Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations LMB control

Having fun during the evening I saw an overabundance of LMB in the 4-8" range in my 1/3 AC pond. I proceeded to toss 40 over my shoulder (in 2 hours fishing time)while releasing 3 larger lmb, 3 res, and approx 10 cnbg. I was using the smallest yellow rooster tail in my arsenal

The sizes seem odd, I know the 8" fish are last years hatch, and this years brood are the smaller ones, but how old are these fish? Can they possibly be 1 year old?

p.s. do NOT look at the TREES on the DAM, "I" didn't do that !!!





any age input would be welcome...E

A very WAG is they are older than that. I have aged LMB that size at 3 years old from a LMB crowded pond. A FS buddy has aged similar fish at 5 years from a real crowded LMB pond. In the same pond he caught a 5 lb LMB also at 5 years. For some reason the big fish managed to jump the size gap.

Eric, you're probably right, but the pond appeared void of life last April. I put in 3 adult lbm and 5 CC in April 2007. On my my next trip out in July, I added 100 BG, 100 RES, 100 CC, and 2 lbs shiners at that time. While swimming in July 2007 with a mask and fins, lmb 4-6" were visible. The lmb sizes I see now just don't make sense. Unless I'm catching the same adults per trip, something's fishy I just wish I had my scale to check the RW's at the time...I threw them back in, hopefully I can weigh one next week as I visit the completed new pond.

To add more to the puzzle, I tried lures and worms in the pond prior to introducing a few fish, never had a nibble. Can lmb grow 12 inches in a year?

I don't think those fish are really too stunted. The head looks in proportion with the body.

Agree with DD - those two bass would be average or above average condition in my pond.

This is what makes things interesting. To be clear those fish do not look "stunted" but I would bet the RW is low. The pond also looks clear (as in not particularly fertile) and no supp feeding and low forage as per your post above. With those conditions in an existing pond you normally don't get from 2in to 12in in one year. This is especially the case where there are multiple year classes of LMB present. It is possible that the fish you are talking about are the few you put in or they are the best growers out of the 8in year class. However if they were the best growers of the 8in yr class they should not have a low relative weight at this time unless they just finished spawning (15 to 30% weight loss) at one year. I have seen plenty of 3 yr old fish that look just like No. 2 above. My best WAG is there were a few survivor LMB in there to start with.

Russell, they can go from 2 to 12 inches but they have to hustle if they are not feed trained pigs. No way to know exactly how old they are without otolith analysis.

Eric, survivor fish or even bass heavy pond fish that I see don't even look that good. I am next to a bass heavy pond with loads of 8 to ten inch LMB and an occasional whopper CNBG. Gin clear water with a lot of FA. On occasion I see a 14 inch bucketmouth.

I sure like the different ideas, something weird is up with the pond, that's for sure. I know there were no BG or RES originally, something would have nibbled a baited worm, right? My stinkin records are at work (ahhahaha), but I stocked 100 of each at 1-2", the largest BG caught go approx. 4-5" bg, RES maybe 6" max. RES are definitely larger/stockier. I also catch little ones at 2-3"

Like ewest says, there is good visibility indicating a poor bloom/quality, but there are fish everywhere indicating good reproduction.

I have both a BG & LMB RW calculator, I will take a few measurements next time out..."if" I can find my scale in the barn, it's so cluttered with the move, life is fun !