Lake is 8 acres, 22 years old and stocked by the previous owner with northern lmb, bluegill, red ear, channel cats, and crappie. He did virtually nothing to manage the fishery for 20 years. We purchased the property in the summer of 2002 and caught, as you might expect, nothing but very skinney bass from 9 to 16 inches that had an RW of only 70-75%. 18 months ago, we began to cull the bass heavily (about 15lbs per/acre/yr). We limed and began a fertilization program, began a suplimental feeding program, added coppernose bluegill, added a few pellet trained lmb for some new genetics, added grass carp (which have already fixed the weed problem), added structure and removed all the crappie we could catch. We are very pleased with the results. In the past 7 weeks, we have caught 25 bass. The average RW was 94%!!!
Question number 1: How much of a lmb cull should we do this next year? I want to ensure maximum growth for my bass, but do not want to over-cull, or cull for too long. (I remember the example Bob Lusk wrote about in his book.) BTW, we are seeing, for the first time, a few 3-5 in. bluegill.
Question number 2: Would it be beneficial to do a male only cull during the spring when we can tell the sex?
We plan to add golden shiners this spring. That leads me to question number 3: Any other ideas on what else we might want to do/try?
-JB

Take great care of it, or let someone else have it.