Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations overcrowding verdict?

Hello all:
Again, thanks for all of your help with my dad's bow. Last weekend of ice (they hope) and there apparently was an ice-fishing bonanza, i didn't get to make it up there, but they had a huge weekend.Onezey, the mythical lake beast, was caught by 2 people on a total of 3 seperate occasions.

There were also a bunch of those smaller pike caught. Unfortunately for me, and for all of you whom i'm now pestering with the questions, Mr Chairman of the Lake Committee was the one hosting the bonanza, and apparently he is flipping his lid very concerned.

There are a few questions at this point. So there have been a total of 12 mini-pike caught and confirmed, but sizes recorded only make for 6 different lengths, so only really 6 confirmed mini-pike, all between 12-21".

Other species caught were the usual suspects, skinny bass (24 more removed from the lake, if my dad told me right), black crappie, bluegill. Nobody pulled in one of the walleye this weekend.

So dad asked me a bunch of questions to ask you guys..i told him he should just sign on, but i don't think he's too into forums...whatever.

a) Lake committee chair was very nihisitic about it, saying it's all over, we now jsut have a pike lake, all the bass are dead. What is a good response to this? How accurate is this? He's a pretty smart guy, from what i understand, but it seems like an alarmist approach to me (although to begin with this was my response, as you all may remember, but Walt was good enought to convince me otherwise, and the rest of you have done your parts as well).

b) is removing bass still a good answer? Or will the pike start to mediate this on their own? I guess yes, still remove slot bass...

c) In the post below i'll be putting some images down. One of which is the map of depths we've been putting together, the colors don't mean as much, just the depths in text. Just southeast of dad's pier is a culvert that functions as the drain from the street into the lake. Dad wants to put some emergent grasses there, that he thinks and i agree will double as cover for forage as well as a very sightly cover for yet ineffective filter for road-grime and other nastiness that makes its way into the lake. what is a good species of grass to plant there that will survive the mean chicago winters and be easy enough for him to maintain (ie not cover his shoreline in a year or so...)?

d) based on the map, where would be good places for cover? In front of dad's pier where it first drops to 12' will be one set, i'm sure. Where else?

e) dad likes the hone-hole style of cover, with soft polyeurethane tubing (no hazard to people diving off of the trampolines etc...as opposed to rigid pvc, no skewering of swimmers, etc). What kind of tubing should he invest in for the construction of these things that will still remain erect for years?

f) in the summer we'll be putting in minnow traps and craw traps, but just to point us in the right direction before we can ID any forage species, what kinds of additional forage should we be looking at?

Thanks all! Photos coming soon!
-Skinny