Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch Holy LMB!

First time fishing for LMB today in our pond. Several 14-15 inchers, a 17-incher and a big, fat 22-incher!

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Good for y'all. That's a great first experience.

Did the pic work? I can't tell.

Sorta, kinda, but the link is there. HTML brackets are missing but the links work.

Great fish to pull out anytime from your pond, even better when it is the first time (though I bet expectations are set pretty high now).

My daughter caught a couple nice ones in the fall while fishing for bluegills right after we moved into the property so we knew they were in there. I caught all of the bass today on a 2" Rapala floater that is probably 30 years old. The last big one on broke it off! A day like today was well worth losing my old favorite lure. The previous owner of our property did not fish or manage the fish for 10+ years, but the owner who lived there before him was there from the early 70's to 2000 and was an avid fisherman. We saw lots of smaller LMB today, too, so I don't think I'm going to do anything to upset what is established! The BG fishing is excellent too.

I would remove at least some of the smaller LMB, especially if they show low Wr. Rarely in pond management is doing nothing the right action.

What part of PA are you in? How big is the pond?

I figured it was a good sign to see some LMB in the 6-12" range, rather than having a few big ones eating all of the young. We're in Northern Lancaster County, and the pond is about an acre.

Keep an eye on the forage base. If you aren't seeing a good number of small, 1"-3" BG, you probably are having LMB overpopulation issues at the smaller size range. Keep in mind, a 1 acre pond can only support 50-100 pounds of LMB usually leaning more towards the 50 pound end of the spectrum.

There are lots of small BG and we see lots of minnows of some sort, especially around the 2 upper "corners" of the pond that are loaded with lilypads. The area between the patches of lilypads are where I caught all of the LMB yeserday. I also saw a big ST there yesterday and am trying to catch it. Our property is loaded with frogs and tadpoles, too, and I'm guessing that the LMB are feasting on them.