Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Culling LMB Question

I need to cull some LMB and wonder if there is a proper way to do it. I have alot of 10-12" LMB that weigh around 12oz. and I caught 2-16" fish that weighed 1.75lb each and 1-19" fish that only weighed 2lb. 9 oz. plus some others that I didn't weigh. Almost all the bigger fish(except 1 fat female?)had the classic big head, skinny body look so I culled them. For the most part the smaller fish appeared chunkier but I culled 17 of them so far. It is a 2 acre pond.

The question is should I:

1. cull the smaller ones?
2. cull the larger and obviously skinny bass?
3. cull them all regardless of size?

I did see BG nesting so I am hoping they can reproduce some. The BG were not large either from the looks of them.

Thank you.

in most cases yo would cull the smaller ones. But you say a 10-12" bass weighs 12 oz. That is 100% relative weight. So I wouldnt think that they dont need to be culled. What size range of fish looks the skinniest? Get us some more catch data and measure and weigh them exact. I use a Gram scale because its a little more accurate. In a 2 acre pond you shouldnt have to cull many to make big changes. 50 bass could change things alot. What kind of forage do you have?

The key is to keep a log. Each and every bass caught, measure it's length and weight. Try to find an accurate scale. Then you can calculate relative weight utilizing a chart that breaks it down. Your pond has been going through some dramatic stresses lately, I am sure that hasn't been easy on the bass.

Mark, that's good advice Travis gave. I think is likely spot on about the hectic pace of life your fish have had for awhile and you may just want to do as he suggests for now and take the time to catalog the fish. You'll see some patterns emerge as to size classes and relative weights, and then you can make a better informed and more effective decision as to what you want to do with culling.

I was surprised today at how skinny the biggest bass were. Very classic big heads and long lean bodies. I added alot of forage between last fall and this spring but i guess the little FHM and BG were eaten by the smaller LMB and the bigger ones didn't have enough larger forage to maintain their weights. I expected some decline but not this much.

Since I really don't have a good grasp on the fish population right now after all the transfers I feel like waiting a month and getting some better data as you all suggest would be best. I am curious to see if there is improvement in weights after culling and hopefully some successful BG spawning.

I always dreamed of having my own pond and thought if you didn't kill a bass you could grow trophies. Boy was I wrong. This pond and it's fish consumes me as I strive for the perfect balance of big LMB and BG. I would never have believed that this goal is so hard to achieve.

Tell me about it, Mark! That's why pretty much everyone is here, I think!

Mark, it's not only about pounds of forage for the LMB, it's about the size of the forage. Bigger LMB won't put on weight chasing down a bunch of small fish, they really need fish about 1/4 their body length, and plenty of them.

Keep a log like Travis said, but initially, it sounds like the smaller LMB are eating a LOT of the forage that should be growing bigger to provide forage for the larger LMB.

The log will tell us the picture in greater detail, but I'd bet that you will end up culling a lot of the smaller LMB too, even tho they are fat (to let some of that forage grow to support larger LMB).

Keep in mine 10# of forage (of the correct size) puts 1 pound of fish flesh on one LMB.

Mark don't wait too long. It is all about goals. If you want fatter bass start culling you are not going to take too many right off the bat. We finally revamped this link to have releative weight chart in both grams and pounds. If 70-80% take em for sure no matter the length that is my opinion. If 80-90% and longer fish than the norm personal choice could be temporary like Todd says. it is grat to write this down, you know your headed in right direction when the Wr starts to increase for you. GL
http://lakework.com/site/pond-information.php

Thanks for the advice guys and the charts Greg. I plan on leaving the pond and fish alone for a 3=4 weeks and then fishing it to see what the fish are like. I will write down all the weights and lengts and post.

It is very hard for the forage to grow with so many hungry fish. I still believe it was better to transplant as many fish as we did rather that kill them all and start over with fingerlings while we reworked the pond bottom.

Hi,
We recently aquired 24 ajoining acres with a 2 acre pond. Fortunately it is well placed and well built. Considering the record breaking drought, it is doing quite well. We hope to have a professional management evaluation done soon to give us some direction.
My question is in regards to releasing the larger Large Mouth Bass. Yesterday my wife caught and released a 19", 9 lb LMB. This morning I caught and released a 23", 14 lb LMB.
I know a survey is needed, but until we are able to have one done, do we catch and keep, or catch and release.
Thanks,
Larry

Those are some huge bass. Read more here but normally remove smaller and let bigger go back.

Consider making a post of your own in the new member section... It'll get you more exposure. You can share more details of your pond and get more tailored advice. Plus forum members love photos. Welcome to PB!

Please post pictures of the LMB. I'd love to see a LMB that's 19" and has a WR of 243, and a 23" that has a WR of 205. Those must be eating VERY well! What did you do to get them so fat?

Scott I stayed away from asking that info. Seems we may have our answer since no response. Probably an honest mistake on bass weight. Common around here to state double the true weight.

I never catch bass under 21", just ask me.

Yeah, I didn't want to scare him away by pointing it out...

I have seen results that approach that. In a pond that was 8 acres that was drawn down to 2.5 and kept there for a couple years. 8 acres of forage in 2.5 acres with only a few big LMB and feeding. It reminded me of going to the zoo and putting the lions in with the caged zebras

Best I have ever seen Eric is 170%. Good many in the 130-140% range.

I don't know much and all I know is what I've learned here - reading everything Greg Grimes writes is a great start!

But, our program of culling the small bass has definitely shown results this year. We're catching much better and much fatter LMB now.

I don't do what everyone suggests - keep accurate logs. I know I should but, I'm just not that serious. We try to do what I can but we have very limited time to fish and/or work on the pond and we have zero money to spend on it right now, anyway. So, we just tend to do what we think is best given our circumstances - without the precise data and we observe some good results.

Some day when I retire, I hope to get a lot more involved and have enough money to hire Greg to come and help us.

So, the point of my post is just to say that something as simple as culling small bass does seem to work for us.

Here are the stats from fishing today. I have culled around 30 LMB from my 2 acre pond. This is what I caught today. The weights and size look pretty good to me so i think I will not cull any more unless some one with better knowledge advises me to do so.

Weight Length #of Fish
2lb. 15 oz 18" 1
14 oz. 12" 5
12 oz. 12" 2
11 oz. 11" 5
13 oz. 12" 1
13 oz. 12" 1

It looks like pretty fair balance to me. The BG are on their beds and look OK. They are really hard to catch because of the aggressiveness of all the LMB cruising the shallow. Have to go and fry some fish filets. I have only eaten 1 LMB in what seems like years so I am looking forward to finally eating something from the pond.

The numbers didn't line up right but the numbers caught are at thr right of the length. Basically they weigh an oz. per inch until they get to 12" and they start weighing 14 oz. each.

Mark:

The relative weights for those fish look good except for the 18" fish. That one is underweight for it's size. There's not much you can tell from a sample of 1, but if more that length are caught, and they weigh close to the same, then I'd look at the forage fish in the pond. If you don't see many BG (or whatever you have as forage) that are 6" or bigger, then that could be the reason why the larger LMB aren't weighing what they should (a little over 3# for an 18" fish).

It could be that the smaller LMB are eating all the small BG before they can grow bigger, which would be food for the larger LMB. If the bigger LMB only have small fish to feed on, they expend too much energy for each mouthful, and can't put on weight. If that's the case, then keep pulling out 14" and under LMB out of the pond.

Thanks esshup. I didn't post weights on other larger fish I caught earlier this year but i have noticed more weight on them lately. I don't always have a scale and ruler with me when I stop by to fish for an hour or so.

I think the culling is working but you are right there is not enough 3-4" BG for the larger LMB to feed on. There are alot of LMB fry swimming everywhere. In fact the larger fish bit a 1' tube worm because it "matched the hatch" I believe. I was fishing bigger baits trying to catch the bigger fish to weigh with no results.

Any water less than 4' deep is covered in FA and plants that were left when the pond was filled. I am trying to decide whether to add dye, spray cutrine or do nothing until next year. It looks to me like the FA hinders BG rproduction when it covers so much of the spawning areas.

The plants are both a hinderance and a blessing. They provide places for small fish to hide in, thus increasing the #'s of small BG and do limit some BG bedding, but I've seen them clean out areas in bottom growing algae (both FA and Chara) to spawn. I haven't seen BG spawn under mats of floating FA, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen - it just means that I haven't seen it.

If you are light on larger BG, keep whacking the smaller LMB, and start a feeding program that is geared to growing larger BG.

How many years have the BG been in the pond, and if recently stocked, how big were they when stocked?

Hang in there Mark, things will come around... Your pond has been through a lot the last couple years!