Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Huge flathead I caught

I was fishing in a local pond. The owner came to me and said his son had put a large flathead in his pond and he wanted it out so I thought you know no big deal I'll jut go catch it this became a battle between me and this fish




It was the most elusive fish Ive ever fished I knew it was there. I've lost many bait to it but it finally fell victim to a bluegill.

Im in the red shorts that my brother in the bottom pic. I had more photos if people want to see it. We were at the scales when this pic was took it came out to 52 pounds. It was huge!!!!!

WOW! That's huge! How many times did you lose it, and what tackle did you finally get it with?

Crazy! Please post all the pics you have of the fish...

I got it on a live bream finally. I lost it probably close to six times. I finally got it on a jug line. I never would have guessed it would have been this big. I dont know why the guy wanted this in his pond. I didn't even know flatheads could live in ponds

They'll live just fine, they just don't generally reproduce in any but lakes in excess of 50 acres and even then it's rare.

I wonder just how much damage that fish did to the fishery of that pond...

Extensive... The bluegill population was almost extinct. After many tries of tryin to catch it, I guess it developed a taste for live bait only? The owner wanted the pond for quality BG and his son almost ruined it for him.

I'll bet it ate a lot of LMB too!

I'm sure it did!

But I have a new problem at my pond at home! My cousin I guess decided it would be fine to keep his catch. Which normally isn't a problem, but this time it was an eleven pound largemouth. And he keep it to mount and I was so mad because not only did it interrupt my food chain it threw the pond off whack and what gets me the most his power went out and the fish spoiled and can't be used, and they don't even use real fish on mounts anymore.... But anyways why should I do about the fish? Next time I catch a big Florida put it in there? Because all I catch right lately is half pound, quarter pound, some 1bers but they all are skinny as mess. Like there stomach is pushed up it so empty. I believe I need to start a harvest on these fish. My bluegill are feeding good on GFC should I step up to aquamax and what kind should I get!?

Sounds like you need to remove a large number of those smaller bass so the remaining ones can get larger.

Some awesome colors on that fish.

Definitely heed CJ's advice and get a selective harvest plan in place.

Was it full of eggs?

Not a bit of eggs... But there was a about a 11" bass half way digested.



Some big grass carp we caught as well.

The bass below are from my pond this past year


My cousin holding a nice catch from my waters


My nephew holding his biggest bass to date

Those are some NICE LMB, a few look a bit skinny.

Those aren't grass carp, those are common carp. Catch all of those out that you can. Or bowfish them out.

Here's what a grass carp looks like.


See how the head, scales, dorsal fin, color and general body shape is different than yours? Yours have a "bugle" shaped mouth too.

Excellent fish man! Keep posting!

That one my cousin is holding was right at 25" I wonder what it weighed what would you guys guess?? We threw that one back in,

I wonder I I could put crawfish in my pond to create more forage base for my bass??? Then again there's the age old saying "If its not there, it's probably for a reason"

If you don't have habitat in the pond that will allow the crawfish to escape predation, you'll never get them established. I've got 10 tons of riprap and another 20 tons of broken concrete lining some of the pond bank and I couldn't get papershells established with the LMB and CC in there.

I think I need more habitat for them.

If nothing else they could eat up the ones I throw in there haha I have some family from up north comin down and I want to fatten these bass real quick so they can catch some quality fish. I just want to explore as many ideas as I can.

General rule of thumb. 10# of forage to put 1# on ONE LMB. Do the math and you'll soon see how many # of forage food you'd have to dump into the pond.........

That's why it's more commonly recommended to remove mouths to feed.

Not too big yet, but extremely pretty.

Where in NC are you?

Southern pines area!