Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Tonights Catchs

Okay. Kicking off Summer. I took pictures of our catch tonight and will upload them (hopefully) tomorrow. We caught 19 panfish. They ranged from 4.75 in to 8.5 in. There were 2 HBG in those 19. Both coming in at 8 and 8.5. Saw some small bass swimming around, but haven't caught any of those in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I released all the panfish tonight as I was just starting to record. Tomorrow night I'll be doing both. What do you guys think about those numbers. To me, they are a little small? Not sure though, since this is the first time that I'm trying to get a pond established with what I want. LOL. Any thoughts? I'd like to get the panfish to over 10 in or approaching that if possible. Should I be keeping all of the HBG/Perch/BG that I catch? Should I throw back the larger ones? I'm thinking about handicapping some of the "bait" size perch that I catch to help grow some of the infant bass. Anyway, thanks for all the help. Hopefully tomorrow I can figure out how to post pictures of tonights catch and you can see if they are good and healthy or if they are a little lean. Jack

FWIW I am not a pro but, if I wanted to know how they are doing, I would take weights along with the length measurements. There are relative weight (Rw) tables that you can use to assess their growth.

There's a picture posting tutorial in the archives. At what size and how long ago were the fish stocked? Do you feed them? If so, what, how much and what frequency? What are your fishery goals for the pond?

As for the goals. I'd like to get the fish larger of course. I have zero problems catching all the panfish. Great fun and very tasty. I'd like to get them bigger of course. As for the bass, would like to get them to a couple of pounds. The CC that I'm stocking in the 1/4 acre pond (25) I'd like to get them to 3-5 lbs. Maybe try and get a hog in there sometime. LOL. Eventually (late fall I hope) I want to enlarge the pond to 1/2 acre or a little bigger if possible. As for the goals of the fishery. Plenty of fun and would like some size. I really don't care about if its trophy or not. But nice 1# BG, decent bass, 3-5# CC (eventually) and probably going to introduce some black crappie early winter (possibly) not 100% sure on that one. Just want it to be a nice little pond for the family to enjoy and learn about.