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

I recently bought a 1 arce pond in KY.

In the past 9 months I have had a good time fishing the pond with my daughter but have found that there are few bass longer than 12 in. Most are 10 to 12". If I fish the pond for 2 hours I will catch 4 to 6 bass.

Bluegill on the other hand can be caught as much as wanted. They too however are small in size. No real keepers caught yet. There are also moderate amounts of channel cats in the pond all seem to be around 1 to 2 pounds.

Ideally I would like to raise and catch and release trophy bass. Any thoughts.

Oh yea. The pond is about 7 years old.

What bait or lures are you using? This could be the problem. It sounds like you have plenty of forage(bluegill). Do you know when it was stocked and with what and how many? Your channels are probably 3-4 years old. How is the water color? aquatic vegetation?

It could be that the pond was stocked recently. Have you checked your water fertility?

Used every kind of lure and live bait. It was stocked initially with bluegill and bass (as I was told). Some neighbors introduced the cats a couple of years later. Water color is greenish brown (more green than anything)and fairly visible to 2 feet. Vegitation is plentiful after june/july but I have no idea what it is. I am far from an expert on any of this.

How do you check for water fertility? And what action should you take?

I appreciate any input. Thanks.

The most important check is for alkilinity; then PH. Take a look at other posts on this web site. It has been cussed and discussed at length. If you are in pine tree country, you might have to lime.

There should be no reason for not having some bass over 18 inches unless your friendly neighbors are taking them out. Ask them nicely about their fishing luck in your pond and let them know about your goals and that you are serious about them.
Robert B

Are the 12 inch bass fat or skinny? This will also help indicate current balance, etc. There is a Wr chart on my site if you could calculate.

I would also add that the channel cats could be having an impact on the bass. From everything I'm told unless your feeding the cats with pellets you probably shouldn't have those and LMB in smaller ponds together.

If you want trophy bass you will want to look at expanding your pond. Untill then I would check your neighbors fishing success (as suggested earlier) and then maybe think about a culling program, your bass could be stunted (just a guess).

How old is your pond? With a 1 acre pond the population become stunted fairly quick if there haven't been many bass taken out in the past few years. What is the size range of the bluegill? If the bluegill are 6-7+ inches the 10-12 inch bass could be eating most of the young bluegill, but may not be large enough to feast on the adults.