My family just bought a property that has 3 tanks on them and all of them were stocked 10-15 years ago. We were told by previous owner that the last time he knew of anyone who fished the tanks caught a 25 lb catfish and no other fish. The previous owner was under the impression there weren't any other fish worth while left over. My family has only fished the tanks for about a month now just on weekends. We have caught LMB, crappie, and bluegill. Not a huge fan of catfish, but will start fishing for them to taken them out. I have taken every crappie caught and taken them out but doubt I have done much damage to them yet.

We catch a lot of bass but not one on every cast, most like 5-10 over 2-3 hr period of fishing. We haven't been weighing every one yet but that is the plan before we figure out the best way to manage them. All of the pictures following are from the largest pond. The larger bass are from 4-8 lbs and seem pretty healthy.

By looking at these fish does anyone have any knee jerk advice as how you would proceed? I think stocking mature bluegill would be a good start, and from what I gather culling bass under 12" seems to be fairly universal.

Only a couple of them look underweight from the difference in head and body size. Start looking at the forage base and have the water tested at TAMU. That's the bottom line.

Fish for bluegills and keep a log of ALL fish caught. Over time, the log will paint a good picture for you. I wouldn't rush to do anything until I knew more about the tank/pond/water hole.

I might cull, after you analyze things, everything 13 inches and under.

How big are the tanks and where are you in Texas(closest town)?

For non Texicans, a pond is called a tank or stock tank in Texas.

Good thing this forum isn't called Tank Boss... We'd have people showing up looking for info on Abrams, Challengers and Panzers.

Dave, the largest one is about 3 acres, which is where all the fish came from. The smaller 2 are really cattle tanks and only about 3/4 acre each. One of smaller ponds I have caught bass, bluegill, and crappie. I am surprised those smaller ones were stocked at all.

We are located near Hubbard between Waco and Corsicana.

I plan on filling out a log and will get the water tested by TAMU before we do too much.

Matt

looks like you have a pretty good pond already. I think you are right to get more bluegill in there. don't be afraid to move up your cut on what to take out to a pound or even a pound and a half. focus on taking out males if you can. It appears that your fish need more to eat. maybe they are eating all of the bass hatch and there aren't enough bluegill. get some cover in there for them too so the hatch can survive a little longer and provide bigger meals. if you catch any more big catfish get those out of there. they are competing with your bass for food when they get large. throw some floating catfish food and see how many cats you have. there might be several of those. my 2 cents. Good luck! Don't hesitate to take out bass, they need to come out probably at the very least 15 or even 20 lbs per acre every year.

What do you call an honest-to-goodness, store bought stock tank?

water tank as versus a tank.

BTW, in the Southeast, water holes are call pools for, I guess, pools of water.

I talked to Lusk about this years ago and he declined to change the name of his business to tank boss.