I'm new to pond management so am not an expert. But I think I have an illustration that might help give a clear picture of what was explained by CJBS2003 very well as a "classic over populated stunted LMB pond.."
Imagine your pond instead as a "pig pen". Or any other type of animal pen you might wish to imagine.
Lets say that "pen" comfortably "holds" a hundred 40# piglets. they have room to move around, feed, and prosper. But what happens as they grow and become larger? The pen that comfortabley held 100 40# pigs might only hold 50 80# pigs or 15 240# pigs. For any "fixed" size of pen, it will only comfortably hold a given amount of pounds of hogs. Your pond is a fixed size pen. It will only hold a certain amount of pounds of fish.
Your pond can only hold so many pounds of fish. It can hold lots of small fish, but a much smaller number of large fish. It only has so much space and so many resources to sustain the fish population.
So if you want bigger bass, you need to remove many of the small/medium ones to give more room for growth. Getting rid of the big catfish also gives more room. It sounds counter intuitive. Seems like we should just be able to pour the feed out there and get the big bass. But from my non-expert perspective it all started making sense once I understood that there was only so much room for fish. It is your job to remove the undesirable size/species and provide the proper forage for the ones you want to grow.
As CJBS2003 points out, remove a bunch of the bass and catfish and the remaining LMB will have room and resources to grow.
Last edited by snrub; 03/24/14 08:24 PM.
