Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations NE Chad's Pond: ELECTROFISH COMPLETE

Chad, does the owner want to manage it for big BG or big LMB?

Option #3 with an alum treatment would be what I would consider doing.

Electrofishing is only sampling and never tells the whole story. It just identifies what is in the shallows. I'm not 100% sure you need to nuke the pond. You have bluegills already and they will grow and spawn. I would also bet that you have some small bass left and figure there is a good chance that it will rebound on its own.

That said, if I wanted a sure thing, I would probably take option #3.

I sure don't feel like an expert on this, but I'd go with #1, maybe with 6"-8" LMB. And keep a close eye on the pond to see what else might have survived. As DD pointed out, electrofishing doesn't find everything and tends to have different effectiveness at finding different species.

We have some flexibility there, Shorty, but overall I would say neither. He is more interested in a balanced fishery. Certainly the situation of the last several years with a small number of really big bass, isn't of value to him.

DD, absolutely understand that electofishing is just a sample and that other species (particularly bass) may be present in small numbers. We also know there are carp. I don't expect the pond to rebound on its own as you suggest. The lack of aquatic veg seems to be resulting in FA blooms under the ice, that die off and create DO sags once we get snow cover. This year, the already tiny population of bass took a hard hit, other species were untouched, as you might expect. The over population of gills and tadpoles also point to very limited predation. I can't envision a "natural" rebound since bass recruitment is likely to be slim to none.

Chad, you may be right and you know the pond/area better than I do.

I guess I'm looking at my own experience with a one acre pond that got clobbered by drought. When the water got down to about one ft., I had a DO crash that I thought killed almost everything. No bass hit, even on minnows. No BG came to pellets. I went to Lusk and got a couple hundred 4 inch CNBG and they have worked great. However, I'm also seeing native BG that I thought were all gone. And, I'm catching LMB up to about 1.5 pounds from what I thought was a barren pond.