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I know I should have come here first but I have posted a few times already but here is my story I am one of 3 people who own property on a 7 acre pond, the pond is max of 10 feet in the catskills of NY. The pond had an OK bass population but 3 years ago a flood wiped out the dam and much of the fish population was lost, we rebuilt the dam and restocked based on the state fish and wildlife recoomendation (based on reading here and else where it might not been the best advice)

3 years later it appears I now have a pond with way too many LMB, way too little if any forge base, which has lead to a stunted population of LMB.

So I am here to see what steps I can take to fix this problem and get the most out of the pond.

Thank you for the warm welcome and the great info and advice

Judge, it looks like this slipped thru the cracks. JHAP, where are you?

In any case, welcome to the forum. I think the question was asked slightly differently in another post, but I'll take a stab at it here.

Considering that 3 people own the pond, you need to get the other 2 owners on board. Even if they don't care what you do, something needs to be in writing so they can't start to care at some time in the future and cause problems.

In any case, I'd print out the relative weight chart for LMB that is in the archives, and remove every LMB that is under weight for it's length. I'm thinking about 50 LMB per acre is what you want to shoot for (to keep in the pond), and you'll be hard pressed to take out enough by yourself if 1,000 were stocked.

Get the # of LMB down, stock some BG or PSK at 5"-6" long so they will start spawning next year and will be too large for the LMB to eat. You don't want your expensive stocker brood fish to become meals for the LMB.

Do some reading here on how much cover should be in a pond, and look in the PB library for reference books to buy.

Stick around for a while, read 'till your eyes bleed, and ask questions. We're happy to help. Take a look in the archives, there is a lot of information there.

...busy welcoming Judge in the thread "What to stock to help bass growth"

I have a short attention span, so I can either pay a lot of attention for a short period of time or a little attention for a longer period of time but I can't pay a lot of attention for a long period of time.






What were we talking about?

Judge, at worst, you don't have stunted bass, rather they are just way underfed, but still capable of good growth.

I agree with what essup suggested about adding a stronger forage base now or early next spring, but I would suggest removing ALL the bass you can under 12 inches next year. It's quite likely all your bass are skinny from a lack of adequate food. After the first year, I would go back to the 50-75 bass being removed in the 8-14" range.

From the other thread.

Probably the most important concept to keep in mind when adding additional forage to support/improve LMB growth and size is harvest of LMB. There are two parts to the equation - more forage and fewer predators.

For example it is not unheard of for the adding of more forage to result in more skinny LMB (absent harvest) not better conditioned LMB. Same for starting a feeding program - more skinny LMB over time rather than less.

It is not easy to guess correctly at how much more forage and what sizes are needed or to find those fish. I would rather be in the over forage - under predator situation and work toward balance than try it from the other direction (low forage - high predator).