Have you guys ever lucked into unintended good results with your pond?

My original stocking plan was to have a pond where my kids could have a blast catching high numbers of fish in a short amount of time regardless of size. I figured what I would end up with would be a stunted, over-populated LMB pond with big CNBG in low numbers. The HSB were just an experiment that I honestly didn't think would work out.

Well, almost three years later I have nothing like what I planned. I have a 1/2 acre pond that fishes like a trophy bass lake. Instead of catching high numbers of fish in a short amount of time you catch low numbers in a longer time, but the fish you do catch are huge. I have not caught a bass under 3 lbs in over a year. Both my LMB and HSB are fat, healthy and fight like no fish I have ever caught before. I have an over abundance of CNBG swimming the shoreline and routinely see LMB and HSB ambushing them, especially at feeding time. I also have a ton of very large frogs and native crawfish adding to the buffet.

I don't know how long this accidental bass haven can sustain itself, but I am enjoying it while I can. When the large LMB and HSB die off I will probably have a huge gap in size and will likely have to start over or get some adult size LMB to add. The question is are the huge bass the stockers I put in the Spring of 2017 (which would be impressive growth rates) or are they the offspring of the 9 lbs bass I didn't know was in the pond when I initially stocked it?


NTHA - North Texas Half Acre
Cattle Ranch Ponds