Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Restoring a bluegill pond

If draining is not an option, IMO it sounds like it would be easier at this point to make it a pond for nice LMB and HSB, at least for a few years. You report the BG and CP (Do you have black or white crappies?) are stunted so I suspect they will never go ahead and grow to large size. I will be surprised if you can remove enough angling and seining to really change that stunted dynamic. I would think the addition of 24/7 anglers like LMB and HSB will stand a better chance of reducing the stunted herd in a few years. Do you have budget to buy some good 8 to 10 inch LMB and HSB (Bigger stockers if you have the budget) for stocking? IMO Just bucket stocking a few will take a long time to get results and you will know nothing about your stocker genetics or health.

IMO adding more BG now will do more harm than good. BG stunt due to lack of food. I suspect if you try to stock new ones now they will suffer the same fate of stunting as you would be just providing more mouths to feed on an already over burdened forage base. IMO you need to get the pond population/balance back to a place the pond has the capacity to support. You need predators and I would remove every BG and crappie caught. The LMB will spawn and provide you with more anglers as time goes by. I would keep records of quantity and size of BG and crappie caught. Once you see a trend that the BG and crappie are getting bigger and you are catching less of them, consider it may be time to start harvesting some of your 14 inch and larger LMB.

Just my 1 cent

Bill D.