Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Help me grow some Hogs!!

Here's the deal, I recently bought a farm. There was an existing pond on the farm that I have attached a picture of. It is roughly 1/4 of an acre. We also just finished the process of building a pond that is about 1/3 of an acre. The existing pond that I have attached a picture of is the one that I want to grow some monster largemouth in. Let me start by saying the previous owners stated that there were no fish in the pond that they knew of and I have fished this pond a few times without getting any bites. However, there are an absolute TON of frogs. I am not exaggerating there are probably 300 frogs around this pond and on the lilly pads. I wanted to start on these forums where there are several people who probably have more experience than I do in this category. I will admit that I am a newbie when it comes to growing and maintaining a fish habitat. I have always fished and when I saw this pond my eyes lit up. I want monsters!! I have access to heavy equipment if you guys feel that cleaning the pond is necessary. If someone could start at step 1 and tell me the best approach to growing monsters it would be much appreciated. Do I put a small number of largemouth in the pond with a ton of small fish to eat, or do I load it down with both? We have a hatchery where I can buy bass anywhere from 3-10 inches long. I also realize I could just catch some big ones and put them in there and I wouldnt mind doing that. However, I like the idea of growing them!! Please give me feedback and advice on where to start!! Thanks all!!

ct, if you have that many frogs you likely have few or no LMB. They love frogs!

However, most experts (I'm not one, BTW) would advise you to load up forage fish for LMB first, and only then add the bass. Sometimes you may be advised to wait a year before LMB stocking!

FHM and BG are usual bass forage. Frogs are great, but if you put in a load of 10 inch LMB the amphibians probably won't survive & reproduce well enough to grow real lunkers.

I guess it can be done in 1/4 acre but I haven't been able to.

First thing going I would do is find out how deep it is. Next I would read all I could about carrying capacity and biomass. A 1/4 acre pond won't support very many hog bass without a pretty intensive management program.

First thing you need to do is go buy the book on the pondboss site titled "Raising Trophy Bass " This will help you get started in the right direction also.

I'm gonna say this though.

I was like your when I first got my pond.. I wanted big bass that's all I could think about. I have a 1 acre pond and 7 years later I still don't have real big bass! Oh I have some 4 and 5 pounders but noting I would consider a real trophy. I believe I could have them in my 1 acre pond if I tried real hard, but in a 1/4 acre.... That may prove to be very very difficult. If it were me I would make the 1/4 acre pond a BG pond with like 3 bass in it 4 tops.

What do you plan to do with the 1/3 acre pond? For trophy bass the bigger the pond the better they need room to roam and grow.

RC

P.S. If you have access to equipment maybe consider making it a bit bigger if you have room. I would definitely clean it out that's for sure!

I agree with what was said above. That pond is too small to grow more than 1, maybe 2 large bass, and you won't be able to catch them if they DO get to trophy status. Do a search for carrying capacity, and realize that for every pound that is put on one bass, it has to eat 10 pounds of fish.....

Since you're in Arkansas, you'd be better off stocking some of the State Fish. That is the only way to grow some hogs in that pond.

A 1/4 acre is small. But I don't see why you couldn't grow some real hawgs in it. Provided you keep them fed. That is the critical variable.

Pond that small you could manage it - you could filter the water and aerate it so that you reduce your fish kill likelihood.


I fished a 0.8960 acre pond and landed many hawgs (and big crappie and big catfish). The key to this pond's success in growing many large bass? Supplemental feeding. The bait shop ran a 4" pipe from their live bait tanks to the pond and a couple of times a day they flushed the dying and dead bait out that pipe and those bass learned real quick the sound of their chow bell.

There was a population of live forage fish in the pond - bluegill and crappie. But they flushed those shiners 5 days a week and that was in my eyes the difference between that body of water and others I've fished through the years. A TON of food available without having to burn energy to catch it. The water would boil with large bass - 6lbs, 7lbs, 8lbs, 9lbs, 10lbs, even 11 and 12 pounders. If you had a cast net you'd be amazed!

Now the downside to this pond is that insane biomass they artificially created crashed and burned not once but twice. Every 5 years or so. So much nutrients, so many fish small and large, and not enough oxygen. The two fish kills were sights to see. Fishing piping - have you seen a double digit bass just gasping for oxygen? Both times a backhoe used to dig pits and bury the dead fish in. This last kill they had 19 double digit bass and over 40 bass between 5-9 pounds. A few catfish over 20lbs each. And many bass under 5 and a ton of panfish.

Point is you can certainly create a hawg pond if you feed the crap out of them. But you have to manage the oxygen and nutrients as well. I think 1/4 is more manageable than 1 acre. I understand a larger volume of water is more stable than a smaller volume, but I think filtering and aerating 1/4 is "easier".

Since you say the pond does not have fish and from seeing the picture I suspect it is highly vulnerable to fish kills due to periodic lack of dissolved oxygen (DO). Unless you do a rebuild of the pond I think you will have regular bouts of summer/winter fish kills as basslover describes above.

Sprkplug is on point, get a maximum and average water depth. The picture indicates highly eutrophic conditions and shallow water toward the center due to lily growth toward the middle; both big contributors to fish kills due to short periods of too low DO (below 2-3ppm).

Step1, if you want a dependable fishery in this pond, drain it, rebuild it with some depth to reduce chances of periodic fish kills that will too often decimate your fish raising efforts.

Step2 when you stock bass in 0.25ac to grow them large, the key will be to use all female bass. Then do as basslover describes "The key to this pond's success in growing many large bass? Supplemental feeding. The bait shop ran a 4" pipe from their live bait tanks to the pond and a couple of times a day they flushed the dying and dead bait out that pipe and those bass learned real quick the sound of their chow bell."
Provide regularly tremendous amounts of vulnerable forage fish. The amount will depend on how many bass are in the pond. Each fish needing 10+pounds of forage per summer. IMO in a small pond, this means stocking only female bass to limit and control the number of predators because as others have stated you can only grow a fixed number of bass per acre (carrying capacity). Non-reproducing bass will allow the carrying capacity to be focused on the prime goal of big bass; not young hungry competing offspring. When you exceed carrying capacity water quality degrades and chances of fish kill increase as noted above by basslover's example.

Step 3. Read, study, and believe the discussions in the Common Q&A ARCHIVES about growing big bass. Fish growing facts remain constant and consistent regardless of the teacher.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

Step 4. learn about hook smart bass in small ponds. The smaller the pond the quicker they become hook smart. This basically means to do what you propose, you will need to seldom fish the pond to miminize creating hook smart bass. And you will only be able to reliably grow a maximum of 15-25 in a 0.25ac pond under IDEAL conditions. You have to minimize predator competition and regularly, if not daily, provide ungodly amounts of vulnerable easy-to-catch food as in the example above. When a bass goes one hour without food in the digestive system and has to chase and catch food it reduces it growth due to energy loss and feeding dynamics.

Step 5. The less you aerate this pond the lower the carrying capacity will be. Low DO lowers carrying capacity thus fewer bass pounds per acre.

You might want to change your plan and use the frog pond to grow forage fish to supplementally and regularly feed to the all female bass in your new 0.3 ac pond? IMO this would be more dependably successful than your current plan.

The largest bass I have ever seen come out of a small 1/4 acre pond is about five pounds, and it had the head of a seven pounder.

If he has access to large equipment and knows what he is doing I would make the pond bigger first. Drain clean out and make it a 3/4 acre pond or more if you can that is.

RC

Do you have supplemental water? It helps in small ponds to do a "partial water change" every few weeks. My first pond leaks, so it's a necessity, but I think it helps water quality.

You would have a much easier time going for monster bluegill in a pond that size. It wouldn't take much fishing to make the few # of large LMB that pond could support to be very hook shy and difficult to catch.

Growing large bass in small BOW is possible but it takes the perfect storm of right conditions. And that normally requires a heavy hand of management.

The BOW referenced is an old cattle pond back in MO. It is roughly 1/3 of an acre. We don't have many bass in this pond, and there are spawning BCP, BG, and RES to keep the small amount of bass fed.

That being said, this wasn't by design. This is a pond on a small tract we recently acquired that is overrun with BCP and varying sunfish. These few big bass are the only ones that live because their offspring are outcompeted year in and year out.

Raising big bass in such a small BOW is possible, but not worth it IMO. I'd much rather have a solid BG pond.

DisplacedGill,

Is that LSU Tiger hat on your head? if so, they you are displaced