Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Harvesting "Old" fish

I was reading a thread this morning that started me thinking about old fish. Say you stock a species in your trophy pond with an average expected life span of 6 to 8 years. It is now year 6. Do you begin harvesting these trophies you have watched grow and enjoyed catching for 6 years or let them live out their lives and die a natural death?

Depends on how many I had. I'd leave most of them because they could spawn another year or 2 and their genetics are good. I'd eat a few as a reward for carrying all that AM.

Thanks for the reply Poppy,

I can imagine walking down to the pond and seeing the biggest fish floating. I know my first thought will be "What a waste. I should have harvested those fish last year." Hopefully, if that does happen, I can look at it from your perspective, i.e. I traded a fish sandwich for another year of good genetics.

I was kind of surprised more pondmeisters don't have an opinion on this. Maybe it's one of those topics folks would rather not think about.

I see a lot of threads talking about what size to harvest but I haven't found any that talk about what age to harvest. I know it would not be easy to assess age of fish in an old pond but, I suspect most of us with newer ponds have a pretty good idea if the fish we just caught is one of the original stockers.

Well, I have an opinion. It would be like eating the family dog.

Lol! Well maybe not that bad

I think you said it, in regards to not knowing the true age of the fish. How can any of us know that simply. Even when we have a new pond, say you get to year 6 and you catch a large BG. You tend to think it must be one of the original stockers because of the size. However, what if it is one out of a hatch of fry that is a shooter, growing so fast it surpasses any others in the pond(I see it happening all the time in the aquariums).Wouldn't you want that in your pond because of it's good genetics as a breeder? You wouldn't want to take that out thinking it was 6 yrs old and ready to die...

I am with you on this Bill, I have a hard time grasping when to harvest and what. Ewest gave me recommendations when I did my initial planning, and will probably stick to that. It is to harvest the size one bracket smaller than the big guys, leaving the big guys for breeding. Now I imagine that I will need to keep an eye on those big ones too, and if some show a poor weight ratio, then take those.

I think it mostly comes back to the WR and goals, not age.

Thanks for the inputs guys. You all make good points. I like the thought that you harvest the fish, big or small, that are not up to par with the typical Rw for fish in your pond. Course that requires good record keeping to know what Rw is typical for your pond.