It is possible that your larger SMB have eaten a large percentage of the male YP due to males growing slower and being smaller than females.
How many SMB do you have in that pond again? You could easily have too many bass for that size pond considering most of the bass do not primarily eat pellets. Relying heavily on pellets makes them less of a predator on fish (smaller YP and minnows). If I had your sized pond, I would have considered trying to add the SMB as single sex fish, that way you had good control of SMB numbers. I estimate that a pond your size containing no major amount of free standing submerged vegetation with YP as main panfish, should have only 6-10 adult SMB providing you want ample minnows and small YP. Your best control now is angling for removal. I would make an effort to remove a fair percentage of larger SMB and stock some more pellet feeding YP (4"-6"). Keep removing SMB and stocking pellet trained YP until you see YP reproduction.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 05/07/08 08:10 PM.
