Pond Information- 23 year old 4.5 acre pond 60 miles north of Augusta in South Carolina.
Silted heavily at the back with a smaller pond beavers have created behind the pond.
Spring and creek feed. In the worst of droughts the pond doesn't drop.
Max depth 8 feet. Average depth 4-6 feet in the front 4 acres and the back 1/2 acre gradually rises from several feet to inches of water from gradual silting over 20 years and possible beaver muskrat activity.



#1. First, I was told that it was probably over-crowded with bass since it is 20 years old and rarely fished when we purchased the property. That's wasn't the case.

#2. Bream were small and bass were small. So I started feeding a quality feed to increase the size of the bream and so the bream would have more offspring to feed the bass. This immensely helped the bluegill grow to mammoth sizes and reproduce like crazy. The bass fishing unchanged or worse. So by this point I figure out that my pond is actually over-crowded with bream.

#3. So, I stock it with 215 hybrid bass to help reduce smaller fish populations. Well, 3 years later all I have is a bunch of 3-4.5 lb hybrids that ate thousands of pounds of feed and never leave the feeding area, so i've began to eradicate them and ive almost completed that process or put a huge dent in them (which was really fun)

#4. I know there are a few, and I emphasize a few bigger bass in the pond. I've seen them on the bed during the spawn and two 5 lb bass have been caught in 4 years. But combine that with no 4 lb bass. maybe 1 3lb bass, maybe 5 1-2 lb. bass and a few not a lot of less than 10 inch bass.

#5. Now, in year 4 im pretty sure that my pond is over crowded with bream. I catch them everywhere throughout the pond in various sizes, but bass are just not here. Ive read that if you get the blue gill numbers in check that the largemouth will come back.........

Does anybody have any advice. I'm not in a financial position to do anymore than feed the fish and catch fish. I'd like to catch a big bass or two but the bigger bass I'm sure eat at will as I catch bream when I fish out here.

My plan of now is to decimate as many bream as I can especially smaller size bream that big bass can eat and only throwing back the biggest of bream, and I mean the absolute biggest like 1 3/4 lbs. Yes. I have bream close too two lbs since ive started feeding a quality feed. I just wish I had some largemouth to go with them.

Any suggestions I will gladly appreciate

Thanks in adavance