Well I went to my new pond yesterday to catch and remove the crappy I think are in there, and couldn't catch a one? I caught one the first time I went to the pond on the FIRST cast, so I assumed they must be tons of them in there. After reading lots of posts here on PB I thought I should get them out.
The pond has been untended for about 2 years and I don't have any real idea whats in there, well until yesterday. We caught only bass, 13 between 11' and 24" some skinny some kind of fat? I didn't have any good tackle to fish for BG I did try with some little green Crappy bait but no luck at all?
Last time I went there the water color was nice green clear to about 20" this time it was cloudy (we got about 10" of rain, THANKFULLY, in the last 2 weeks) and you could only see about 9" so catching might have been hindered due to that?
What do y'all sugest I do now re. stocking? The pond is 1.4 acres.
Well I have been reading all I can here on Pb and think I really need to get some more forage fish in there ASAP. I will go back up to property in a week I hope and was thinking about building a pen to keep BG in. I am sure if I put the BG in free that that is exactly whet they will be, a free meal! The problem is I am not able to get to the pond every week so can't feed regularly enough? I guess I could get a small feeder and feed into the cage or do y'all think that is ridicules? I see that the BG are going to need to be more than 1/3 the size of the LMB so will need big BG say over 6" how long might that take? I know "it all depends" great! haha
I am thinking of building the cage like we do for keeping our offshore bait, out of PVC and netting with pipe insulation around the top rim, or I could just build it long and shallow and put on bank?
Thanks for any advice and all info helps as I am NEW to this.
Weigh and measure the LMB. If they are much under 90% WR, then you'll need to remove some. Just adding forage won't help much unless you have deep pockets. To put one pound on one LMB, it needs to eat 10# of forage fish.
Thank esshup, yea I printed off 2 pages last week and will take with me next time. Should I take out the shorter undersize ones and keep the larger ones?
My problem is I don't think there is forage in there for them to eat. So I think I need to hit it at both ends, reduction of LMB and increase forage as in BG or CNBG, so I can try to get the balance back. I do know there is at least one crappy in there so must be more, just haven't caught him again?
I also want to start a feed program and get some oxygen going to get the water as healthy as possible.
I also have other small ponds I might be able to use as nurseries for the BG or CNBG, so that might be a better idea. I will take pics of them next time out.
Weigh and measure the LMB. If they are much under 90% WR, then you'll need to remove some. Just adding forage won't help much unless you have deep pockets. To put one pound on one LMB, it needs to eat 10# of forage fish.
