Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Shoud I kill all the fish off or restock in cage

There is a half acre clay pond at my parents house. We stocked it 10 years ago and have pretty much left it alone since.

We stocked it with BG and Channel cats. Then 2 years later came back with LMB. Pond was good for a few years but after I moved out they stopped feeding. Pond kind of went unchecked.

Now when you feed you see a school of adult BG. No small fish at all, half dozen or so 3/4 lb LM and ZERO catfish. A few years ago we caught channel cats over 10lbs out.

So should I put a cage and re stock with BG and Catfish? I am working on my pond at the same time (will be a bass/BG only pond) so at Dads I really just want BG and Cats for my nephew to catch. Or do I need to kill everything off?

odds are your LMB over populated and anything small enough to fit in their mouths is non existent in the pond. You probably have lots of small skinny hungry bass. The BG left are too big for them and probably look pretty decent due to low numbers of them. catfish could have died out for any umber of reasons.

If do not just reset you might start with removing as many stunted LMB ass possible and stock advanced sized BG.

IM sure some of the real pros will give some good suggestion soon.

where in GA are you located? I saw on your other post you said SE GA. We have another forum member that offers advance sized BG that might help out.

There doesn't seem to be any problem with your pond with the exception of perhaps too much predation from bass which in that case you will see many stunted bass around the same size. The big bluegill that you notice is perfectly normal since you seem to have a healthy balance of LMB and BG you said you didn't see any small fish so I don't assume they are stunted. If you had mostly small stunted bluegill that would be a sign of too little predation by LMB. You also have to remember that when the bluegill spawn the bass are controlling their numbers greatly. Another thing is its perfectly normal after 10 years that there is no longer any CC left since they can't breed in pond conditions unless if they have containers to spawn in. It is not recommended to put spawning containers for CC since their numbers will greatly take over the pond. They last thing I would do is start from scratch since if it is a too much predation from bass , it can easily be reversed by catching a few LMB out of the pond.

I am thinking the numbers are off because there used to be decent sized bass, I have caught some 3 or 4 lbs. Since the water is clear and I never see them anymore, I figured it was over loaded with small yearling bass.

I was thinking about removing smaller bass like you said, adding CC and maybe some BG?

Bobby, I am 20 minutes west of Brunswick. What member are you talking about?

I would remove a few of those younger bass, perhaps maybe a couple bigger bass and the bluegill population should rebound by itself. You can definitely add more CC just make sure they are big enough they won't be a meal to your bass.

You're basing your fish population on what you see? I think you need more data.

There are a few possibilities here....with several 10 pound plus cats, they were the top predator and could have wiped out all but the largest bass, with adults dying off from old age and starvation since BG are too big for them to eat also. Most likely though, there are tons of 8" bass and no BG getting over 4" long.

A lot of fishing needs to be done to get a better idea of what is there...using live baits and worms with larger hooks and small hooks to target all size ranges. Cast netting would help, so would lowering the pond to a few feet and cast netting/seining or fishing.

We have fished it maybe 12 times in the last 6 weeks. The BG and silver bream (not sure what they are) bite good but really there are no small fish. The bass don't bite at all, maybe catch 1 fish per trip and it will be under one lb.

I am basing a lot of this off of what I can see but this is because the layout of the pond and the clear water make it very easy to see. The pond started off as a small circle, then another circle was added with a canal making the entire thing a circle. So in essence, you can walk around the entire pond and see into most of it.

I even tried Bass fishing with live bait just to see if perhaps there was a larger fish that didn't want artificials but I never got a bite.

Also this pond is very shallow, deepest area is maybe 6 feet.

Could be a great time to drain and renovate then...deepen, widen, shape the bottom....whatever you like

Yep, push the reset button. If the goal is BG/CC, then the LMB in there are doing you no favors.

Killing, draining and reworking will make it more enjoyable for everyone in the long run.

I sent you a pm.

Depending on what you want out of the pond, you can enlarge the pond which could give you a much larger fish population. However if your content with size I wouldn't start over since your just wasting money. The size of the pond doesn't seem that large and you can probably easily manage it very well. I would add a handful of 9-12 inch channel catfish which should be rather cheap. I would still remove a few bass to let the BG to spawn.

I say remove a bunch of LMB, add some advanced sized BG. Also some advanced sized GSH and Flounder !

I am definitely not digging on this pond since I am about to be paying for another renovation at my house. This is strictly a low budget area. Focus is to have some nice CC and some BG in it. I don't mind if a few bass end up staying but it is not going to be a bass pond by any means.