i have a 54 acre lake in n.e. ark. pond construction was done sept. 10 2001. was full of water dec. 10 2001, with a average depth of 7 feet. there are 4 clumps of willows (20 trees each clump)and rest of cover is man made (approx.
4000 wooden pallets anchored to poles or the bottom). march 2002 i stocked 39,000 coppernose, 13,000 shellcracker, 13,000 native bluegill, and 3,250 channel cat (all fish were fingerlings). november 2002 i stocked 3,500 2-3'' f1 largemouth
bass and march 03' i stocked 800 1-2'' pure florida largemouth. i have had two automatic feeders going twice a day (april-november) since the bream were stocked march 02'. also i stocked 2000 pounds of fatheads a week before the bream.
everything in the lake seems to be thriving except the bass. bream range from the size of your hand to millions of fry. catfish range from 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds. i have seen no bass feeding on the surface all summer and in the past week i spent two half days trying to catch a bass to see how big they were and haevn't caught a single one. where did they go? did the catfish eat them. i have ordered an electroshocking device that should be in later this week. if there are no bass present when i shock should i eradicate the catfish before stocking the bass again or just stock bigger bass? if the later, how big?
