Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Should I take out blue gills

I have a 3 acre lake that was stocked with f1 bass and cnbg 3 years ago. We take out as many bass as we can out ( under 12 inches) but I have never taken any blue gill out because I thought it was more food for the bass.

I have noticed this spring when the feeder goes off the bream are everywhere.

Do I ever need to take any out?

What are your goals?

If giant bass, a superabundance of cnbg is likely a good thing.

If giant cnbg, then maybe you should harvest the midsize cnbg and cut back on harvesting the bass.

I think you can safely remove 10-15/ac(up to 45) of the biggest(9"+) bluegill each year. Larger bass are eating BG smaller than the largest BG. Once the largest BG reach 6-7yrs old in the south, these older BG will die of old age and you could get some food use from them rather than have then die and waste them. Oldest BG that die of old age are often not seen and decompose on the bottom.

Thanks for the help. I want this to be a bass pond but more importantly a catching pond.

I wanted to make sure that I did not end up with so many blue gill that the baby bass got hammered every year.

Right now we are only taking bass out.

Baby bass getting is nature at work. Lusk says that 99.5% of bass never reach 1 year of age. And, that still leaves a lot of bass to cull. I personally worry more about having enough BG to feed the bass.

Whenever you have a shortage of forage fish you have too many predators or too little habitat - often both shortages occur together.

I am adding as much structure as I can as fast as I can. Rock, trees, old farm equipment, and concrete with irrigation pipe sticking out of it.

I take out as many bass as I can catch.

Thank you very much for your input.

Be aware as the average size of bass becomes larger they become more lure experienced and harder to catch assuming that they see lures on a regular basis. A good bass catching pond where bass are caught often often has numerous bass in the 1 to 3 pound range. This is especially true in ponds less than 7-10 acres. The more frequently bass see lures and the longer the angling sessions the harder it is to catch bass, esp the largest ones.