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#20873 06/30/04 11:15 PM
Joined: Jun 2004
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balucas Offline OP
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I am desperately in need of help. It's a long sad story so please bear with me. I have a 30 yr old, 2 acre spring fed pond with mud bottom in Nebraska. Approximately 7 yrs ago we had low water, high heat and major fish kill. We couldn't catch a fish for two years and suddenly we started catching 6" bass. Lots of them. This went on for two summers with no growth and no bluegill to be found. The ponds depth was 8' max and by the end of May it would be covered with so much weed that it was unfishable. At the start of the third season, I stocked the pond with 100 6" bluegill and 20 12" grass carp. The pond cleared up and the bass then grew to around 8". I caught and removed around 60-70 of these small bass that year. The next spring I added 120 channel cat, another 100 bluegill and a fish feeder which fed twice a day. It seemed like a great idea but the only thing that seemed to grow were the catfish and boy did they grow! I was feeding Aquamax at that time.That same year I raised the overflow up a foot and dug some deep holes around the edge with an excavator. The grass carp seemed to be doing a great job. Probably too great of a job. No moss, no weeds, and the water is usually crystal clear. The springs have kept it full although most of the ponds around here have been dangerously low due to the drought. Last year I added two five gallon buckets full of fathead minnows hoping to help my bluegill along and also switched to Gamefish Chow hoping to once again help out the gills. The 10 lb cats that I have now don't seem to want to let anything else eat around the feeder. I cut down 5 good sized trees and put them into some of the holes I dug around the edge in the previous years. Now I have come to this year and am still pretty discouraged. In my last three outings I have probably caught a total of 20 bass each time with an average length of 11 inches. My plan for this year is to possibly add more fatheads and maybe try to remove 60 bass or so.I want to try to thin out the catfish a little so that the other fish can get to the dinner table too. I have even considered an aerator. My primary goal is to restore the pond back to what it was when I was a kid and be able to catch 4 and 5 lb largemouth and 3/4lb bluegill. (In my area, a 5 lb bass is a lunker)I would rather work hard to catch a four pounder than catch 11"ers on a bare hook all day. I seem to have a fairly decent population of 5"-6" bluegill. If I fish with worms I seem to catch two bluegill to one bass. I have a feeling that I may have made a few mistakes in my attempt to improve the bass. Too many grass carp? Too many catfish? Not enough bluegill? Not removing enough small bass? Am I on the right track or should I try a new approach? I have sought information from all types of sources including the Nebraska Game and Parks, local hatcheries and a local biologist and they all seem to have different theorys on what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated because I am about to give up! Thanks in advance.

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Lunker
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Your story isn't so bad, you just have too many predators, that's all. If you want to catch larger bass, there are several simple things you need to do. 1) Pull the big cats, they are taking their toll on bgill and food. They are also occupying the spot a larger bass will fill. 2) Forget stocking fathead minnows, they will be eaten quickly. 3) Start removing bass, you need to get your forage base built back up. I would remove everything you catch for the short term. 4) Get breeding size bgill (5-7") in there now (around 100 if you can get them), you still have a LOT of time this year...maybe 2 or 3 spawns. Most of all, be patient. You should build your forage base to where small fry are everywhere along the shoreline if possible. With food like that, your bass will be capable of gaining a pound or more a year. Ponds around here with excellent bgill populations, produce only bgill when fishing with worms. Get back to the basics, and you'll have those 4 - 5 lb. healthy bass. Read up on relative weight here, quit culling bass after you reach above the 85-90 percentile...maybe a little more.

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You don't have a sad story! It is just a learning experience. It can be frustrating but fish out those catfish, keep catching and removing bass until they get noticeably fatter and larger(poor man's relative weight chart)and get some more bluegill in there. I would say from your numbers you have not taken out enough bass and definitely did overkill on the grass carp. If you can remove some of the carp I would. We have a 6 acre lake and we put in I think 5 carp and they have kept up. #1 priority is get rid of catfish. #2 reduce # of bass. #3 get more bluegill #4 see about taking out some of the carp. #5 feed those bluegill. Good Luck and believe me you will see results in a year if you do these things. It just takes time.

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When did you put in the trees? Sounds like you had no cover for the bluegill survival. If you have some 5-6" bluegill, maybe you don't need to buy more, you just need to put some more cover to help them live longer. Just a thought.

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balucas Offline OP
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I dropped the trees in last summer. I plan to add some more this winter. I hope to clean out quite a few of the bass and hopefully some of the cat this weekend. thanks for the help


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