Before you rotenone the pond and start over remove any small LMB you catch. Do a search on the forum for relative weight and learn how to determine if the fish you caught is stunted or not. Remove all stunted fish and release all fish with good relative weight. Stock some bluegill. Get some structure in there soon so your forage will have places to hide (this will also concentrate your bass population in certain locations making them easier to catch). Install a feeder to fatten up your bluegill and bass. All of these options are cheaper than wiping the slate clean and starting over, they are also a lot of fun.

If after a year or two you do not see improvement in the RW of your bass then consider starting over. If you do start over you can consider going the smallmouth route (like I did) or HSB. If you do start over be prepared to stock forage and wait a year (or two) to let them multiply before you stock your predators. If you want bigger fish you will need to stock at a lower number which means you won't be catching fish on every cast like you do in a stunted pond.

This past weekend I caught my second bass ever out of my pond, the pond was built 3.5 years ago and for 2.5 years it had no predators. I don't get to fish it daily or anything, probably only 10 times a year, but you get an idea of the kind of fishing action I am experiencing. I do expect that if we get a nice spring my smallies will have a good spawn and the fishing action will change dramatically (it will be time to cull the small ones). I only stocked 11 smallmouth in the pond and there is so much forage for them to eat that they don't appear too interested in my lures but their growth has been awesome.

Last edited by RockvilleMDAngler; 10/08/14 09:52 AM.