Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations bass population analysis?

What does everyone think about the following Wr's. Im getting started on managing a 30yr old 7acre lake here at the ranch. Its rather unique in that it is about 4-5ft low with the Texas drought and I still get 30-33ft on my depth finder. To me the Wr's just seem sporadic.

"s Wr
14" 96
14" 83
14.5" 94
15" 90
16" 100
16" 96
16" 96
16" 110
16" 85
16.5" 92
17" 85

You see quit a few fingerling bass along the shoreline. The BG population is shot in my opinion. What BG you see which are low in numbers are around 2-3". I did see about 6 jumbo BG this spring on beds but they weren't there long and dissapeared. Water usually stays clear with a moderate vegetation problem, although it does have about a 24" bloom going right now for some reason.

Anyways, I just would figure the Wr's of these fish would be consistant and all low as the forage base to me is not there. BTW the fish just don't jump in the boat, fishing pressure is low for this pond and no management yet you still have to fish for them unlike another 4 acre pond I'm working with.

I've taken 55 fish out this year all pretty much the same as the 11 listed above for an average of 14-15lbs per acre.

It just throws me off that there has never been any management, BG = low numbers and all small and half the fish im catching are in fairly good shape with Wr's 95-110.

What type of "management" has the pond seen for the past 5 or so years? If the answer is nothing, then I think the WR's are close to being correct, albet just a touch on the light side. Experts, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the WR charts are for average fish in a natural BOW, no supplemental feeding, nor any type of management for fish. If that is true, then the fish should hover right around a WR of 100, which you are just shy of.

No management in 30yrs!

Esshup, if what your saying it right which I imagine so, then doesn't it seem a little odd that they are doing "fair to good" with no help and light forage?

Im thinking skinny stunted and overpopulated like my 4 acre pond. I took 52lbs per acre of 12-14" fish out of it in March.

Well, it depends! How many years was your pond unmanaged? If left to her own devices, nature tends to balance things out if given enough time. Maybe 20-25 years ago this pond was just like yours was earlier this year?

There's a local lake that was 99% killed in 1969 with rotenone. In the years after it was re-stocked, the fishing was very good, but over the ensuing years, it's gone downhill. The LMB aren't stunted, but they have decreased in numbers greatly. I think that if they had remained in numbers they would be stunted insead of normal WR's just like you are seeing in the pond that you are starting to manage.

The variation you're seeing in your bass is normal IMO. There will be some variation, particularly amongst different size classes of bass as they each feed on different food sources. It sounds like the pond is on the bass heavy size. If you are trying to grow trophy BG, you're well on your way there. If you want your bass larger, you need to start thinning them out IMO. Have you ever done a seine survey on this lake? It may be a valuable tool to truly understand where the fish population of the lake is. If you are interested I can explain how to do one...

Actually a good sign to see variabality amongest the bass. To me this means they are not extremly stunted. You have data on smaller 10-12 inch bass? I think a seine survey would give a good pic of bg populaiton. Chad when you see this you need to pull the skinnier ones, it should be obvious with a 15% Wr diff. On stunted ppulaiton we will see 50 bass not vary by 5% Wr.

Esshup it is a standard to go by. Like Theo showed us you can have 150% or better. If goal is good bass I would strive for 110-120% in southern waters. If good bluegill is goal I would still strive for 75-90%. Less than 75% is a dang skinny bass. We have seen them at 65% quite commonly though.

Chad with those Wr (RW) and the small BG you are seeing my guess is you are near balance. There is more food there than you are seeing. Any other forage ? The missing info is recruitment / small fish (seine survey) and the #/size of the 8-12 inch LMB. In clear water those BG may be deep.

Pond meistering at it's best. Thanks for posting your data Chadwickz71, we all learn from discussions like this one.

Thanks for all the info. You don't catch/see many 8-12" bass. I'll try a beetle-spin though to just see. But you Do see 2-4" bass swimming along the shoreline. Im almost wondering if the bass being 16" on average are feeding heavily on the 3-6" yoy bass every year to the point of almost deleting that size class. This might inturn be providing the extra help keeping the 16" bass in decent shape yet causing there numbers to remain consistant(low recruitment) and not get severely overpopulated or stunted. Im confident to almost certain that the BG are not there. I pay a lot of attention and sometimes just troll around the bank of my ponds and assess whats goin on. In the ponds were my BG numbers are good, in the spring, you see 3-6" BG all the time along the edge. In this pond they just are not there.

Maybe the pond is just in balance. Maybe you can have low BG and a smaller than normal bass population and be just as balanced as have 1000 BG per acre and 100 bass per acre.

Chad, it sounds like you've got a somewhat bass-heavy pond in which, as you surmised, some of the bass are still doing okay on a combination of the bluegill and the small bass. In ponds in which bluegill growth is maximized, which sounds like your pond, you won't see many 3-6" bluegill because most get munched, and the ones that don't get munched grow fast enough that they stay in that size class a fraction of the time they would in a pond in which they're more crowded. Also, any pond that is even somewhat bass-crowded, which it sounds like yours definitely is, is not going to have as many bluegill present, again simply because most get eaten by the bass. You can increase the numbers of bluegill without hurting their average size by fertilizing the pond regularly from March through October, usually once a month other than in March when you should do two applications (typically) due to the colder water. Fertilizing will also help the bass by amping the entire food chain, including more bluegill YOY produced by the mature bluegill due to a better food supply. Or, you could install two or three or four automatic feeders, which would have the same effect: more good-sized bluegill but also more forage for the bass in the form of more intermediate bluegill. The larger bluegill already present in the pond would get huge, and more bluegill would make it past the size range that is currently getting mowed down by the bass.

You could fertilize and feed both, but you would want to be careful not to fertilize except when visibility exceeds 18" so you don't produce too heavy a bloom, which could cause a fish kill.

"Maybe the pond is just in balance. Maybe you can have low BG and a smaller than normal bass population and be just as balanced as have 1000 BG per acre and 100 bass per acre."

Chad two seprate issues, balance and productivity. For sure you can have balance with not many lbs/acre. Typical of many of our mountain lakes in GA, some giant bass there but they are old. You catch all sizes of bass but not as many per acre compared to "green" fertilie middle GA pond.

As mentioned seine survey would serve you well to help answer you unknown questions. All ponds have bass that eat bass but do not think that is an answer to your situation.

Those 16 inch LMB at 90-110 Wr (RW) did not get there by not eating. They are eating 3-6 inch BG and 6-10 inch LMB and any other forage. A 15 inch LMB does not normally hunt 3 in LMB or 2 inch BG(to small to warrant the effort unless the LMB is at 70 Wr). Sure they will eat them if they swim by and offer an easy snack.

The apparent shortage of 10-12 inch LMB , the fact you are seeing 2-3 inch BG plus those Wr do not suggest a bass over crowded or low/no forage condition. You need the other info suggested to fill in the missing link about the inconsistent observations.

I agree that normally a bass-heavy pond would have numbers of 10-12" bass; also, it's a very astute observation that the bigger bluegill very likely are hanging out in deeper water since the water is clear. But I do know of one lake that definitely is bass-crowded - and the bass average probably at least 14".

The lake is somewhere between twenty and thirty acres (the guy who took me said thirty initially but then qualified that by saying he was estimating); I've fished it a handful of times. There were a couple times when we fished from the bank and couldn't get to most of the best water, and only caught fifteen to twenty bass between the two of us; but every time I've fished it from a boat, we've caught at least forty largemouth in a matter of three or four hours - sometimes several more than that - and they've averaged close to two pounds apiece. One day early last summer I lost four big ones that made my twelve-pound-test and heavy-action Lightning rod seem about as adequate as an ultralight; none of them broke off, but they all four had their way and pulled off while I was trying to slow down the freight train as it headed for heavy cover.

So there are definitely some big bass in the lake. And some of the ones we catch have good Wrs. But some are skinny. The lake had threadfin stocked a few years ago, so I'm sure they've helped the bass; there are also three automatic feeders running on one bank (not enough, I know). There are lots of bluegill in the lake, bigger ones around the feeders and smaller, thin ones in the rest of the lake. I don't think I've ever fished a stretch of more than thirty minutes in that lake, fishing for bass, without catching one. So it's definitely bass-crowded, but without the usual size-range one would expect.

Walt bass can stunt at all sizes. I got clients with stunted bass at 4 lbs. Good problem to have. Ray Scott had them stunted bigger than that at one time.

Wow! 4-lb. stunted bass is a heck of a pond in my humble estimation. I'd hate to see the bass in that pond when you get them properly thinned! I'm guessing those ponds are stuffed to the gills (pun intended) with threadfin and gizzard shad and probably also GSH?

Yes strange dynamic and yes Ray had gizzard shad reducing recuritment. Basically if you look at bluegill populaiton tons of 3-4 inch but missing 5-7 inch gills.