Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Skinny Fish

Hey Folks, this is my fist post, so im sure the question has been asked, but here we go, I have a one acre pond, with bg, lmb, black crapie and white crapie in it. its an older pond, my guess is about 30 years, has an island, and some 12 foot deep sections. whenever I catch bass, they seem very skinny, almost sucked in sides. most of the crapie I have caught are 9 to 12 inches and look good, its rare I see anything smaller, and there population seems low. some of the blue gills I have caught are HUGE, biggest I have ever seen. are they out competing the bass for food? I do see allot of small fish, 2 inch or less so I cant figure this out. should I fish the large ones(bg) out? a few of my buddies are comming this weekend and im thinking of hitting them hard. FISH FRY, ye ha.
btw this site ROCKS, there is so much info on here its overwhelming, thanks for sharing what you know, and I will subscribe to the magazine.
Kurt

Kurt, without asking for more details at this point, I would guess that two things may be occuring:

1) Overpopulating of LMB
2) Lack of forage base or forage fish for LMB

Again, without more details, some "canned" suggestions might be to remove all crappie (black or white) that you catch. There will always be some that you didn't catch. Remove all LMB within a certain size range. Add more adult bluegill.

Welcome aboard!

Classic!

Overpopulation of largemouth bass, like Sunil says.

You're "lean 'n mean" LMB are cropping down your first year bluegill to the point that the remaining bluegill have unlimited forage and grow like crazy.

Once again, in agreement with Sunil you should try to put heavy pressure on LMB within a certain slot--say 11-15 inches. You're forage base will go a lot farther due to fewer mouths to feed and you 16+ inch bass should take off in size due to decreased competition.

You'll love the magazine.

Welcome,

Bruce

Welcome Kurt to the PB Forum. I agree with Bruce and Sunil. I will add don't take out any BG for at least a year and consider adding some adult BG to help with BG reproduction and replenishing the forage base.

Kurt,

I agree with Sunil and Bruce, but before significantly changing things up I'd caution you to make sure the changes are in synch with your needs and long term objectives.

Said another way...catching 12 inch slab crappie and HUGE BG isn't all bad and in fact would be pond nirvana for some.

Very true. For me it WOULD be a pond nirvana.

I could get used to the way Crappie look with slabs like that.

thanks guys, my goal is a good bass, crapie pond, until I moved here I had no idea what good eating bluegill are, I grew up on yellow perch and small mouth, and we threw the bluegills back.
live and learn.

I thought Id put this link in hear, because yah, this is my nirvana,,
Kurt

http://kobiotto.zip.io/

Beautiful,Very nice...and so well manicured.

That's a look we ranchers don't get with cows doing the mowing around the pond.

Yep, looks nothing like mine. It looks kinda tame or nice or something.

It would help to know just where you are.

BTW, just what is a kfminva?

Dave -- kfm -in- Va. :p

Now ewest, quit poking fun at Dave

I think you mean "quit poking fun at Chuck."

Chuck here, Sunil or whoever you are.

When you get on the whiskey, you let somebody else drive. (To music) head tunes by De Kuypers.

im in the shenendoah valley, va, and tame is the result of weedwacking,, I keep the edges clean because I like to flyfish, and I got ALLOT of snakes here that like the frogs that like the pond. They dont bother me but I got buddies coming fishing this weekend so I cleaned it up. seeing a grown man run from a 6 ft ratsnake is a clasic,, but it pisses em off . one of my buddies wives wont even come anymore unless theres snow on the ground.

thanks for your advice guys, if I hadnt found this site I probaly would have killed all my fish this weekend, was planning on setting up a bubler and running it full time, with all the sludge I got,,,,bad
also been tossing the bluegill out,,, hmm got that one wrong too,,ill keep reading

kfminva, there are several avid fly fishermen on the PB forum who share your passion.

After many years of flyfishing streams, from boats or wading flats, I have become a much better fly caster fishing ponds, and most likely fly fisherman.

With weeds, tree branches and steep banks, I've learned to cast backhanded, side arm, drop cast, and improved roll cast.

bass update,
they aint skinny no more,,
looks like something I did about 2 months ago made a big difference, even though it was by accident. A had a huge weed algae bloom this spring, so to clear out the weeds I dragged the bottom of the pond with a couple tire chains. I created a couple alleys through the pond, and I guess this in turn gave the forage fish less places to go. Lots of fat bass in the 12 to 16 inch range, and quite a few smaller. The crappie count is down, but they were fished pretty hard this spring. makes all that time messing with the pond worth it,,