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

Meadowlark is correct in his assessment, but there is more. Not only are you heavy on the predator side, you probably didn't handle those bass in the best way possible. Even if they are handled properly, with plenty of room in aerated/oxygenated haul tanks, with salt and antibiotics, there are other issues. Often, with larger bass, moving them from one environment to another proves fatal. If you get past the moving part, the next obstacle is the fact you took an adult fish from an environment where it grew up and moved it into a brand new situation. Fish don't have the ability to think. They respond to instinct and conditioning. For example, if we take a bass from a big public lake, where it's used to deep water, consistent temperature and all the shad it can eat, and move it into a small pond with rapid temperature changes and bluegill hiding in cover, that bass may simply not make the change. Too much change in its conditioning. People assume an adult fish moved from one body of water to another, will make it, provided the fish is handled properly. That just isn't the case. That's one big reason many biologists recommend stocking fingerling fish into a new pond, and allowing them to grow up in that environment.
So, bottom line is this...when you move large bass from one waterbody to another, they must have abundant forage fish, not be overstocked for the existing food chain, and be handled with the utmost of care.
Even when all three of these parameters are "perfect" there is no guarantee those bass will thrive, once introduced.
Realistically, some of the bass will die, others will lose weight, some will remain status quo, and another percentage will thrive.
That's the way it works.