Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Local Reservoir Concerns

What's up y'all,

Recently we had a 500+ acre lake/reservoir put in my town of Central, GA. It is fed by a creek that is average size, maybe 20-30 ft wide and 5-6ft deep on average and it widens out to 50-100ft then narrows down to 10-15ft in spots. The lake is also connected to multiple golf course ponds, which held monster bass, bluegill and crappie.

My concerns are this.. I spoke with the local Marshall about stocking the lake and he said they aren't going to stock it. He claimed they did a "fish size count" and that the fish, for a 2 year old lake, exceeded their expectations.

I have fished the lake, the largest bass are in the 12" range, with most around 6-8", bluegill vary from fingerlings to 7" was my personal best catch so far.

What is y'alls take? I'm worried because the other local lake was dredged twice by a local company with connections and it was done poorly both times, which led to weed build up to the point where kayaking, swimming and trolling motors were impossible to use, for 3/4 of a 250 acre lake.

1) Take a look in the archives for the relative weight chart. Print it out, measure and weigh the fish and see how they compare.

2) If they are underweight/undersize, realistically, what can be done? It's a public BOW, correct?

For a 2 year old BOW, if the fish were stocked as fingerlings, then it sounds about normal for a BOW that isn't supplementally fed.

One of Missouri's best sport fishing/recreation lakes was stocked by planting fish in the hundreds of ponds that would get flooded. The "big" bass became monster size and it lasted for years with the lower stocking density.

The lake is stocked by a creek and roughly 5 golf course ponds ranging in size from 1/4 ac to 2 ac. So full grown fish initially inhabited the lake now they've reproduced.

I'm concerned with no forage base (FHM, Shiners, Shad, ect..) the bass will eventually overpopulate and stunt.

Unless there is enough shad and shiners in the creek to populate a 650 acre lake (correct size) then this lake will be ruined.