Our family has a ranch in central Texas with a 15 acre pond/lake on it. It was built about 20 years ago and originally stocked with florida bass, crappie, blue gill, coppernose brim, and channel cat. Its deepest depth is 24 feet when full and it averages 4-8 feet in depth throuhout the lake. From about the 5th year of its existence to the 14th year 8lb+ bass were caught yearly with the largest being 10 pounds. Then a steady decline started in size. Throughout this whole period bass were easily caught and what obviously happened is it got overpopulated and the large bass became less frequent through the years. An average of 80 pounds of bass were being kept yearly. 4 years ago I began keeping 150 pounds of bass per year and each year since then we have caught bigger bass. 2 years ago we started cacthing more 3 pounders then last year 4Ibs and this year we have caught numberous 5 and one over 6Ibs. We do not keep fish over 16 inches. I see some brim and bluegill but rarely any over 6 inches. My question is am I going to need to increase the number of bait fish to continue to grow larger bass again? I have heard of people stocking threadfin shad and wondered if they would be good in this situation? Thanks for any replys
