From your description I would not call it a trophy pond, but rather a pan fish pond. Which does not really matter what you call it. What matters is if it meets your goals as a fishery.
I'm only 2-3 years into managing my fish in ponds, so what I say is more parroting what I have learned here on PBF. So what I am about to say may and should be corrected by the experts that have been doing it for many years. But having some extra time this morning, I'll take a stab at it and let them correct me where I am wrong.
Your pond to me sounds like it is too bass heavy to produce trophy bass. In other words if you want to catch large LMB you want to reduce the bass numbers so there will be fewer bass. This will allow your forage base to grow (more BG and more small BG) and give the remaining bass more food to grow bigger. That is if you want bigger bass and don't care so much about catching BG.
What you have now is likely very hungry bass in large enough numbers that keep the smaller BG wiped out before they get much size. The only BG remaining are the large breeders that are too big for the LMB to eat. If you want to catch large BG and don't care about large LMB so much, you might already be at the ponds natural carrying capacity and so not much to change. But if you want to see more small BG and some larger LMB, you likely need to cull some of the less desirable LMB.
That is the way I see your pond as you describe it. Adding more food to the food chain via a feeder would definitely improve what you have, but can cause other management problems. Where you are an absentee owner, feeding might not be an easy option for you. Removing some LMB and starting a feeding program might really make your pond come to life. Feeding the BG and making them prosper leads to the LMB having much more to eat.
Last edited by snrub; 08/25/15 01:58 PM.
