Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Bullfrogs and bass

I was just wondering if frogs in ponds are big parts of a bass's diet. I have a pond that is covered by hundreds of bullfrog's about 3 to 6 inches long. The pond is also full of tadpoles. I was just wondering if they get eaten too.

Frogs are very palatable to bass, but tadpoles since they swim slowly have a mild distaste to fish. However bass when hungry will eat tadpoles since they are such easy prey. Tadpoles since they are very vulnerable need a survival advantage and poor flavor is it.

If you have lots & lots of tadpoles and frogs this indicates to me that you either have loads of weeds (shoreline & underwater) and cover or very few bass. Lots of weeds and cover allow frogs and tadpoles to hide and bass cannot find them easily. The other option would be if lots of easy prey forage fish are available and bass are busy eating fish and tend to prey less on frogs & tadpoles. Rarely do I see lots of frogs & tadpoles in a clean type pond with lots of medium to larger bass.

Your right. My pond is 60% covered in weeds.(pondweed & Hydrilla). It also supports a large population of bluegill and silver shinners. When you go to the pond at dawn, you can see bass chasing schools of shinners on the surface. It's pretty neat seein 2 to 3 pound bass pop shinners on the surface. Another thing is i proubly have an overpopulation of bluegill. I made on throw with my 6ft castnet and caught 30 something perch from 3 inches, being most common, up to 9 inches being 5 of those 30 fish. Also in that cast i caught 3 fingerling bass and one 2 pound bass. This pond has have been stocked for 1 year this month. I put in 80 adult bluegill from 3 to 9 inches long. I stocked 200 shinners about 4inches long. I stocked 150 bass at 3 inches long.