I'd like to document our journey for the PB community as it unfolds, because I think we're willingly fighting an uphill battle, which should be fun and educational even if it's ultimately unsuccessful.

Background
My family has a 0.5ac, 20 year-old pond. Stocked with LMB, BG, PS, and 5 GC, with several other species thrown in over the years which never seemed to recruit (e.g., BCP, YP, SMB, RBT). Pond was not managed up till this year, meaning we practiced almost purely catch and release during that time (I think in the last 5 years, my Dad and brother harvested a couple LMB, maybe 5 BG, and 2-3 each of the only YP and BCP which made it through and were quite large). Pond is owned by the folks, so they get final say on what we do with the pond.

The Journey So Far
I've asked several questions here with the mindset/hope that we would drain, nuke, and restock from scratch. I think all parties like SMB and YP, so a hard reset would be the surest way to have an easily managed SMB/YP fishery. So this Spring, we began our attempt at "fishing out" the pond, for fun and as a matter of curiosity regarding carrying capacity, and also to not just kill off a bunch of perfectly innocent fish. I'll call this the "Great Fish Massacre of 2019", for my own entertainment. So, our harvest results to date are as follows (most harvested in April):
  • BG - 129 - Most all 8-8.5" and good body condition
  • LMB - 28 - 2 @ 14" (okay body condition), 2 @ 12" (okay body condition), 2 @ 3.5-4", remaining 22 in 10-11" and very skinny. 6 males, 20 females (2 little bass unknown sex).
  • PS - 4 - All about 8.5" and thick.
  • BCP - 1 - 10".

Observations about the water: Our pond lies at the foot of a mountain, with no farmland around and no BOWs upstream. It is fed by streams that originate on the mountain and run through the woods, and these streams run pretty consistently year-round at a pretty high flow rate (sorry, no GPM). Our pond water seems very clean, with none of the dank smell a lot of ponds get, and our fish taste incredibly good (even the bass); almost a sweet taste. Pond had a nice deep green cast throughout April, but now in May the water's gotten extremely clear (still has a green cast, but just much clearer than before). No Secchi, but I can see the bottom of our overflow pipe and some branches that are at least 5' deep. It seems some of the green phytoplankton cast has been replaced by FA growth, because most of the bottom is covered with FA.

Observations about the remaining fish population: I began trapping out juvenile BG (removed about 150), but have since stopped as we've changed plans. Now in the shallows we can still see hundreds (probably thousands) of 1-4" BG. There's at least 1 BCP remaining, which I know because I hooked it once but it quick-released before landing. Note that the BCP never seemed to spawn, so I think this may be the last BCP in the pond, because my brother stocked just a couple 2-3 years ago. PS have never seemed to recruit in our pond and they only appear in low numbers in local ponds, so we're not sure if they're just dumb and all the YoY get eaten, if BG bully them out of good spawning areas, or if the water chemistry just isn't quite right for their spawning around here. We have yet to see a single YoY LMB, which obviously could have to do with us removing most all the adult LMB (especially females) before spawning season. I've seen a pack of 3 LMB at about 4-5", and 1 LMB at about 12" that I've watched several days making laps around the shallow part of the pond. I'm not 100% sure it's always the same bass, but I suspect it might be. It's nearly uncatchable. The pond is quite clear, and I can get a high vantage point and watch the whole pond at once (seeing probably 4-5' deep all around) and in recent days I only ever see this one lonely 12" bass. Note that the little BG are more "adventurous" now after the Great Fish Massacre of 2019, meaning that they venture out deeper and further away from cover than ever before. This all makes me wonder if we haven't harvested most all of the LMB.

The New Plan
As we caught and ate lots of LMB and BG, Dad decided he really couldn't imagine a pond without BG and that catching high numbers of eating-sized fish was more fun than chasing a few trophy bass. Thus, the folks have decided they don't want to drain the pond, so the BG and LMB are here to stay, even though we now don't care at all about our LMB (we're adopting Condello's philosophy, that our LMB are just panfish management devices), and we'd rather have moderate numbers of eating-sized BG than trophies. I also made a couple cloverleaf traps, and everyone involved seems entertained by trapping YoY. Everyone seems quite into angling, trapping, and generally managing the pond going forward. My Dad's a stoic guy, but he does seem to get excited about having YP moreso than any other species, so I saw a couple options:
1. LMB and BG pond: Conventional wisdom is that YP won't really thrive with LMB present, so give up and let the LMB and BG populations and size structures recover, and manage for fairly high numbers of eating-sized BG.
2. Uphill battle - YP, BG, and LMB pond: Aim for high numbers of harvestable BG and YP, and culling all LMB (angling and trapping them aggressively) so as to protect YP population with hopes that they might recruit a little bit, and also trapping and removing BG heavily so they don't stunt. Pellet feed YP and BG (and disable or cut up trapped YoY BG to feed them to YP).

So naturally, we picked the uphill battle, #2. If it fails, the pond should drift back towards a LMB and BG pond anyways, so why not take a swing and have some fun managing heavily? I've prepared the family mentally for the battle to come and what the probable outcome is. We can source wild-caught SMB, so we'll pay attention to our YoY numbers and if by some miracle we do actually eliminate or over-control our LMB, we plan to stock a few SMB as needed to help with panfish YoY control.

Next Steps
  • Continue attempts at removing the last stubborn LMB.
  • Establish rooted vegetation. We need to remove our GC, which we can't catch, so we're actually considering shooting them or buying a bowfishing rig to take them out.
  • Get larger pellet-trained YP. I'm arranging an order of 6-8" pellet-trained YP right now, to be picked up hopefully soon. We're thinking most should survive given how much we've knocked the LMB population back and that any stragglers are likely to be small (12" or less) given what we saw during the Great Fish Massacre of 2019. We're thinking of ordering around 150.

Any thoughts or comments? I'm especially interested in hearing what people think about the plan to stock 150 6-8" pellet-trained YP, given that I'm getting ready to put in the order and hope to pick them up soon.

Also, any thoughts on why the LMB we've harvested are so skewed towards females? Is it possible that the population is skewed female-heavy, or could the males just still be spawning quite deep (note that we haven't seen a single LMB on a bed, even with the super clear water, thought we do seem to have had some BG spawning, if the tiny 1" BG are any indication)?