Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Overcrowded bass

Here is the situation:

Back in July 06 I had a lake built in west central Alabama that was suppose to be approximately 25 acres when full. The state came in a stocked 25,000 bream in February 07 and 2500 bass in July 07. The lake was approximately 6 to 8 acres when the lake was stocked. As a lot of you know, Alabama has been in drought period and it has taken the past couple of years for this lake to fill up (lake is over 25 feet deep in some areas). In fact, it just completed filling up this month. However, it appears to me that the lake is a 15 to 18 acre lake and not a 25 acre lake. All bass that I have caught this year have been 8” to 10” long. I had the lake shocked, results were the same all bass were between 8” to 10” long and skinny. They suggested I drain the lake and start over. This lake took too long to fill up and it’s not option that I am willing to consider. So the second suggestion was to add 30,000 more bream and two loads of shad and kill as many bass as possible. The lake is under a fertilizer program. Will this get me on the right track to growing trophy bass? I forgot to mention in October 08 I added 150,000 fathead minnows to help feed the bass.

Thanks

Chuck

The FHM are just a band aide... I would stop paying for them because it mostly a waste of money.

When you catch bass, weigh them and measure them to get a good RW. It does sound like you have too many bass so take this advice:

I would immediately work on removing as many bass as you can. If you have use of electroshocking, all the better. Use any method you can to remove bass. If your lake is really 15 acres and not 25 and you had 2500 bass stocked, I would shoot for removing about 1000 bass.

When you have knocked back the bass, then you can start working on building your forage back up. Stocking new bream(BG) would be a waste of your money until the bass numbers are under control. What does your bream population look like right now with the electroshocking you have done?

Once you have the bass numbers down and are stocking more bream, you can consider stocking threadfin shad. There are several good threads on here on how to go about successfully doing that. If this pond is going to be for producing trophy bass, you may also want to consider stocking golden shiners as well.

Other than fertilization, what other management practices are you doing, aeration, feeding, placed(ing) fish structure?

When the pond was finished being built in July 06 I posted some pictures on pond boss (search under RCJ4). As you can see from the 06 pictures there is a lot of structure in this lake. I currently have one 250 pound feeder going off twice a day. Catching a lot of medium size bream (of course no small bream)I am assuming that the majority of the original 25,000 bream stocked in 07 are still living in the lake with no surviving offspring. I currently plan to add bream and shad the second week in April. I know I need to kill as many bass as possible, but I was hoping I was adding enough additional forage (30,000 bream & 2 loads of shad) that enough bream and shad would survive, that it start providing a good forage base for the bass. I will post some pictures later today of the lake filled up. Thanks

2500 8"-10" bass can eat a lot fish! I just would hate to see you spend all that money to stock those bream and shad and see them just be expensive food. What size bream would you be stocking? 30,000 bream don't come cheap even from the cheapest of hatcheries not does two loads of shad. I would definitely take some of that money to electrofish the heck out of your pond and take out those 1000 or so bass...

What size bream are you adding, rcj4?
A 5"+ bream should escape predation from an 8-10" bass. If you add smaller bream, they could end up being an expensive snack.

Either way, removing as many of the 8-10" bass is the best immediate course of action.

5" Bream are going to cost around .90 Each. Thats going to be a little costly. The shad aren't that bad as far as price goes. A couple of loads might run you 3000.00 or so but they reproduce quickly and provide tons of forage. You need to stock them in april or may so they will spawn as soon as you put them in. I don't blame you for not wanting to drain it. I wouldn't want to either. You will need to remove alot of bass to fish it back into balance. My ponds only 5 Acres and ive removed 180 12" bass since last spring and still catch some skinny fish. Ive also added 1 load of shad a 2000 5" Bluegill. So it will take alot of time to get it back right.

The 5” or larger bream just does not make sense from a cost standpoint. It seems to me, I am getting a lot more bang for my buck with the smaller bream (2” to 3”). You guys really don’t think it will be enough with the current population of 25,000 bream getting ready to spawn, and the additional bream (30,000) & shad (2 loads) soon to spawn after putting them into the pond? Also, I will contact my fish guy tomorrow and ask him about eletroshocking the pond again to kill some bass. My only concern is when he electroshocked last Oct, he probably only got 30 bass (about 2 hours of shocking). He said there were a couple of reasons why he was unable to electroshock more bass: the cold water temperature and the limestone areas don’t shock as well as other areas. Also, I post some new pictues.

Man, that's one sharp looking pond, and nice access road.

IMO you're wasting your money stocking anything until you get the bass numbers down. You can't keep up with overcrowded bass. You'll go broke. Take out the 1000 bass, even if it takes 2 or 3 years to get it done. Then consider building the forage. I just don't wanna see you waste all that money. 12" bass can easily eat 5" BG. Consider looking into a fyke net or funnel net to catch the bass in electroshocking won't work. However, if the bass are 12", they should be shallow come spawning season and that would be prime time to shock them up.

There's no doubt that the above fish would definitely help your bass. The bass will pig out and probably start to fatten up over late spring.

Here's the thing, though: Stocking smaller bream with your plan above, like others have said, is just a bandaid. With as many bass as you have, they'll be able to eat virtually everything you stock that is under 5", plus any offspring. Your bass will benefit for a few months, and then the pond will be back to square one when the new forage is gone. Your bass will spawn like crazy in the meantime, which won't help the situation. Unless you get on top of the bass numbers or stock large amounts of 5"+ forage that won't be eaten, you'll be getting a quick, expensive fix.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with stocking additional bream and shad. It certainly won't hurt anything. But I would focus more on harvesting bass.

One thing you also need to consider is the simple biomass issue. A pond of your size can only hold so many pounds of fish. Even if you are able to get more BG to take hold, you just are gonna hit a wall without running into water quality issues, DO depletion and fish kills...

You can fix a LMB crowded pond by stocking. Its a #s game and can be expensive. It works far better if you reduce the LMB #s first ,during and afterward. If you stock 2-3 in. BG expect about 2 % survival to year 1. If you use 5 in. BG you can expect much higher survival around 25- 30 % to year 1. The best time to stock larger BG is now (just before they spawn) because you get the quick benefit of loading up the pond with their yoy. In that situation most of them ( 75 %)will survive long enough to spawn. If you can get the TShad in just before they spawn and have a plankton bloom that can work also. Electroshocking should work better than what you experienced.

Don't you have concern for a biomass overload? If the goal is to produce trophy bass, something has to give... A pond can only support a certain number of pounds of bass. Right now when his bass are small, you can get away with overcrowding and fixing it with putting more food in. As they grow, the biomass issue will rear its ugly head again... Most likely through a fish kill or he will simply hit a wall, well short of his trophy bass goal.

Studies clearly provide that in normal southern ponds carrying capacity is reached in 2 years. From there on you are managing the makeup of the fish population. Its best to get the population #s as balanced (close to your goal) as you can prior to that time. Then you manage the populations by any of several methods including harvest , predation , natural morts , seine , electroshock , partial rotenone , gill net , traps etc. The first fish in are your brood stock and set the proportional balance by producing offspring in the correct #s. They are not (unless you are running at hatchery #s) the fish who will fill up the carrying capacity it is there first offspring that accomplish that. Fish have high natural morts and that has to be factored in also. Just because you reach carrying capacity does not mean you will have DO problems. In fact most ponds run at carrying capacity without fish kills.

He does not want to kill the pond that leaves 2 choices. Stock more forage in hopes of producing your way to balance through more forage in conjunction with LMB removal, then manage for goals . The other is to try to do so only by removing LMB in the given time (pre carrying capacity/reproduction) then adding forage. The problem with that is you sometimes end up with a LMB only pond because they eat all the forage and produce lots of additional LMB while you are trying to remove them. Then you have no choice but to kill the pond (at least in part). The reason for draining the pond at least in part is to reduce size so the rotenone won't cost $50,000.00. The reason for the TShad is they use a different part of the pond niche than BG , open water and the plankton there. IMO the combo plan is much better , saves time and has less risk than a wait until the LMB are reduced then add forage approach. You will note that the biologists who saw the pond did not say remove all you can first then add BG but instead suggested a combo plan or drain.

I do think you can do the removal first but it would have to be a massive effort over a short period of time and involve several methods. Electroshock , catch , seine and partial rotenone of the LMB nesting to kill large #s of the fry.

That would be my choice. If the money is there to stock 30,000 more bream and 2 loads of t shad, there is definitely money to electroshock and trap net large numbers of bass in a short period of time.

We are quickly approaching the prime time to electroshock bass. 2 or 3 nights of electroshocking and some netting will take out a lot of bass in less than a week... Even at 20 cents a bream, that is $6,000 worth. 2 loads of t shad is at least another 500. You could do some serious LMB reduction with half that amount of money and use the rest to replenish to forage bass and I think be a lot more successful.



Then again, we won't know til it is done what will and won't work for sure. Just MHO...

It has to be done quickly. If you take 2 to 3 years to take out LMB before you stock forage you will have a mostly LMB only pond. Like CJ says , absent extraordinary effort, you can't keep up with the LMB. While you remove a 1000 LMB over 2 to 3 years they will produce hundreds of thousands of offspring. If you are going to do this IMO you need to do both quickly remove LMB and increase forage. Large BG and TShad pre spawn is the best option in conjunction with removing as many LMB as you can. The electroshock boat is the best method because it is quick and you are not removing just the LMB inclined to bite. Even then you will have to keep removing LMB.

First of all I would like to thank everybody for their input. Based on the feedback that I received on this forum I am going to have the pond electro shocked next Monday night. I am hoping to get better results than the last time we electro shocked the lake last Oct. The additional bream and shad are scheduled to go in on Thursday and Friday.

Based on prior experience can someone give me a best guess estimate on how many bass they may get Monday night? Thanks

That is almost impossible to even have a WAG. Is the shocking before the stocking of shad and BG ?

I would hope they can get , over a reasonable time, 300 LMB not counting fry.

Who is doing the shocking? Tell them exactly what you are after and why. If they see a LMB nest occupied or not shock it to kill as many fry as you can. Get them to keep shocking as long as possible. Even shock open water (no cover) as well.

Definitely express your goals to the company doing the work for you... You should have a lot more success in the spring with electroshock equipment as compared to the fall. How many bass you get, who knows... Depends on how long they shock, how good the company is and specific conditions of your pond.

Where are you guys buying your fish? I'm in Northern California and am curious about getting some BG for a local pond to add as forage for LMB.

Hemna if you click on this link you will get an html version of a list of California Aquaculturists, this version of the list is hard to read, but if you click on the link at the top of this page you can download an adobe version of the list that is easy to read. I can't figure out a way to directly link to the adobe version.

2009 California Aquaculturists Report

very cool thanks for the link. I might order 1000 of the flathead minnows for the local pond to introduce as forage. It's only $95.

rcj4:

How'd the electroshocking go?