Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations smallmouths with largemouths doing great!

As some of you know I plant my warmwater pond with fish that are pellet trained and continue to feed them daily until they reach fairly large sizes and sell them to other taxidermists.

Until recently I was under the impression that it was a mistake to plant the smallmouth with my largemouth. However I was apparently wrong. When I had to remove 22 largemouths from 2 to 4 lbs. recently (hook and line and it was rough LOL) for a taxidermy school in PA we caught and released numerous chunky smallmouth that were obviously growing well and feeding also on the pellets. I was not aware I had such good survival and it actually got annoying to catch them one after another as we were after the largemouths. They were actually more aggressive than the larger lazier largemouths. These footballs had small heads and fins for their bodies just like the largemouths, so as I said, growth must be good. They are only about 2 to 4 years old and measure about 13 to 16 inches and weigh up to 2 1/2 pounds.

However, not sure how much reproduction I have as this is not your typical smallmouth pond with clear water and plenty of stone and rubble. Water is murky most of the year with a greenish algae bloom. But I really don't want reproduction in this pond except maybe the bluegills, as I prefer to feed pellet trained fish. The largemouths that were reproduced in the pond that are not pellet trained are very underweight due to the large number of bass and are just occupying space in my opinon. I remove these for the table.

I now have 300 largemouths in floating cages that are going great and will be liberated into the pond this fall when they should be 10 to 12 inches. This pond is very bass heavy but I need to have it that way to fill my orders.

Just wanted to share my observation and show that smallmouth and largemouth can coexist well as long as they are fed and you do not need reproduction.

Cecil,
Did you start the SMB in a cage as well? I really want to stock SMB in my pond with the LMB. My water clarity is similar to yours, but we have been lining the pond edges with rocks and broken concrete. Also added some crawdads! Everybody tells me it is a mistake to stock SMB. I know they probably won't reproduce, I will re stock.
Do you have fatheads or shiners in your pond?

Brad,

Funny you ask that. I was only able to get the smallmouth in the fall and I got them from Keystone in Richmond ILL. I put them in a floating cage and even though they were pellet trained they refused to feed on pellets. I was told by Keystone (Mike Robinson) that this is not uncommon sometimes when fish get into a new environment (in this case a cage) and they go off feed. Temps were also dropping which may have had something to do with it.

Anyway, I tried to overwinter them in the cage, but the cage go weighted down with ice and snow and actually sunk somewhat. Come spring most of the bass had escaped and I thought that was it. However when the water warmed up I had numerous smallmouth swimming around and was able to get them to feed on pellets again. They were considerably larger too than the previous fall.

I feed my fish pellets twice a day with no fatheads and shiners in the pond that I know of. Only other forage is bluegills and they are not really that common.

I believe for you to have success with the smallmouth in conjunction with the largemouth you will have to feed them pellets, and of course they will have to be pellet trained before you get them. Othewise your largemouths according to the literature I have read will out compete your smallmouth.

One more thing... I overflow my trout pond into the warmwater pond, and although it is not enough of a flow to really cool this .62 acre pond, I believe it keeps it from peaking into the 80 or above temp ranges, which I'm guessing is good for the smallmouth and yellow perch I have in the pond. I also have some monster all female perch in the pond that shouuld be in the 15 inch range next spring and around 2 lbs.

Cecil, you give us hope trying to establish both LMB and SMB in the same body of water. I'm hoping to develop a strong reproductive supply of SMB in my 19 ac gravel pit lake but know I will have some struggles along the way with my LMB. The forage base is both perch and blugill in large #'s with various sizes. (No pellet feeding) Thanks for your example.

Rowly

Brad B: For me, one of the best things about this Forum is the diversity of people and diversity of geographic locations. Management techniques that work one place do not necessarily work in another.

I’ve had quite a bit of experience with smallmouth bass in ponds, and not all of it mirrors that of other people (reliable people) who frequent the forum. Let me pass on a few stories.

First, what about the “old” idea that largemouth bass and smallmouth bass cannot coexist in a pond? Well, I sure used to believe that when I was working in Kansas. We had a 50-acre public impoundment and a 3-acre pond that were being managed with smallmouth bass, but then largemouth bass gained entrance to the ponds. Quickly, smallmouths were eliminated from both water bodies. We assumed it was because the largemouths were more piscivorous/predacious than the smallies.

After I moved to South Dakota (17 years ago), we started using more and more smallmouth bass in pond management. I had two gravel pits that contained smallmouth bass, and largemouth got into both of them. Guess what? Both ponds still contain smallmouth bass more than a decade later. The largemouths are more abundant than smallmouths, but the occasional smallmouth is usually plump and they often get pretty darn big!!

What’s the difference? Well, I don’t know. It could be something as simple as geographic location. In more southern, hot Kansas, the largemouths obviously did best. In cooler South Dakota, the smallies at least hang on.

I’ve got some of my best smallmouth bass in a 20-acre pond near here that has walleyes and a few largemouth bass. The smallmouths are not that abundant, as I think the small ones get cropped down by the bass and walleyes. However, the survivors grow large and plump! What a great bonus fish in that pond.

A second explanation for the largemouths getting the smallies in Kansas may simply be largemouth bass abundance. Really abundant largemouth bass populations in farm ponds built on fertile prairie soils can have 50, 70 or even more pounds per acre. That is a LOT of predation on the small smallmouth bass. The young largemouths tend to hang out in the submergent vegetation, while the young smallies tend to hang out on rocky shorelines. Maybe the smallies are easy to catch and eat?

One other big issue for which I am seeing really different results than other pondmeisters: reproduction. We are having absolutely no problem getting our smallmouth bass to reproduce. Again, could that be a latitude thing, where they do better a little further north and perhaps it’s so warm down south that they don’t always reproduce well (note that I did NOT say that there is no reproduction). I don’t know – I’m just guessing. In fact, we have so much reproduction that nearly all of our smallmouth bass only ponds are managed with heavy harvest of 12 inch and smaller smallmouths. Otherwise, the ponds are full of slow growing, small smallmouth bass. By selectively harvesting the small ones, we keep big ones (18+ plus) in the ponds.

Let’s turn to your specific situation. Are you located in southern Nebraska or northern Nebraska? I looked on a Rand-McNally atlas, and they didn’t list Valparaiso, NE. Do you have a hill pond (dam on draw) or an excavated gravel or sand pit that is down in the water table? How dense is your largemouth bass population? You can probably tell by the sizes of bass present – mostly small fish = high density. My best opinion is that we just can’t tell ahead of time if you can establish smallmouth bass. However, if habitat is appropriate, and if largemouth bass density is not too high (if so, they could be thinned), then this may just work. It doesn’t take too many smallmouths to add some real diversity to your angling, especially when a few of them get up to 18 inches or longer!

We stocked subadult (most were 8-10 inches) smallmouth bass into a new 3-acre pond in central South Dakota last spring. Just two weeks ago, we seined the pond, and caught a bunch of this year’s smallies, just over an inch long (and cute as can be).

That rock habitat that you are using along your shoreline is a GREAT idea. The young, newly hatched smallmouth bass will be found right there!

I do think you’d be smart to stock larger sizes of smallmouth bass (maybe feed in cages) to get past the predation by the largemouths. Cecil has lot of experience with that, and can really help you. He’s the king of practical experience.

Finally, we just don't do any pellet feeding. We are always so much in fear of winterkill during a harsh winter up here that I hate to add additional nutrients to the ponds. In Nebraska, especially some areas, this would not be such a concern.

Well, I guess that’s enough rambling for now. I hope this helps. I know it sounds confusing, but this stuff is NOT black and white. Different things happen in different locations.

Dave

Guys,
Thanks for the info! Haven't got any LMB in my pond at all, yet. All I have is 500 BG and 200 channel cats. Pond is still filling. It will eventually cover 4.5 acres. We are 30 miles NW of Lincoln- unbearably hot in the summer, miserable cold in the winter, in the 4th year of a drought- other than that it's paradise! I hope to aerate or provide well water to the pond.

I've got my heart set on catching an occasional SMB in my pond! In the pond that we owned, before we bought this place, we had the standard BG, LMB, CCat mix. I got bored with that and threw in some crappie. We had a ball catching them and it seemed to add to the excitement, to not know what you had on until you landed it.

I can live without SMB reproduction if I have to. I don't quite understand how the LMB can wipe out a SMB population. Especially if they are introduced at the same time?

Brad -- I didn't realize that you had no LMB in your pond yet. Yes, this is a good time to stock both. As long as they are similar sized, and go in about the same time, it'll be a good test. I suspect you'll get survival on the smallies.

When I say that the LMB wipe out the SMB, we are not exactly sure what happens. My guess is that the more predacious (I'm repeating myself here) LMB eat most of the young SMB that are produced when the smallmouths reproduce. Thus, the LMB win the battle in the long run. In those two KS impoundments, I was really surprised to see the SMB disappear in just a couple of years, and I wondered if there was some competition between the adult LMB and SMB as well. However, I really can't see much evidence for that in our SD ponds.

Dave

Dave, great info about SMB. I'm hoping the same in SW Ontario Canada. The SMB adults seem to be doing very well when caught by pole with size and relative weight. I'm not looking for equal #'s of LMB and SMB but just a variety in a specific part of the lake with rock/concrete structure. I'm hoping the 200-300 tons of riprap rock along the east shoreline will do its job as well as you described, besides in adding beauty and stopping erosion/willow growth. To date I haven't seen SMB YOY swimming along this 400' of stretch but in time I'm hoping. Our biologists from the Ministry of Natural Resources tell me that I may have success with walleye stocking and reproduction with this riprap rock creating the eddies and water movement needed for these natural lake walleye to spawn from here? The question is do I want to add another predator to my biomass? I think I will wait another 2-3 years to see how the LMB and SMB respond to their new environment. Any thoughts, suggestions or advice from your experience would be great and appreciated? Thanks again.

Rowly

Hi Rowly. I'm hoping that with longer-term reports from folks such as you and Brad B, we can learn some lessons on smallmouth bass/largemouth bass interactions!

I really think that rocky/rip-rap habitat may be a key for you! In the big reservoirs in Kansas, we'd have what I called a "sub-population" of smallmouth bass that mostly lived along the rip-rapped dam. The largemouths would be in the bays, coves, vegetation, and trees.

You may have seen on another post that we sampled the age-0 SMB reproduced by a stocking of sub-adults last springs. That was two weeks ago, and they were already 25-30 mm. I'll bet they are 35-45 mm by now. I'm not sure of your spawning season up there, but I'll bet they're already getting past the black fry stage where they concentrate on that rock. Maybe try a seine?

I could write pages on walleye information, and it would be full of maybe's!! :-) We do get a small amount of natural reproduction in a few of our gravel pits around here. However, it's very limited, and it would not support very much of a fishery. I think the "tried and true" advice of stocking advanced fingerlings (5-10 inch) walleyes in ponds is probably true a lot of the time.

We're trying to manage a couple of 20 acre ponds with walleye, and I'm a little frustrated. Management with centrarchids (basses, sunfishes) is a LOT easier!! In the first pond, we certainly were able to get enough walleye density to control perch and bluegill reproduction, so we didn't get stunted panfish. However, the walleyes grew very slowly, and we've never produced many walleyes of even 20 inches. I'm in the process of switching that pond to a largemouth bass predator base. The second pond is newer, and we kept the fish community a little simpler. We have yellow perch, smallmouth bass, and walleye. We stocked a lot fewer walleyes, and they are growing faster. It's a relief just to see some 16-18 inch walleyes. Gotta keep a little credibility as a fish manager, you know! So far, the perch seem to be under control of the predators.

Anyway, the point of all this explanation is to be sure you really want walleyes. Also, keep your expectations more moderate for walleyes in small waters. In SD, walleyes are king, and everyone wants them. Maybe we could talk more in another year or two, once you have everything else established. Maybe I'll know a little more from our two ponds.

Dave

Dave, as always thanks for your thoughts and experiences. One thing I have seen over the last year the yellow perch are starting to grow nicely from the LMB and SMB eating the established and stunted 3-5" population. I'm hoping the perch #'s will decrease and their sizes will increase as their competition declines from predation. Walleye are just a dream to catch a few to eat as they grow and probably I will need to restock on a annual or semi-annual bases and I'm not sure I'm into that? But for now the LMB/SMB are my focus.

Rowly

Last April I stocked both smallmouth and largemouth in my pond. They were about 3 to 4 inches when I put them in there and now they are 7" to 9". Anyway last week when i was casting a teeny torpedo I hooked a smallmouth and while I was reeling him in a largemouth ripped the lure out of his mouth and took it for himself. A couple of casts later I hooked a largemouth and I noticed two smb giving chase to try and steal the lure.

I've got fairly clear water so I can see the fish swimming around. I usually see 4-6 largemouth together with 3 smallmouth in a school as they cruise by in front of the dock. There is one school of 7-8 smallmouth that strictly stay with each other. For whatever reason those smallmouth in that school have outgrown all the other bass in the pond. I know it controdicts everything that I had heard but the smallmouth seem to be more aggresive than the largemouth. I've seen them chase the shiners into the shallows and the shiners are so scared that they flip right up onto the bank and then flop right back into the water to be gobbled up.

I know I really don't have a damn clue what goes on down in the water but its kinda interesting watching the different species interact. Sorry about the run-ons and if this post was hard to follow, I never was good at grammer.

Corey, you did great and we welcome your thoughts and experiences. People like you give me hope as I try to succeed on a little larger scale. Keep up the good work .... history and experiences can save us all allot of time and $$$$$ when making our pond decisons.

Rowly