TMK - Sunil has good points. If the lake has lots of 9"-10" LMB then there should not be lots of 2.5"-3" forage fish. I am getting some mixed information in your quote above that says ""walleye is a great fish for eating up over populated pan fish, which is what we have in our lake. They are saying that they will eat everything smaller than about 4".""

What is the size of your over populated panfish?.?

I think it is not 2.5"-3.5" panfish. Over abundant sizes are probably more like 4"-6". If so, then it takes 13"-17" bass to prey on that size of panfish.

If your over populated panfish are 4"-6" then stocking walleye or more bass will not help. 10"-12" walleye will be eating the same items as 9"-11" bass.

So far, it sounds to me like your lake has to too many 9"-10" bass and too few of the 2.5-3.5" panfish needed to get the bass growing to the next size class of 11"-14" bass that will then be eating 3.3"-4.3" panfish. If this assumption is true then there needs to be a concerted effort to thin out (harvest) 9"-10" bass. There are past posts here that provide guidence as to how many small bass per acre that need to be removed so remaining bass get growing to the next size group (12"-15"). It is a common problem for a pond/lake to be "bass heavy" in one size group where they then over-eat the food source and their growth becomes stuck at one size category.

Do you have any catch records, seining/nettng,trapping, or electroshocking data as to what sizes of panfish are most abundant in your lake? What is the size structure of the panfish populations in our lake? . Example. If "you" would go out with a No. 10 hook baited with wax worm or garden worm fished under a bobber and caught 200 panfish what size would each fish be? These data would also tell you a lot as to what the size structure of your bass population was like in the lake.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/26/08 09:55 PM.
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