In my dealings with HOA lakes, just because 90% of the people fish for LMB, and the question was asked about adding CC, that doesn't mean that the remaining 10% of the people fish for CC. It could be just one person that is vocal and wants to have CC in the lake to fish for.

If I was advising the HOA on managing the 100 ac lake, I would point out the forage base problem, and just say that the CC issue could be revisited once the forage base was brought back up to par.

What is unknown is the stocking budget and annual budget for the lake. If CC were stocked, and they became a problem, is there room in the budget to hire a commercial fisherman to concentrate solely on the lake for a month or two with fyke/hoop nets to reduce the CC population?

If the LMB are low on RW, then to me that means that they are hungry. In a 100 acre lake, how many CC would have to be stocked to avoid predation AND to provide a high enough population to provide sufficient angling opportunities? They will start competing with the LMB in a year for food. How many will be taken out of the lake annually, and how many will reproduce in the lake?

If there was another small BOW in the HOA that doesn't connect to the 100 ac lake, even in a high water event, I would suggest stocking CC there making that a CC BOW. BUT before that would happen I would recommend that explicit rules written into the HOA bylaws that if anyone was caught bucket stocking CC into the big lake, that there would be SEVERE $$ consequences.


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).