Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Relative Weight and Culling

I have been conducting relative weight studies on my 80 acre lake in Southern California. The bass I have been catching for the last 10 months have an average length of 13.5", avg. weight is 1.25 lbs. and the average relative weight has been 1.01 (lows have been .82 and highs of 1.29) Fish lengths have ranged from 11.5" to 15.75". Most are 12" - 13". No one has caught a fish better than 16" for almost a year now. In the past years when we had a giant shad population we caught a fair number of 3 - 5 lb. bass. I fish a lot of lakes and catch lots of fish over 7 lbs. in other lakes (wish I could say that about my lake), so I am not lacking in ability to target and catch big fish if I had them in my lake.

I have been trying to remove all bass under 16" throughout the year. Since August we have removed 1,240 bass under 16" - this equates to approx. 15.5 lbs. per acre removed so far to date (in 10 months). Is the right approach I am taking? Keep culling to get more larger fish in the lake?

My question is should I continue removing as many bass as possible (under 16") even if the RW is averaging better than 1.0? My understanding from what I have been reading at this site is to remove a minimum of 10 lbs. regardless of a high RW. Best I have read is to remove 20 lbs. of bass from a lake annually to produce more better than 16". Is this right?

I think we have too many bass in the lake and lack an adequate population of bluegill. I am waiting to see if we still do in fact have any thread fin shad population as we have not seen them now for 2 years. Generally the shad are running the shore and spawning in the great years of the past. I have not been metering any shad, nor seen any in shallow water or on the surface in deeper water. The loons that used to be thick on the lake didn't even come around this year - no shad - no loons I figure.

Currently the water temp in the lake is 70 degrees and water visibility ranges from 24" to 36". I have not fertilized the lake this year or in the past. The bass are finishing their spawn right now and there are only a few bed fish left. There is lots of fry around in the trees that extend out to about 5 - 10' surrounding the lake. I rarely if ever see a bluegill in the lake until they spawn and then there are only a few groups of them in only a few locations. The bluegill in the lake are all giants with most in the 6 - 9" in length.

Thanks all!

Dave

short answer is it depends on your goals. If you want to maximize 6 lb. bass continue to harvest until you start getting 125% avg or so. Also lbs to remove depends on productivty of pond. If fertile then you will need to remove more lbs. You are doing something right to get the good Wr. I say keep it up. Is there a source of 3-5 inch bluegill? If so restcking will moe quickly improve the fishery and bass growth.

I asked a similar question a while ago about when to stop or reduce my cull. The answer I got was, let the bass be your guide. They said when they get up to the wieght you want and the 3-5 inch blugill are coming back, then mabie get a little more selective with the ones you take out. I believe that Bob Lusk said that when 25% or more of the bass within any certain size class are below the target RW then you need to cull the bass in that size class. And like greg said, whatever that target weight is depends or your goals.
good luck & have fun
-Scott

Just picking up on this old thread. In fishing my pond as of late, I noticed that my bass are not as fat and large as I'd like them to be. Yes, I did catch three or four nice ones over 15 inches, but I caught many more around 9"-10" and not much of a belly on them. I do have an abundance of bluegills and plenty of bluegill nests ringing my pond's shoreline. I have tried to establish a golden shiner or fathead population, but that hasn't been all that sucessful. I see a few minnows here and there, but that's it.

My questions are: Are many smaller bass and a few larger bass normal for an unfertilized 2 acre pond? Should I begin a culling of my bass and/or bluegill to get things in balance? I have studied the many threads on this subject and the solutions seem to vary from fertilizing my northern pond, buy a fish feeder, stock more forage, and don't worry about it as I have a bluegill population. Just looking for some input to hone in on how I may acheive bigger bass. Or, is what I got a normal thing?

ya'll can email me if you like, i have a good spreadsheet my buddy made me for culling, gives you RW in a %, just type in length , weight, even calculates total fish, and total weight.. and if your scale weigh's in oz's, it has a built in oz to lb converter.. my email is [email protected]

works great.. we just got this property too. i've only been doing this amateur mgt stuff for about 5 - 6 mths... put in 25lbs of fatheads, 100lbs of crawfish, 500 bluegill 5-7', 250 redear 3-5, 200 cats, it was already bass heavy, put two feeders, one stren 200lb, and a stren 75lb.. both work great, fatheads have just exploded and i've seen several crawfish under the feeders.. no joke at least 6-8 inches .. biggest one's ive ever seen....remember we we started this, the bass were stuntted at like 10-14" each.. now were gettin some nice 14 inch's over a lb.. so i think things are turning around... this site rocks!!

chris

ya'll can email me if you like, i have a good spreadsheet my buddy made me for culling, gives you RW in a %, just type in length , weight, even calculates total fish, and total weight.. and if your scale weigh's in oz's, it has a built in oz to lb converter.. my email is [email protected]

works great.. we just got this property too. i've only been doing this amateur mgt stuff for about 5 - 6 mths... put in 25lbs of fatheads, 100lbs of crawfish, 500 bluegill 5-7', 250 redear 3-5, 200 cats, it was already bass heavy, put two feeders, one stren 200lb, and a stren 75lb.. both work great, fatheads have just exploded and i've seen several crawfish under the feeders.. no joke at least 6-8 inches .. biggest one's ive ever seen....remember we we started this, the bass were stuntted at like 10-14" each.. now were gettin some nice 14 inch's over a lb.. so i think things are turning around.caught only a few over 15'.. this site rocks!!

chris

Thanks Christopher, sent you e-mail with a request ! Also, as for this thread, keep in mind that RW can be tricky...generally the females top the charts during spawn. Most predators will show considerable weight gain again late Summer/early Fall. If possible, try to "trend" the RW ratios to show improvements and culling results.

Got the chart Christopher, Very Nice!
Thanks,

cool ric.. hope it helps!!..

chris