Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations So how long is long enough to prove stability?

An update on my BCP experiment....

I'm on year 9 of my 6+ acre pond with LMB, BCP, BG, RES and HSB and as of yesterday everything is still working as planned. My plan was to have a pond that could consistently produce good numbers of large BCP.

I consistently catch BCP in the 10-14" range, with RWE always 85% to 100%. I have never caught a stunted fish. I do catch smaller BCP occasionally, which get thrown back. But this is the exception, not the rule.

We're averaging 350 or so BCP removed per year, and have done so for 5 years. So far in 2016 we're at 206 removed and cleaned. I expect to be right in the 350-400 range again this year.

I'm not an expert by any means but what I've tried to do is take very few BG out as I feel this is my bread and butter food supply - what this has done is create a very good breeder population of BG - this time of year they're all the way around the pond edges spawning.

I also manage for a glut of LMB in the 4+ lb range, which I feel controls the small BCP population. I do tend to remove a good amount of 1-2.5 lb LMB just to try to keep a decent ratio. I added the HSB in the hopes that the open water areas would also have decent predation. I don't know if this is working or not....

thoughts?