Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How Big Do I Need?

Your key here and this is way down the road of course. Is watching your LMB relitive weight. If you are not familiar with what that means it's this.

There are charts that show you length and normal weights of LMB. Say for example.

You caught a 13.5 inch LMB. Normal weight on that is right at 1.3 pounds. If you weigh your bass and it's 1.3 or bigger then your doing pretty good. If you weigh him and he is 1.2 or smaller then your RW is less than 100 percent.

Of course you need to do this with a few fish to get a decent reading. There could always be just one fish that is skinny or fat so it's best if you can catch 3 to 5 fish and check them. If you are right at 100 percent RW or over then your ok. If you are less say in the 80 percent RW area then you may need to get rid of some of your LMB or add more forage for them, usually getting rid of a few LMB is easier then trying to keep up with adding fish that they gobble up right away unless you can get some larger 5 to 6 inch BG. RW charts is a hugh tool to let you know where you stand. I did not think it was that big of a deal at first but once you start managing a pond it becomes one real quick. First things first though like HighFlyer said above. You need to find out from someone how much run off you have to sustain a certain size pond. That I know nothing about. Maybe you could get a Game and Fish person out to your land to help you with that? Detailed topo maps might be able to give some of the experts on this forum some better insight to help you but I bet that is something that really needs to be checked out right there on the land. Hey Good luck and keep us posted as to what you do.