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Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 8
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Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 8
Hi All-

Been busy with work and culling a 20 acre borrow pit I've been contracted to manage.

I have been keeping track of total pounds of sub 14 inch bass that I've culled. I am also culling all those that are sub 17 inches with a RW score in the 70s or less now as well.

The average RW of the 13 bass I culled and or caught today was 66%. The high was 78% and low was 58% (yeah I know, I double checked this as well).

Two days ago I did catch a 18.75-19 inch 3 lb 6 oz bass which scored 89-95% which I'm pleased that bass in this class are scoring much higher than their 17 inch and under counter parts... This fish was obviously released.

I personally have caught a 4 lb 5 oz approximately 21 inch bass and a 5 lb 3 oz bass approximately 23 inch bass this year. These were caught prior to purchasing a bump board unfortunately...

Total LMB biomass removed to date is 111.5 pounds.

I know 10 lbs/acre is considered the minimum to maintain things, 20 lbs/acre to see improvement, and in some extreme cases 30-40/lbs an acre is needed.

Fortunately I work close to this lake/borrow pit it's max depth is 44 feet and yes I've confirmed it. Water is both gin clear and able to support plenty of vegetation both deep and shallow.

It also produced an 8 lb 7 ounce pre-spawn specimen for my lake managing partner this may, and produced an 8 lb+ specimen back in the early 80s that lived in a tackle shops aquarium. So history is on it's side which is important to trophy fisherman on the west coast anyway.

If time permits I'm planning to remove at the very least 25lb/acre and am considering removing up to 40lb/acre.

I know it's a long shot but do any of you have experience with either cull rates where the RW started in the 60s on average on a BOW this size?

Does more than 35lbs an acre seem excessive? I doubt I could get to that with my two man culling crew as is. Shocking to cull or survey is not an option here for liability reasons...

The goal is obviously to produce some greater than 9 pound bass (pre-spawn) which is freakish for this part of SE Iowa but not cull so many that it hurts the fun family fishing aspect of it.

A nearby public BOW produced a 3 lb 2 ounce 17.25 inch specimen for me today so I figure this 108% RW should be reachable here at a bare minimum.

As you might imagine the BG are both big, and in this water some are shockingly beautiful. Well compared to most places around here... I attached a picture of one that attacked a jackall pompadour.

I'm keeping very detailed records now that I have a bump board and would be happy to share those with the forum in another thread or anyone who has interest.

Thanks to all forum members and I will be subscribing to the magazine very shortly to help contribute at least a little bit.

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Any chance you could recruit some outside help with culling? Maybe the Iowa kayak bass club guys or similar bass clubs. Heck I'd help out!

Culling low rw and keeping high is one step in the right direction - how is everything else stacking up food chain and environment wise?


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: May 2012
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Welcome to pond boss! Your pond is way too big for me to be able to help you as an amateur.


What is the liability issue with a shock boat? I thought they were quite safe when handled by a professional contractor?

Joined: Oct 2012
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That BG does have good color!

I keep fairly good records of catch, cull, release, length, weight and WR on fish from my pond and have since 2013. But it is much smaller (only 4 acres) and my WR started at 83% rather than in the 60's. I know that culling 25Lb per acre of underachievers for the last 3 years has upped my ave WR to 90%. I have to think culling AT LEAST 25LB per acre, or more, would help your situation. But I am glad I don't have to work over a 20 acre piece of water by myself! There are some great pond managers around this site, one of them will be around soon I bet. They will have some suggestions, and pointed questions, suited to your situation.

Do you have plenty of structure for the YOY BG? And do you feed the BG?

I, like BOCOMO am curious why a shock boat is a liability in your case? I wish I could find it in the budget to do one here.


CMM

Joined: Feb 2018
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Man it's a housing development pit/lake so nothing that increases their liability worries. Such as boats, people who don't live there trespassing so it will turn it into deep lakes, etc. It's flat wearing me out trying to cull bass out of there.

Believe me I'd love to help ya out on this one... I need it big big time.

Environment wise it's fantastic as far as habitat. There are large numbers of geese there over winter so I probably need to do some algae treatment but it's far from bad. Other than West Lake Okoboji and Banner Lakes I don't think I've ever seen water this clear in Iowa that also has such nice deep weedlines.

As far as food chain goes... too many BG and BCP (BCP are an owner priority) are coming out. There are a few GSF but the ones that are there are huge compared to most of them you see around here.

There are no shad, minnows, shiners, present, but I do see plenty of craw claws on the banks and freshwater clams? in the water...

There are plenty of big 9 5/8 inches - 11 inch bluegills around but they need a hand in propping up the food chain. Big time... Shad aren't an option but I'm open to suggestion/being the case study beyond GSH. Any clear/clean/rocky/woody/weedy/deep habitat loving fish is in play at this point.

There are both common forms of parasites to Iowa present in the BG & LMB. A worm and black spot in the meat? The BCP don't have any...

The problem is there are somehow decent numbers of 18-24+ inch bass in there so trying to source large enough RES is looking dicey. I full understand bucket stocking is a bad idea but what's the protocol here?

There are a few walleye in there that are really long but woefully skinny. Like 23.5 inches and 3.39 pounds. A 29 incher was also caught that was 6 something. Basically all the predators are under weight yet somehow reaching decent lengths.

This pit has potential. It's deep, canadian natural lake clear, rocky shoreline, deep deep weedbeds, I'm sure y'all get the idea...

The owners would like it to be a fun diverse fishing experience for families etc. In other words a diverse species lake once I get the LMB under control.

Today I caught 21 bass and culled 17 of them.

2 of the 21 were over 17 inches. The largest of the two was 18.5 inches and had a giant EWG worm hook sticking out of her throat which probably accounted for some temporary weight loss? 18.5 @ 2.35 isn't exactly great...

The other two had RW between 84-87 and were 13 and 14.5 inches respectively.

5 of 17 that were culled had RW below 60%. Yeah I triple checked these fish too. They were 9 inches, 11, 11.75, 13.75, and 15 inches.

9 of 17 culled had RWs between 60-70%. All but one was 14-16.5 inches.

3 of 17 culled were between 70-81%. They were 11.5-13.25 inches.

I am now up to 126 pounds culled out of 20 acres for the year or in other words 6.3 pounds/acre.

Next week I plan on hand feeding the bluegills some aquamax and continuing to do so on a daily basis.

Matzilla I'd definitely like to go fish somewhere else relatively soon either way if you're up for it?

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Because their top priority over fishing is liability issues... it's absolutely safe for a professional but it's a monkey see monkey do situation. Everyone has a kayak around here and they can't have that for fear of liability problems. A resident there I'm close to has been ice fishing it for 20+ years and other than a lone flathead and maybe 2-3 CC there isn't a whole lot of mystery to it unfortunately.

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It seems the clear water and the abundance of deep weeds, rock/rip rap and wood habitat is helping the yoy too much. I see them plain as day and running for cover any time a bass comes cruising around.

I guess having aquarium level clear water comes at a point of diminishing returns at some point?

There is a small shallow weed covered half acre pond that would make for a good forage pond next year before the weeds get out of control however.

I'm contemplating adding PS in addition to RES since I'm in a unique part of the country where both do well and the PS would just look fantastic I'd assume coming out of there.

I'd even consider Longears, Redbreast, or orange spotted sunfish just on what their colors could potentially look like alone. I rarely see BG that look like these do around my parts.

Thanks for your input CMM, I'm going to shoot for 40/acre and hope I get close.

If I can knock it down to at least 30 lbs/acre by late fall I hope any food chain additions I do make in large quantities will have a positive outcome in either the fall or following spring...

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Sounds a lot like https://muscatinecountyconservation.com/mccb-areas/deep-lakes-park/

I'm all for lending a hand depending on the travel time...shoot me some info. How well does the pit ice over? Icing bass can be very effective, so long as the fins don't freeze you have a ton of time to measure, scale, tag/mark, etc. They're extremely aggressive and easy to catch in the winter.

What are the rw's of the bg and bcp like? I've fished a similar pit where all the predators were skinny (but long), bg/bcp were big and fat. It never froze, held vegetation all year in the clear water, lots of hiding spots for young bg/bcp to grow, feed, and not be eaten. That pit had not been fished in years and nature had ran its course - once folks started culling bass and some of the larger pan fish the LMB rw's are way up.


BTW the combination of goose crap and dead vegetation in clear water makes an excellent sticky much bottom for perch, bg, walleye, etc to feed on in the winter time. You wouldn't think a sand/gravel pit would have these bottom types but they're pretty common


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: May 2009
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Don't know if you are still around Walter, but I enjoyed reading this if you have a chance to update your progress. It's a pretty uncommon fishery for this area from what I can tell. I live relatively close and would be happy to lend a hand also if you still need it.


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