Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose How fast my bass are growing!

Hey everyone! just wanted to show the progress of the bass I stocked in my new pond on 27th of June. I had to leave home for 2 months for military but came home for labor day weekend and was shocked to see that my 2" finglerings have now grown to 6 to 8" footballs in just 2 months of growth!! I could see them stalking the grass for new CNBG fingerlings and there is about 15 of them that stay by the feeder. I went down to the pond with the intent of catching some of the large CNBG I have been seeing but couldnt keep the bass off my bait! they would even jump out the water to grab it if I had it hanging in front of me over the water. Here are some pics this is the average size of them now. I must be doing some thing right because I am happy with the results!

Beautiful fish! Impressive growth rates to boot! What are they feeding on? YOY CNBG I assume.

Thank you for your service!

Obese is beautiful on a fish. Congrats.

Yes they are! they where pellet trained as fingerlings, but I dont know if they are still eating pellets, but i know for a fact the have the YOY CNBG on the run all the time lol

Thank you very much for your support!

Thank you I hope they stay that fat even as adults! at the 6 month mark (which is Dec) im gonna do a video of me catching them and checking there weight and lenght!

Beautiful fish. Keep up the great works

For the 6"ers that is 1.4mm/day and those 8" that is 2mm/da; both growth rates are very good and impressive. Since you are in FL we are very interested to see what the 2" stocker LMB will look like late June of 2018. Be sure to return with the results. Be sure to get a few lengths and weights for documentation. If you keep them eating proper sized forage items and pellets you will easily achieve your size goals for your LMB which in an earlier post it was ..."I say trophy bass I mean to be able to catch LMB 8lbs or better (in one acre pond). Didn't know if pond size played a big factor in it". Keep us updated on your journey to see if a few trophy(8#) bass can be raised in 1 acre FL pond.

Thank you Bill, if I get even 1 8# I will call that a success! I plane to catch a couple to weigh and measure at the 6 month mark and then again at the 1 year mark and tag them so I can see how my stockers are doing, and then see how their off spring do, plan on making more bass spawning habitat during the winter, and cant wait to see my first pair on the beds!

Be cautious that you don't allow too many LMB offspring to survive to be competition for the ones you want to become 8 pounders. Offspring competition will slow and retard the growth of your original stocker bass. IMO you really want very few offspring if any to survive. Each offspring will be capable of eating 10 pounds of forage per year which allows a lot less food for your target original bass. This is where many ponds fail to produce the trophy bass.

My plan so far, is to let them spawn this spring and then come the next year I will start culling, will probably setup a slot limit like 12"-14" or if they dont make the weight, going to try to tag as many orignal stockers next summer as I can, so I can track there growth

Reconsider tagging original stockers. If tagging is not done properly and sometimes when it is apparently successful the fish ca be stressed to the point of a shortened life span. For the first 7-10 yrs you should be able to keep track of original stocked bass just by size. Consider using the fin clip method instead of tags unless you want to monitor specific fish.
I am not sure you can adequately remove enough YOY bass to achieve your goals - maybe you can. I would get a fine mesh long handle dip net and each spring scoop out as many LMB fry when they are in a big school.

Thanks Bill that sounds like a good idea!