a bass. So we stopped at 250 for now. It turned out to be about 52 lbs per acre!!!

by the way, my fish were about the same size as yours also.

Chad after reading your other post I think part of the skinny nature of the bass is the over abundance of vegetation. If you can get rid of too many hiding places for the bluegil and free up nutrients to go into phytoplankton growth I think it will be a vast improvement.