Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations So, What do catch records tell me?

Over the past couple of years I continue to be told....it depends or what is your population like or what is your food chain like? So after reading a PB issue a while back, I decided to buy a tagging kit and see what I could learn.

I purchased the kit in August of last year. My goal was to tag all LMB caught and record date, time, length, weight, and location. Of course my kids quickly caught wind of my new experiment and decided to record name...that's right, my oldest daughter wanted to name them.

I have attached my spreadsheet for anyone who cares to give me input or suggestions. I have tagged a little over 60 fish....I haven't had a ton of time (or decent weather) to fish the last 5 months. (Notice my daughter's interest faded!) I have been fortunate enough to already have caught some of the fish twice....none of them 3 times.

The only down side to all of my data is that I have had a friend or two fish my pond and catch some fish without tagging them. They have probably caught another 30 fish between them that weren't tagged nor did they have tags. Oh, and they did catch a nice 2 pound crappie that was not tagged.

The good news is that all fish that were caught twice had all grown. What can I learn from the data? Is there anything that I am missing? My pond is about 4 years old. I guess my goals are to make my pond a LMB fishery with sunfish and BG for the kids to catch. Thanks in advance!

It's hard for me to draw much of a conclusion after that short time. However, it appears that the bass are remaining healthy over the winter.

I think I would have to figure out what to do about the friends. Bass can easily be conditioned(negatively) in a pond and I'm not sure what all of that may indicate. I think I would get them on board with the tagging and recording.

If you'll set up an excel file with one column individual lengths and a second column the individual weight and then make a x-y graph, you'll see the status of your fish. From a quick glance, it looks like your small bass are slightly underweight but your bigger ones are pretty good.
Compare your fish to "standard" lengths and weights and you'll see a clearer picture.
Even if the fish aren't tagged, catch record data tells the tale of the population as a whole. Tags tell you what's happening with individual fish.

Here is an example from Frank.

Dave....yeah, I hated that there were some LMB caught that didn't get tagged. It wasn't that my friends weren't on board, they just did not know where my tagger was and how to use it. I have since trained them. I plan on tagging a hundred LMB and tracking them over the next several years.

Bob....thanks for your input! Hopefully over the next several years I will see results.