I drained the pond today and will tell you what I found, but first I need to give background info...
I'll even try to post pics of the pond and today's harvest
I'm having a contractor replace my rusted out, galvanized, and leaking stand pipe system with a syphon system. He's also building a road around one side to provide access to the dam & asthetics. The road is 90% complete and the syphon system was installed yesterday and was already used to drain the pond. I woke up this morning to a small pool of water remaining. I put on waders and got busy scooping up all of the larger fish. This is an old pond (40+ years). I decided to drain and start over because the LMB have been EXTREMELY hard to catch and the BG seemed small and over populated. I'm a good fisherman. None of the BG we caught in the last several years were over 5-6 inches. I put 400 CC in there 2.5 years ago thinking they would help reduce the BG population. I also put in 8lb of FHM. We had a big flood a while back and I suspected much of the CC population went over the emergency spillway. Anyway, after spending the day in the mud with a net I believe all of my suspicions were accurate, but I'm still left with a few questions.
The fish count was 29 LMB ranging from 1lb to 1 8lb'er. The LMB averaged 3 lbs. There were only 6 CC in the pond, ranging from 4-7lbs. There were thousands of BG, mostly 1-4" & none over about 6". Sidenote: 25 yrs ago there were whopper BG in this pond. I was surprised at the lack of 3-10" LMB.....NONE! I did see baby LMB around 2". The FHM seemed plentiful.
My questions:
1) How did the BG get overpopulated / stunted? Too few LMB?
2) Would the CC have helped reduce BG if they stayed in the pond?
3) Was there too much food (small BG)for the LMB?
4) If too much food, where are the king-sized bass? (12-14 lb+ commom around here). My largest was 8lbs
5) Where are the 3-10" LMB?
6) Interested in pics?
I'm gonna need restocking numbers and timing for the restocking also. Interested in healthy LMB that are catchable & large BG. Want to keep it simple so will probably go with CNB & LMB. Maybe a few CC for table fare along the way, but look forward to your SIMPLE recommendations. Thanks in advance. Man I'm tired. Removing fish in the hot sun is hard work!
Last edited by hardin284; 10/03/08 07:25 PM.
