Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Where are my Bass?

bc - Fender does not feed his fish Pruina Pond Chow; he feeds Pruina Aquamax for carnivours. The fish you bought from him were probably not feed trained. Which means they will not automatically come up and eat fish food; they have to be trained to eat that stuff. Rarely will bass ever eat P.Pond Chow even if they are feed trained since it has low protein and it is not for carnivorous fish. LM bass are feed trained on very high protin trout chow or similar food. Pond Chow is basically only for bgill and catfish. I doubt that bgill ate the food once it sunk. Catfish might eat it off the bottom.

I realize you said earlier that Dennis gave you the crappie. He knew what he was doing. You are going to need lots of minnow types to keep them growing well. You will have a very hard time keeping a good abundance of minnows in the pond with 3 predator types, bass crappie and catfish, in there; esp once the bass start spawning. Just hope your crappie do not spawn for you. You will get way too many fish needing minnows/sm. fish for food. More food than your bgill can produce. A few hundred fathead minnows in a 3/4 acre pond is almost nothing and it was probably to get the crappie started eating something they prefer right away. A couple hundred minnows barely weigh a pound and do not last long with bass eating them.

How many crappie did Fender give you??. He knew what he was doing. A happy customer is a repeat customer. Adding minnows or more forage items will depend on how successful the bgill spawns are each year and what the predator density is. First sample your bass population. While fishing for bass you may even catch a crappie. Measure & record lenghts of all fish caught. People who are going to help you will need that information.