Thought I'd update you guys on the stunted bass problem. As said, last year I took out around 125 bass (25 pounds per acre), most of which where less than 12" and skinny. The pond lacked small bluegill (most were slabs) and not many small fish could be seen around the banks despite many methods of checking (day and night with a spotlight). Anyway, to build up the forage base we had thrown in about 100 more bluegill, stocked shellcrackers, stocked perch, stock more crappie (only a few perch and crappie were present in the pond), and stocked 3200 fathead minnows.
Although it's too early to tell yet my initial checking this year looks good. I spotlighted the pond the other night and saw numerous small fish (mostly bluegill) in the shallows from last year's spawn (too early for this year's). I also saw some small schools of fatheads. My initial bass fishing resulted in one nice 13-14" bass with a fat belly on him. This is about the biggest bass I've caught out of there yet, and he was definitly the fatest yet. I also caught a few 6-9" bass that, although not real heavy, did show signs of more weight then fish in that size range last year.
I'm going to fish the pond over the next month and see how the overall bass picture looks. If I catch a lot and they look skinny and under 12" I may remove more this year...while throwiing back the ones that have "made it over the hump" into the teens lengthwise. If,however, some of the 12+" fish look skinny I might also remove some of them. My biggest concern is that I don't want to swing the momentum the other way, taking out too many bass and having a stunting problem with perch, bluegill, crappie. Opinions?
