Hello pondboss friends! it has been awhile and I have plenty of updates! I am FINALLY finished with school and have passed all my boards and I am proud to say I am a licensed pharmacist in two states! Now with that book learnin' out of the way I can focus on some fish!
As many of you know I started this thread almost 10 years ago trying to grow a 10+ pound bass. So I had an electroshock survey today, we did not get that 10 we were looking for (even though she is probably in there). but we did get great results and some things to think about. The big girl this trip was 8lb 3oz. and an astounding number of fish over 6lbs. When Chad provides me with his full report I will try to post some of the charts showing just how many large fish we caught and report some RW. We manages to also shock up a 1lb 2oz CNBG (George would be proud). This is my first 1lb gill and also one of the goals I had for the pond. Two gar and a carp that had to come in during high water, along with who knows what else.
Last time the main concern was lack of cnbg, but they were plentiful this time. About the only thing done differently was more aggressive feeding schedule. Also the lake was at 95% capacity today and was at about 30% during the last shock.
We picked a great day! it was only 60 but no wind, and the big girls were up shallow and we hammered them. Got some great weights, and they appeared to mostly be spawned out already but still extremely chunky. We put back two fish that were identified as large males.
We had quite a spectator crowd of around 15 people that came to watch which was great! One group brought equipment to transport bass, and went home with 75 bass of all sizes 17 inches and under. With one 6lber that was culled because she was 23 inches long and only 6lb. Many of the other 6lb bass were much shorter, but I cant remember exactly. But for instance I think the 8lb was only 22 inches.
I look forward to Chads thoughts but we are considering gizzard shad to get us over the top and into the true trophy bass pond category. Also I have yet to try crawfish. I have the capability for a forage pond and plan to get it back into production soon. Also we are playing with the idea of introducing some new genetics, as we have never done this.
As always I'm in a never ending quest to add structure of all shapes and sizes to improve habitat and forage production.
Anyway more to come, and I have to get up and go to a pharmacy meeting in the morning but this is some food for thought. Let me know what you think of my new challenges and how to get around them!
The third one down is the big fish from this trip!
