Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Update From Lake 8 in South Mississippi

This weekend (7/26/25) I caught a new pond record from my 3/4 acre pond in Tylertown, Ms. 2lbs 7oz 15 3/4 inches. I stocked 75 F1 Tiger bass on 7/3/24, they were about 1 1/2 inches long. I originally stocked 75, but have culled around 20 this year. I have been feeding the bluegill heavily and have seen evidence of several bluegill spawns this year. I added more structure, PVC trees made from 4x4s and PVC, rock piles, sunk 4-5 treeetops, and added some spawning discs. This is the first one that I have caught over 2 pounds and am really proud of the growth. I am still catching some smaller bass that are 11 - 13 inches, some are a little above or right at relative weight and some are below (around 90% RW), I think I may try to cull a few more of the smaller, skinny bass. But I guess I have a few bass that are eating fairly well.

Great report! My app has that bigger fish at 114 relative weight and that's in the heat of the summer!

Congrats Lake8

Nice work - keep it up !

Only July 26th 2025 I caught a bass listed above that weighed 2 lbs 7oz 15 3/4 inches

On Aug 2, 2025 I caught another that weighed 2 lbs 11 oz (I forgot ruler)

On Aug 23, 2025 I caught another that weighed 3 lbs 8 oz 16 1/2 inches

I put a hold on tagging the larger bass because I was concerned about the stress it may have been putting on the fish, so I have no way to know is this was the same fish with incredible growth or I have multiple bass that are growing really well. What do you guys think?

Also, after catching the biggest bass in my pond, I caught the smallest one, this one about 3 inches long and another that was about 6 inches long. The bass I stocked are a little over a year old now, so obviously some of them spawned, but these fish seem kind of small for a spawn in March. And I threw these 2 small fish back. I probably should have removed them or clipped the tails. What are you guys thoughts on what to do with these small bass if I catch more.

Sorry about the sideways pictures, every time I rotate and save, they still post sideways.

Who needs an electroshock survey when you are so effectively sampling your population?

I doubt you are repeatedly hooking the same bass. They tend to develop some smarts with "hook shy" awareness. Of course, you could have one hyper-aggressive bass.

But based on my pure speculation, I would guess that you have multiple bass growing well in your pond.

Maybe you should still hold off on the tagging efforts until you get out of the peak water temperature stress. However, if you catch some bass this fall when the bass are thriving, you might try tagging some again for your records.

You have multiple bass Lake8. Three different fish caught on those dates. Absolutely amazing fish ... all of them great fish.

I think I told you this before, but your fish set the bar. I've come to the conclusion that, in the south, F1 have substantially better growth. Even over the first year and 2 months. The florida genetics do make a difference.

How do I know they are three different fish?

I started with the latest which was 3.5 lbs on 8/23. Adjusted a parameter of the climate model to get an idea how fast that fish was growing day by day. This fish was logging growth in the neighborhood of 6.6 grams/day during August. Remarkable growth. I estimate its weight to be 3.09 lbs on July 26th and 3.19 lbs on August 2nd. Simply can't be either of the other two fish.

All that was left was to see if is plausible that the fish caught on August 2 was also the fish caught on July 26th. The difference in their weights was 5 oz or .3125 lbs. That works out to 142 grams or 20 grams of growth per day. IMHO, they can't be the same fish.

Congratulations on all of them.

Thanks for the input guys. I try to do what I can for maximizing growth within means.

I do feed a heavy diet of Endurance feeds (about a 150 lbs a month) and it seems like the bluegill have it all eaten within about 30 seconds after the feeder goes off (3 times a day)

I have seen quite a few smaller, different size bluegills indicating multiple spawns.

I also have quite a bit of structure to protect smaller bluegill and others structure to create habitat for bass to ambush baitfish.

I like to refer to the pond as an underwater Disneyland for bass with an all you can eat buffet.

And I have lost my fair share of crankbaits down there.

10/20/25

New Update From Lake 8

This weekend I set a new pond record by catching a LMB that went 3lbs 13oz and 17 inches, relative weight 138.34%. This one was a tagged fish that had been previously caught and tagged on 3/8/25 when it weighed 1lb 13oz and was 14 inches.

A few casts later I caught one even bigger. This ole girl weighed in at 4lbs 5 oz and was 18 inches long, relative weight of 129.78%.

I did catch some smaller bass in the 12-14 inch range, which I assume were probably male bass. But a very productive weekend and I am very pleased with the growth so far.

These bass are approaching 16 months since they were stocked at 1-2 inches.

Dewey

WOW!

What a testament to what proper planning and management can accomplish. Well done sir.