Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Managing 4 acre lake

This is my first post but I have been in and around the forums for some time and have found a great deal of information.
I have had a strong interest in private ponds and lakes since I moved out here to the Indiana/Kentucky area a few years back. I now have a pond to manage which is 4 acres in size and it dates back to the 1930's. It doesn't appear to have alot of silt in it but I haven't measured max depth or average depth, yet. I heard that the lake reaches 25' at its deepest but have yet to confirm that. The lake has two shallow beaches one that has an almost red rock appearance to the sand slightly above and below the water line with few rocks and the other has plenty of silt along the beach and in a small cove. The lake was built in between some hills that are fairly steep and make up part of the lakes edge. The lake area itself was used as a corn field many years ago. The lake has three coves that appear to have been creeks a long time ago.
It has a large stunted population of LMB, a good population of Large BG 7"-9", several reports of large 20lbs+ CC, a small population of warmouth, a really small rock bass population, and about 30-40 large grass carp. The lake has a good number of small minnows(bluegill and mosquito fish) with occasionally some 2"-3" bluegill. There are usually minnows visible around the shore all most year round.
Even though there are 20-30 people living just 50 yards from the lake and boats for everyone who lives on the lake edge it receives little steady fishing pressure from anybody else but me. I've seen groups of 2-3 people fish it maybe 5 days out of the year but I've heard of larger groups of people fishing it occasionally throughout the summer but didn't see much of them the year I lived on the lake.
I have fished it solidly for two years and sparsely caught warmouth both years but have only seen two rock bass caught in the lake in two years time. I heard that rock bass were dominate several years ago but most of what I catch now is LMB between 8"-12". This year the algae has gotten really bad from almost nothing 2 years ago to just a few algae clumps last year to coves filled with clumps of floating green algae.
I haven't seen the lake since we had all of these thunder storms though and I've noticed that the rain cleans most of the algae up by sinking it or breaking it up so maybe it got better for now. It hasn't covered 20% of the lake yet but It really messed up my fishing for awhile earlier in the year. Also aquatic plants have started growing, they were also non-existant 2 years ago. The last owners claimed that the reason the plants didn't grow was that the water rose and fell so much. The lake level stays within a 2'-3' area throughout the year but I would have thought some deeper plants would have shown up in 70 years. I think the grass carp have been eating the plants up before they can establish but since they appear to be getting old they're not eating as much anymore. Also the lake's edge has cleared up alot this year and I can see the bottom at 4'-6' in some areas close to shore. A week ago rain muddied up the water really bad which is odd since a good rain normally only stains the water. Although the lake lacks vegetation it mostly surrounded by trees and the coves have fallen limbs, trees, and branches in them. I have a brush pile in 4' of water in a small silty cove and there is a 8' x 8' floating dock that one of the neighbors have on their small part of the lake.
Right now I have started managing the bass by trying to harvest all of the bass under 12" and have just started catching some bass larger than 12" this year. My biggest so far is a 7 1/2lb Bass that I caught on a small floating jerkbait during a light, cold front rain the day before Easter. I have decided to remove the warmouth and rock bass since they just aren't worth keeping since the warmouth all seem to be 8" long especially with bluegill that touch 9". I also am trying to encourage catch and release for the bluegill and will try to catch the grass carp and maybe restock them later.
My goal right now is 3-5lb bass but lately I've been considering other species like black crappie, yellow perch, and catfish. I am getting tired of catching so many 8"-12" largemouth on a regular day. Even though I caught a 7 1/2lb bass this year I am still considering stocking and managing other species in the lake for variety thats why my goal for the bass is medium instead of large. I am going to stock redear sunfish next spring to cut down on the snails and I also am considering on trying to get F-1 Largemouth(Floriday x Northern strain) to try and benefit the bass' genetics since they've been in the lake for 70 years. Granted I don't own the lake myself but so long as I discuss changes with the owner(my grandmother ) and its within reason I figure I could do quite a few things with it. I don't know what she's willing to spend on the lake but I have told her the grass carp will need to be removed and maybe restocked and that redear sunfish would be a good idea to cut down on the grubs on the fish. Even though she owns the lake she has only fished it 3 seperate time and I've fished it twice a week since March so I doubt she has any requirements for it other than me fishing it.
Comments? Suggestions?

Oh yeah, forgot to add that crawdads suddenly showed up in the lake only seen a few so far but one was a pretty good size and I also found a crawdad in one of the bass. The lake also has a large local toad population which leaves some of the lake water dark with tadpoles.

sounds like you have a good plan from what you said. Just make sure you consider the following which you may already know. When stocking fish in established bass heavy pond it is worth paying more for bigger fish. The redear may be difficult to find big enough to survive bass predation. Consider fertilizing or supplemental feeding to promote more food reaching bass mouths. Also if not feeding why take out large grass carp? They may not eat lots of weeds like when small but what are they hurting. Now if you start feeding then yes you may want to get rid of since they love fish food. Good luck!

thanks.

A little update. I think I'll still try to stock some redears this year. It looks to late for them to spawn this year though but giving them time to grow some before next year doesn't sound like to bad of an idea. I found 4"-6" redears but that might not be big enough even for this lake. I decided that starting to fertilize is a no go. I don't know if I could keep it up year after year.

Lately I looked at the record I had last updated in June 2004 and the bass were on average in length 10.048", average girth 6.053", average weight 0.54lbs, and had a relative weight of 92.1%. Out of 50 bass for that year. I had stopped keeping record in june so I don't have any details on the fish I caught for the rest of the summer and all of fall. Up till then I had recorded catching 130 bass 98% of them were equally divided between those under 10" and those 10"-12.5" while only 2 were 13" or more the 7.5 pounder included. Out of that I had only caught 6-8 warmouth maybe 3-4 bluegill.

This year I've already managed to catch close to 30 bass most of which I've tossed. I'll have to restart the record keeping to see if there is any difference. I hooked a 13" bass awhile ago and caught one that had a bigger mouth and eyes than it should have had for an 11" bass. For the most part fishing has been about the same except I've been at the lake more so than last spring so I've been catching more than last spring. The fish(bass at least) were on beds in late march but most of them abandoned them after a couple of cold rains.

I'm thinking I need to get some worms and do some bluegill fishing. I don't know about the other people that fish the lake but I haven't seen a bluegill over 3" in months. I don't have much of an idea how they're doing lately and I've only seen a few at all ever come out of the lake. All I know is I see tons of bass, I fish for tons of bass, and I catch tons bass.

I was fishing the other day and while it had been my first time fishing in the morning in a loong time. I caught about a half dozen bass most of which were fat? Same lure, same technique, but fat bass? Its probably just some females since it looks like they're already spawning. But its the first ones that have had any belly that I've seen in awhile. 'Course couldn't toss them. They were only about 11" each but didn't look like they were in bad shape at all. Could be good or bad seeing them because I've been seeing some 3"-4" bass swimming around and the same bluegill minnows from last year. Same bluegill, new bass I guess.

I tried fishing for bluegill using a little jighead w/ a twister kind of thing and all I caught was a 4" bass! Been seeing more of that year class lately including some 6"ers and like always many in the 9"-11" area with the occasional 12"er. The neighborhood kid was out there fishing w/ me a few days ago and caught a 9 1/2" bluegill . It wasn't some old bluegill either looked like it was only a few years old. Cleaner more brighter colors. It almost got away too. Got a lucky stab at it and he went and showed everyone else before he put it back .

how did you get so many stars with so few posts??

I dunno why. But someone voted and gave me 3 stars.

You Da MAN!!! Das why.....

Do you think 4"-6" Redear Sunfish would survive in a bass heavy pond with most bass <12"? But either way should I stock adult redears in the fall say september/october? Or would fall stocking depend more on temperature for transporting them.