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#423189 09/07/15 11:43 AM
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So I caught this on Sunday, not good.



He was 6" and 1.75 oz. I assume he is YOY and there are more, as I doubt I caught the only one in there.

Option 1: I am thinking about going ahead with stocking the YP next month and keeping any LMB we catch. How long will we be able to sustain RES, YP, and LMB before it crashes? Plan right now is to kill it off after we move to the property and start the original plan over. The part that hurts is the beating we are going to take on the crayfish and LCS.

Option 2: Also thought about draining it (we have a drain), seining as many RES, crayfish, and LCS as we can get, liming it, and allowing it to refill. Only problem is we cannot overwinter them and I am worried about the pond refilling enough before the cold weather hits. What will it really take to keep fish alive for a a month or 2 while the pond refills and comes into balance?

Thoughts on the two options? Thanks.

P.S. I fully believe a Golden Eagle from Alaska flew to Bob-O's place, picked up a breeding pair of LMB and brought it to my pond. I blame you Bob! grin



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I'm no expert but everyone I talked to said it is hard to keep YP with LMB unless the BOW is fairly large with plenty of cover. How long the YP last probably depends on how big the largest LMB are in your pond and what size your YP stockers are. If there are more LMB, I would think there would be no or very little recruitment of YP and that 6 inch bass could probably eat a 3 inch YP stocker right now. Even my SMB have my YP recruitment next to nothing. I'm going to remove a few this fall.

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That LMB is pretty fat. It has been eating a lot of something.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 09/07/15 07:38 PM.

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Poppy, I 100% agree on LMB and YP and fully understand it probably will not work. The reason I am considering it is starting over now may prove to be difficult and I can get larger YP for a good price. If I can get 2-3 years of decent fishing out the pond, I can then start over when we actually build and move to the property. I could add bluegill but hate adding a fish I have no intention to ever stock.

Yeah Bill, there is a ton of small RES along the shores and I stocked 1000 FHM in April that I have not seen. I am thinking everyday has been Thanksgiving for the LMB. I have been trying to catch more which is proving to be difficult as there is a plethora of small fish everywhere. Temps are a little high, so when we get this cooler weather at the end of the week I am going to up the fishing pressure a bit.



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Ben - since your pond is new with very few larger panfish try hooking the nose of night crawler on a No 6 aberdeen or similar hook. Work the rig along shore. This will be hard for a LMB to resist with little competition from larger panfish to keep biting the tail off the worm.
http://www.amazon.com/Lunkers-Love-Night...8WHDR1CD6PX61K8

Last edited by Bill Cody; 09/08/15 10:25 AM.

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You cease to amaze me Bill Cody! After getting skunked on Monday with spinners and other useless tackle, we went out yesterday evening loaded with night crawlers. Ended up catching 3 LMB, same size as the one shown above. We also caught 14 RES, all in the 6" to 6.75" range. 4 of the females were gravid and the males were quite feisty, only fished for an hour as the sun was going down. Family had a blast, I would finish up measuring one and they would have another one waiting in line.

Going to continue fishing to hopefully get a handle on what happened. Possibilities:

1) Hitchhikers with FHM (April stocking) or RES (June stocking). I looked through them all but I am not a fish ID expert, so it is possible. Confusing at least 4 LMB with something else is pushing my lack of expertise. If we hit 10 LMB caught I am confident enough to think I didn't miss that many and will take this off the list.

2) Upstream source. There are 2 ponds upstream with heavy vegetation (waterways) between us, closest being 1000 feet. My understanding was there were only catfish in those ponds but maybe that info is inaccurate. YOY bass were swept out the pipe of neighbor pond and brought into mine, most likely scenario in my opinion. Need to fish them all out this fall before sexually mature in the Spring. What are some options to keep this from happening?

3) Bucket stocking by "friendly" person. Current LMB caught are from a spawn in my pond. Catching a 12"+ bass will probably point to this source.

Thanks again Bill



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Ben
Had the same scenario happen in my pond, a "friendly " put an unknown amount in and they spawned.....I have bass ranging from 3" to 6# now and having a hard time producing enough forage for them all to eat, my pond will be 2 years old this November, also have BCP in the mix(on purpose). All I'm trying to do now is make lemonade.. Good luck trying to figure out how they got in there

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Thanks Pat, always good to know you are not alone. Did you end up adding BG or are you relying on the BCP to feed the LMB? I think I am going to still add the YP this fall and try to make my own lemonade until it runs out of lemons.



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Never underestimate the fish catching ability of live bait!


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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Sprk, I am a true believer now. After catching that first one, the only one, with over 6 hours of fishing I thought it was going to be impossible to catch anymore. With nightcrawlers we got over 15 fish in one hour. Only problem is nightcrawlers are about $3/dozen, looks like we are going to have to start hunting our bait or establish a farm.



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Wally World has red worms- least down here- Ben can you buy shiners, they might entice mom or dad to those little fellers to bite

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Currently up to 10 LMB caught, all in the 6-8" range. Thanks for the heads up on Walmart Pat, they are $3.50 for 18 nightcrawlers. I thought about shiners but I am worried about using a bait fish that I have no intention of stocking. I stocked LCS a few months ago (hopefully still alive) and all I can buy here is golden shiners. Starting to cross off hitchhikers as a possibility, I am still leaning towards upstream source. Anybody have thoughts/experience on using straw bales across the inflow ditch to filter small fish from upstream?



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Hey Ben,

Thought about rip rap stone as a filter? Water comes thru but not the fish.

Bill D.


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No I did not. What size would you put down in order to filter small fish? It would look nicer and be more of a permanent solution.



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Ben - Glad the crawlers are working good as catching your unwanted bass. A live wiggly nightcrawler if it is presented properly in a finesse manner, is very hard for even a well fed bass to resist. However if the lightly, nose, hooked crawler drops into an area with sunfish all you do is feed the sunfish and that is when using this method gets really expensive. One of the ways around this problem is to fish the crawler in deep water bass haunts away from sunfish-BG.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 09/10/15 09:05 PM.

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Thanks Bill. I am learning the finer art of bass fishing with a worm. I found if I cast deep and then gently drag to shore in short gentle jerks, I tend to hook up on more bass. When I get closer to the bank is when I am hooking up on the RES. We were catching about 10 RES to every bass, now I am about 2 RES to every bass. Catch rates are slowing a bit but my ratio is getting better to cut down on bait usage. Thanks again and hope you had a good BDay.

Those bass are big and fat, so are the RES!

Last edited by Ben Adducchio; 09/10/15 09:19 PM.


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Originally Posted By: Ben Adducchio
No I did not. What size would you put down in order to filter small fish? It would look nicer and be more of a permanent solution.


I am using what they call "3 inch clean base" in my pond access points which is a little deceiving in that the "3" is a minimum. I have some stone probably 5 inch or so mixed in. I will be posting a pic of what I did as soon as I can get down to take one. A lot of rain here today.


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Ben, be willing and ready to switch to different baits/presentations if you think the remaining LMB are getting wise. My small (1/4 acre) pond has been bass heavy for a couple of years, but I've managed this summer to remove slightly more than 100 LMB. When night crawlers stopped working, I drifted two light wire hooks baited with red wigglers in tandem under the lightest bobber I could find. Then I would sight fish the LMB so as to minimize catching panfish. The wigglers also are productive these days hooked "wacky" and freelined to potential bass holding areas. Some days it is more effective to add a Power Bait "crappie nibble"; other days the bass reject the added Power Bait. I've found the double hook setup sometimes will hook a panfish, but then will also grab a greedy bass that has been lurking in the shadows, unwilling to bite first. GOTCHA! Some days a portion of a purple worm does the trick, better than live bait.
I believe that I've been successful in greatly reducing the LMB this year. I see a large one (for my Pond) possible 18", a couple in the 11 or 12 inch range, and some smaller ones on occasion, but no longer are LMB the predominant catch. My YP numbers are coming back up.
One of my present goals is to crush the LMB population in hopes of again having some larger perch.

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You culled 100 LMB from a quarter acre pond?

That seems like A LOT of predator fish for that size body of water. Do you have an estimate of how many LMB still remain?

I have an acre pond that I stocked 16 LMB into. They grew from 4-6" to 12-18" in one year, with RW ratios of 110% and higher. I keep looking for LMB fry, I thought I saw ONE, but unconfirmed and haven't seen anything other than BG and RES (and the getting large LMB!).

My thought is when they breed I'm going to have to start pulling them out.

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Originally Posted By: basslover
You culled 100 LMB from a quarter acre pond?

That seems like A LOT of predator fish for that size body of water. Do you have an estimate of how many LMB still remain?

I have an acre pond that I stocked 16 LMB into. They grew from 4-6" to 12-18" in one year, with RW ratios of 110% and higher. I keep looking for LMB fry, I thought I saw ONE, but unconfirmed and haven't seen anything other than BG and RES (and the getting large LMB!).

My thought is when they breed I'm going to have to start pulling them out.


+1 FWIW I put nine bass in my 1/3 to 1/2 acre


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4Corners, thanks for the tips. When the nightcrawler bite starts slowing down I will switch tactics to your recommendations to see if I cannot get more. 100 LMB is A LOT but I am sure all that fishing was fun!

We caught 1 more LMB last night and 1 this evening, total of 11. As we were fishing tonight the sun was setting and I looked across the pond as my wife, 7, 5, and 4 year olds sat with poles in the water across from me and my 1 year old was running around behind me playing in the grass and I smiled. This is why we built a pond, so all the heartache from LMB is really not so bad. smile

On another note, we have caught over 50 RES in the past week. We stocked 150 with roughly 30-40 mortalities, so we have caught quite a few of the original stockers. They look great, big and fat. Tonight I am pretty sure I caught a bluegill but want some verification. He is 4.5 inches long. Thought it was a little weird as we haven't seen any up to this point.



Bill C., can't thank you enough for the heads up on the nightcrawlers, kids (and the wife and I) have been having a blast fishing every evening after dinner!



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Ben, having 4 children under 7, a pond to play with and a wife that tolerates too much time spent here, I salute......her!


Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
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Get a flyswatter and go get some grasshoppers. Swat them and put them in a two liter coke bottle with a few holes poked in it. Bass can't turn them down either

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Pat, are you soooo slow ya can't catch a grasshopper? How do ya fish them gimped up GH?


Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
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Heck yeah I'm slow- in more ways than one. But I get to fish anyhow. Plain hook and a tiny weight and the bass and CNBC can't resist it

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