I recently bought an old farm and the farm has a small on it. I have fished the pond and caught one 6-7 inch bass after another along with several 2-4 pound catfish but no blue gill... The water is very clear with a layer of weeds 6-8 feet out aroung the bank. I assume that the pond is healthy but needs some management and I need to learn about it. I ordered the magazine and a couple of the books (Basic Pond Management-The Manual & Water Weeds and Algae) to get me started. But, I am looking for some general guidance about how to start.

Rob, your pond sounds like a typical unmanaged body of water...you probably have nothing left but skinney predators, and a hopefully a handful of 9" Bgill. If you have a few minnows in the shallows, that will help build your forage base as predators are removed. Make sure your first impression is right, monitor what you catch. If you want to do things right, cull. Get rid of every bass and cat you catch. Eat what you can, throw the rest out, or give them to a friend who doesn't want to pay 1.00 each Get some LARGE ADULT Bluegill in there now. They will spawn several more times this year, once most of the predators are out, the forage base will multiply. You'll never catch out all the bass, but try. Just to make sure you're on the right path, record the length and weight of the bass you catch, then come back here and look up a Relative Weight Chart...that will confirm if your bass are stunted and skinney.