Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Cull bass or no?

Good Afternoon everyone. Hate to be the guy that asks a question with his first post, but I mostly just lurk to learn and leave the advice to the more knowledgeable members.

Here is my situation: 3/4 acre pond built in the 50's, south east TX. Fished it my whole life (37) and have seen it go through many transformations in regards to fish. 1.5 years ago I started catching all skinny bass in the 12"-14" range. After research I learned the bass numbers were too high so my plan was to start removing them. I also added a brush pile in each corner (rectangle pond) for bluegill and a few artificial structures deeper.

Shortly after this, and before I could remove any bass, I started noticing a fungus on fish. I got a few opinions on what it could be with no real consensus other than it would probably just need to run its course. I have no idea how many fish actually died but we found around 10 bass and a handful of bluegill. The largest bass I could visually see with regularity had a big spot of fungus on her back before disappearing.

Skip ahead to present day. All of my brush piles have bluegill where before they were mostly concentrated in one area. The bass I'm catching are bigger and healthier. Nothing huge, but more in the 2 lb range, and I'm seeing bigger fish visually outside the brush piles. Also seeing a lot of very small bass, 6" range. What I'm missing are the in between fish. I'm assuming the fungus had an impact on the spawn and I'm missing a percentage of that age class.

Every fish I catch looks very healthy and I'm assuming the fungus basically did my culling for me. Should I still cull bass this year or give the pond some time to recover? I also just added 10 pounds of adult tilapia for some extra forage just fyi.

Sorry for being so long winded. Just wanted to include as much info as possible.

Saprolignia is likely the fungus. Fairly common with fish in timber or somewhere they rub up against something often. Cold water can start this cycle also. Handling fish improperly or with dry hands is another way they are exposed to this fungus.
The 8-14" fish are the size you need to determine the frequency of, and thinned accordingly in central US. In TX, I can't speak for sure on that as you have faster growing fish and longer growing seasons.
Fish at different ages hang in different areas of the pond-usually associated with the preferred or available forage they desire-You may or may not be getting visual ID's on this size so sample by many methods, fishing, traps, etc to determine what you actually have in play before assuming a certain size needs culled. No replacement for good, accurate data.

According to Lusk , THE Pond Boss, you need to start culling a year after stocking. Yeah, I would cull the smaller bass before they over eat their food supply.

As a religious follower of Lusk my belief is to keep culling. My brain tells me everything looks healthy, but I know by the time the fish start looking stunted again it will be too late.

Except in my case where my BG got ahead of the LMB and I did not have a spawn for two or three years. I had to supplement stock LMB and finally this spring I am catching 9-12" LMB so I may finally start the need to cull. I'm 6-7 years onto this pond from new construction.

So "it depends".