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

A little background first.
Last fall we bought some property with a 2 acre old farm pond. It is overpopulated with small skinny LMB (4”-12”). Biggest one caught to date was 13” but I did hook into a larger fish that broke the 4lb line. I’ve also caught a half dozen bluegill from 4”-7”. No catfish or other types of fish have been hooked. All fish so far have been returned to the water. From what I learned from this site I need to remove lots of bass. I will be starting this process in a couple weeks with the help of a local Boy Scout Troop. It should be a fun weekend as some of them have never caught a fish before. I will be measuring and recording the WR for each fish caught.

My questions are:
Should I have a size or slot limit for the LMB to be removed or just remove everything caught?
If I have a size or slot limit what should it be?
Do the bluegills also get removed or should they be returned?
If any cats are caught I plan on removing them. Is this the correct thing to do?
Anything else I need to know or plan for?

There will be 15+ kids from 10 to 16 years old and five adults to untangle lines. I’ll post some pictures after the event.

It depends on what you want to manage for, but from the sounds of things here's what I'd do if it was mine.

Plan on trying to remove 30# or more of LMB per acre. Remove LMB that are below 95%-100% WR (relative weight). Fin clip or tag any LMB that are returned to the pond. Leave all the BG. Remove all catfish that are caught.

Keep track of the fish removed, and the fish (if any) that are returned to the pond. That way you have a baseline to compare back to next year to see how the fish are doing.