Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Big Heads Skinny Bodies......

My girlfriends grandmother has two or three ponds but the one best one for bassfishing is in terrible shape. The only fish that I can catch are about 12- 14 inches at best and are very malnourished. I was thinking about waiting till spring, catching 10 or 15 loaded females and letting them loose in the pond to boost population. Also I was thinking about getting some sort of shad or a baitfish to stock in the pond... maybe from a hatchery or catch some myself from a local canal. Is this a good Idea or am I just "farting in the wind"?

Welcome, Tam1122, you've found the place for answers! While there will likely be a lot of questions from those in the know prior to giving you real advice, let me sugges it sounds like one of my ponds, which, I have learned, is loaded with stunted LMB due to their numbers. The benefit is that I have discovered that I own some used but nice sized BG due to the heavy predation by the bass. If growing the bass is the goal, there are a number of options for you, including stocking plenty of forage and also employing a feeding program with Purina Aquamax, which appears to be the most favored brand from my short time on this forum. Catching and releasing from sources other than a hatchery brings the risk of parasites or other diseases that could be avoided with getting your fish from a reputable dealer.

Get ready for all the help you need and be sure to browse the archives for this topic which has been discussed in great detail fairly often.

Good luck!

It sounds to me to be a typical bass heavy pond. You have so many bass that they have eaten all fish small enough for thier mouths and are not getting the nourishment they need. (Keep in mind, it takes 10 pounds of food for a bass to grow 1 pound)

Best way to fix a bass heavy pond, if you are looking to up your sizes is to take out many of the bass. I will leave it to others to suggest exactly how many, but by thinning the amount of bass you make it easier for your forage species (bluegill, etc) to reproduce and create more food for the bass.

Probably the best course of action includes removing bass, possibly adding broodstock size bluegill or your preferred forage, and implementing a feeding program. Feed is relatively cheap and translates through your forage into your bass. It also causes them to breed more prolifically.

Bass heavy ponds are something many members here have dealt with, I am sure more will be along soon to give you advice.

Tam1122:

Welcome to the forum. I'd look in the Pond Q&A (Archives) for a WR (relative weight) chart. Compare those length/weights to your fish, and take out every LMB that you catch that is less than what they should weigh according to the WR chart. I seriously doubt that you could add enough forage to put the weight back on all those LMB, plus you'll never regain all the time/weight lost on those stunted fish.

Iffen it was my pond, I'd get everybody that I knew to fish the pond, taking out every LMB that was caught. Once the fishing really slowed down, I'd add some CNBG for forage, and then next year add LMB to get some new blood in there.

Good responses. The last thing you would want to do is add bass. The existing bass have overeaten the forage base and it is not a balanced pond. It is the best bass fishing pond if you only consider the catch rate. This is a very normal condition on ponds that are not fished/managed.

Think about it this way. If you had a pasture full of skinny cows, it would tell you that you needed to look at the grass/forage base. Adding fat cows would put more strain on the forage resource and you would just wind up with more starving, skinny cows. At this point, you could start buying hay or eliminating the excess cows. Buying hay gets old and doesn't cure the underlying problem.

The best cure is fishing and tossing the bass on the bank or eating the starving bass. You do need to eliminate them until you start catching fat, healthy bass with a good WR like Esshup says. Adding them to the other ponds could easily get those ponds into the same condition.

Although the fishing is easy at this point, the bass, even though starving, will become conditioned to lures. That's the time to switch over to live bait, usually minnows, on light line.

After a while, you can add spawning size Bluegills which you will need anyway. Anything under 6 inches or so will be immediately eaten. In the Spring, I would also add about 15 pounds of 5 to 6 inch tilapia per acre.

BTW, how big is the pond in question?

Tam1122,
You've been given great advice. Follow it and you'll be on track. Here's a bullet point summary of what you need to do.
1) Cull as many bass 14" and smaller as you can. EVERY ONE! The reason to take out as many as you catch is that the pond has alread proven it can grow bass, so if you take out "too many" the pond will quickly respond by growing more.
2) Make sure you have plenty of adult bluegill. Begin feeding them (as long as the water temperature is above 50 degrees) with Purina's AquaMax 600. Beef up your food chain for bluegill.
3) Since you are in Louisiana, you should be able to increase survival rates of small fish by fertilizing next spring. Study about water quality and fertilizing so you can make that decision.
4) Keep records of how many fish you remove and from time to time, weigh and measure them. As you approach the point you have culled enough fish, the average weights of fish you catch will rise.

You have come to the right place to get the answers you need. Welcome

Tam,

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you subscribe to Pond Boss magazine... The amount of great information packed in it every couple of months is well worth the fee. Also take a look at the Pond Boss library and look at purchasing a book or two. Welcome to the forum, you're gonna learn a lot...