Pond Boss Forums PHOTO GALLERY Image Gallery Pond FINALLY producing nice bass!

We unknowingly overstocked our 5 acre pond in 2006 and it didn't take but a couple years to realize it was overcrowded. We started taking bass out 14" and under in 2009. A 4.5 lber was caught in 2010 and a 5.5 lber in 2011 and 3 lbs was the biggest since then. We have taken about 1000 bass out and it's finally starting to pay off. I have caught 5 fish over 4 lbs since March. I have done a lot of reading on here over the last 5 years so thanks to those who post the helpful information! Here are the two biggest so far.

Nice! There is great joy that comes when the plan finally comes together.

Congratulations!!!!

Culling fish is certainly a labor of love.

Thanks! There was a lot of doubt and lost sleep over the last few years but glad we stuck with it. Now we just got to keep it going.

Please hold your Bass with two hands. As they get bigger, you will brake their jaws and kill them slowly if you only hold them by their jaws.

Great work!! Did you RW check them? Length and weight? are the RW's getting better? How about your forage?

I've never heard you can break their jaws by holding them upright. I've only heard you're not supposed to hold them to the side like that. But hey, I'll do whatever if it'll protect the fish. The 22" is right at 100% and the 23" is a little over 100%. Most of the fish are looking better. We've never seen as many bream beds as we have this year and we were seeing lots of small to large bream on the banks until the bloom. We've put Threadfin Shad in once but we are so far north they died out in the winter. We've put Golden Shiners in but the bass were so thick they ate em up pretty quick. We are fixing to build a quarter acre forage pond for Shiners that we can just drain straight into the lake. Now that we feel like we have the bass #'s down, we'll probably start stocking threadfins again next year. Thanks!

Typically phil you are correct the jaw issue comes into play when you start to hold them on an angle with there lower jaw only!! That's a big no, no for LMB bass that's of any size! Straight up and down as far as I know is fine the way your holding it in the pic is good. Keep in mind no matter how large or small your bass is the mouth of a LMB is meant to only open so far before you start to strain it or tear cartilage in it's jaw. You may not break it every time but you sure could put the hurt on him or her. You know that feeling when you go to the dentist and your jaw is killing you cause you have your mouth wide open well imagine if the dentist grabbed your jaw and opened it up another inch! OUCH!!! One of the harder parts in all of this is bringing the LMB up out of the water by their mouth. Some folks hold them correctly as you are in the picture but what they didn't do is be careful when they were lipping them big girls out of the water and they damaged their jaw before they even got the hook out of their mouth. Just food for thought. You doing fine man and those bass look GREAT!! Good Job!!

RC

Highflyer is right. Two hands, no matter the position of the LMB. Bass Pro Shops had a large LMB that they took in for one of their aquariums. They will do that if the fish is in good shape and give the angler a replica mount in exchange. It wasn't until a week or so passed that they noticed that the jaw was split in the middle. They performed surgery on the LMB and fixed it, but it was a 6 or 9 month recovery if my memory is working correctly.

Let me put it a different way. If you had a choice on being held up, how would you like it: (you only have two choices )

1) Thumb inside your jaw and you picked up off the ground, either vertical or with a slight bend to open your mouth?

2) Thumb inside your jaw and you picked up off the ground, but another hand under your pelvis supporting the majority of your body weight?

Texas Parks and Wildlife has a picture on how to correctly hold a LMB. I'll see if I can find it.

You or the pond owner spent a lot of time and effort to get the fish to grow large. Why take a chance on injuring the fish if it is to be returned to the water? Forget about what I said if the fish is being removed and being released into hot grease. Then it don't matter.

A friend that has a trophy LMB pond (35 acres) has a few rules. If you don't follow the rules, you won't be back to fish.

1) Net the fish out of the water, no grabbing the lower jaw.

2) Wet your hands.

3) Support the fish with both hands.

4) No more than 30 seconds out of the water.

5) Don't let the fish flop around in the bottom of the boat or on shore. Keep the fish in the net in the water until you are ready to pick it up, and unhook it if possible while it is in the water and in the net. He also uses single, barbless hooks on all lures. Trebles are swapped out for singles.

So far the lake record is a bit over 12 pounds ON A FLY ROD!

Well I'm no professional at this and I've proved that over the last 8 years. I'm just here to get all the info I can to make our pond the best it can be. Thanks for all the info everyone! I can't imagine catching a 12 lber on a fly rod!

Here is a different spin on this "holding method" discussion, is it ok & safe for the fish to use a Bogo Grip on a fish's lower jaw and then hold the fish vertically out of the water with that Bogo Grip?

My Bogo has a scale, so I use it to get an idea on a fish's weight. So of course I need to raise the fish out of the water to get a reading.

Length wise, I recently purchased a floating fish ruler that works pretty slick as I can put the ruler in the water and pull the fish into the ruler to get a quick measurement.

This thread was added to the LMB Culling and Management topic in the Archives.

Esshup how big was this bass at the BPS? A one time hurt jaw could mean anything. Granted I agree putting your other hand under the fish will help it's weight but I don't think that would be hurting 4 to 7 pound fish? I may be wrong but I don't think so. Now you start talking 9 plus maybe for sure but like I said most folks break that rule before they even get to a picture with it as they pull it up out of the water by the lip. A net on bigger fish is a good idea but not always practical. One would say be as careful as you can and of course the bigger the fish the more careful you should be to do what you can to not hurt it or stress it out. Unless like Esshup said it's going to the frying pan.

RC

I can't remember how large it was. Maybe they have the criteria for the size of fish they'll accept somewhere on the Bass Pro website?

My buddy who has that "pond" has a knotless rubberized landing net that has a boga grip like scale built into the handle. So, all you have to do is pick the fish up out of the water in the net, hold the net so the handle is verticle and you have the weight.

I use a rubberized net in my pond (knotless) when I'm doing C&R for anything that won't cooperate and is over a few pounds. Just like taking the time to grab a fishing rod to go fishing, and taking the right lures for the type of fishing that you will be doing, remembering to grab the net, scale and ruler is part of the fishing experience.

Heck, I'll even net large BG if I'm fishing with 2# test.

Now that's cool a net with a built in scale!! Awesome that's the way to go!

I have not ever netted a large BG but I do often pick them up out of the water underbelly not just with the line!

Heck I wish I had 7 pound bass to worry about how to pick em up!!! Maybe I need to work on that first!! haha...

RC