Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations How do I find needles (bass) in the haystack (pond)?

Last July I planted approx. 70 LMB in my 1/2 ac bass-less pond. The fish were tiny, going no more than two inches in length. I was in too much of a hurry and released them before the water temperature in the bag warmed up to the pond temperature. I figured I had at least 10 of them die immediately and others looked highly stressed. Some of them started chasing fatheads right away though. I have no idea though how many survived the introduction into my pond.

Now spring is coming and I see large schools of fatheads swimming around. It appears nothing made a dent in their population over the winter. Bluegills were introduced the summer before and they seem to be growing nicely. There are no catfish in the pond.

My question: "Is there a reasonable (cheap) way of determining if any of the bass survived? If they did survive how big should they be now? How long should I wait before I see any bass before I restock them?

Thanks for the help guys.

I've been catching fish on small crappie jigs for a month or so now. You might try that, but I'm sure you will pull out a bunch of bluegill in the process. But hey, a bad day fishing beats the heck out of a good day of work!

I would think your surviving bass would be at least 5" - 6" by now; that's plenty big enough to take small lures or worms on a hook. Agressive retrieval speed should help prejudice strikes in favor of LMB over BG.

If you can't catch 2 or 3 bass per hour of fishing once the water temp hits 50 deg, I would say you have too few survivors and would plan on restocking ASAP.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try the fishing technique that's been recommended. I was hoping I would see some fish, but it wasn't until this week that I saw my first bluegills since last fall. Seeing a bass at this point in the season might be like catching a glimpse of a UFO.

Yesterday was a nice sunny day so I thought I'd visit the pond and take a look. Sure enough, I saw three of my LMB hanging with some bluegills. I couldn't believe how much those babies grew since last July. I estimated them to be at least eight to nine inches in length. They looked like sharks compared to the bluegills. Now the next step is to figure out how many survived. The ones that did survive grew like weeds!

My pond is in southern Indiana on the Brown County, Jackson County line. I have been catching bass since ice-out. Try either a beetle spin or the shortest floating Rapala to catch the early season fish.