Pond Boss Forums PHOTO GALLERY Image Gallery He is boss in my 1/2 acre pond.

Caught him only once, smarty pants he is.

Very nice for a 1/2 acre pond! I can't seem to grow any bass to any size? What do you feed your bass? How old is that bass do you think?

Impressive no matter what sized pond.

Since I am so new to managing a pond, I can only guess that small BG's have fed this guy, I took over this pond 3 years a go, I made many mistakes during that time period, I wanted to learn all I could about managing a pond and a friend sent me a link to Pond Boss, Boy did I ever get awakened.

My main reason for taking over this pond was to have a good supply of 3 to 5 inch BGs for my Flathead catfishing, I can go through 30 live BGs on one fishing trip, I have a quarry about 20 miles away that is over populated with BGs, so I do a bucket transfer, oops, yes I know, but like I said my main goal was to put an take, now I have learned so much from this site I may start to change my main original goal, I had made a cage to hold 100 BGs for about a months time an they did well, I would feed them, I placed the cage near the creek entrance.
Now I find this big bass -over 5 lbs is eating most of my transplanted BGs, those I don't keep in a cage, there are about 15 bass in this pond, from small to this guy in the picture, I have trained my hybrid gills to eat pellets, I did see about 20 yoy bass but now wonder if pond dady ate them.
I would hate to remove this one monster, should I let him stay for spawning reasons?

That is a good question. There come a time I guess where you have to decide what you want. A bass that size I would say is right at about 20 inches maybe 21. So that means he can eat a fish in the 5 to 7 inch range no problem depending on the type of fish. The question is do you want him in there doing that or not?

Congratulations!

He certainly needs a lot to eat to keep growing and maintain his body condition.

Nice!!

CmanJim, what part of PA are you from?

If you can afford the funding, you should look into stocking some trout for that hog to eat.

I have a Lebanon Pa address.

My pond is over in Somerset on the Western side of PA.

How many BG would that hog eat a day? 2 4" BG per day? 4 3" BG per day? I have no idea, but it could be the basis for an assumption of feeding days per year. Not that he/she wouldn't eat during the winter.

Good news, my friend who owns the pond I manage just talked with about removing the silt and trash that entered the pond during Irene storm, he has access to a large reach back hoe that can remove the 2 foot thick wash in junk(sand-leaves-twigs _)

Today we hand dug the muck, its quite deep.

Are there any precautions that we need to be concerened about doing this, we will not be draining the pond, cost will be small.

This should not cause us to loose any fish.

The reason for the wash in was that the bypass creek got clogged up with trash an flowed directly into the pond, I have fixed that problem, by clearing out all the roots and junk in the bypass creek.

I would see if I could drain down the pond a bit, not too much (concerned about shallow water levels during the winter and winterkill). But, if it will fill back up in a week or so then I wouldn't worry about draining too much.

Reason is:

It's easier to dig in dry or goopy areas than areas that are submerged. You'll have a lot of silt washed out of the bucket every bucketfull you pull out.

Digging in the sediment will release hydrogen sulfide gas, which is toxic for fish. (it's the rotten egg smell that you get).

You could rent a 3" or 4" gasoline trash pump for a day and pump out as much water as you need. At 15,000+ gph, you can move a lot of water pretty quick.

I like your idea, we do have a pipe that could be openned at the breast and lower enuff water to expose the muck area, I will discuss this with the owner.