Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations managing lmb in a trophy bg pond

my goal is and has been trophy bluegill from the beginning. i know that bass crowded is one of the keys to success, but i was curious if you had an aggressive slot limit, could you possibly have both trophy fish.

here is what i am seeing. my bass were stocked as fingerling in may of 2015. they grew to nearly 12 inches by the fall since they had so many fhm to eat. in spring 2016 they had a successful spawn. i can see the yoy everywhere, they havent grown anywhere near like the original stockers. we had a very mild winter and early spring, the males have been prepping beds for 2 weeks or better now. since those males are so easy to catch, it seems i could cull them and leave the larger female for trophy lmb and leave the little yoy. the yoy look like they are about 8 inches or so. i think there should be plenty of young bass to keep the bg in check.

the bg are fed heavily and i have some lmb that are pellet fed. those pellet fed lmb are in a class of their own.

The more one manages for trophy BG and trophy or big bass the more difficult it becomes due to the need for the bass to have lots of little fish as forage for big growth. Lots of small BG minimize the chances of BG getting big plus lots of small BG utilize carrying capacity detracting from big BG and big bass. It is a trick balance to achieve with constant effort.

IMO the best way to get big bass in a trophy BG pond is try as much as possible to keep the biggest bass on pellets and use small BG and bass with tails and or fins removed to hand feed the biggest bass.

I will try to locate some posts describing hand feeding bass your excess fish.
Here are two videos of ways to grow your bass larger. Other fish could be used to hand feed bass instead of shad. Crayfish feeding was very interesting. I was doing similar things to grow large bass back in 1967-1970. The method works.

The Fish Whisperer shows you how to grow big bass. Feeding the bass is as much fun as catching them bass. Watch and learn. Similar stuff can be done in your pond to grow BIG hand fed bass. It takes dedication and patience. Condello in Nebraska uses similar methods for growing trophy LMB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4nE4dUQ23A

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=464340#Post464340


BG removal when managing for large bass?
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=143309#Post143309

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=208554
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=404738
This next part is from the Pond Boss Archives for Growing Big Bluegill
Here is a pond management tip that has several benefits. If you are harvesting small BG in the 2"-5" size range, you can use them as live bass food.
1. It removes small BG,
2. It feeds your bass,
3. It focuses your time away from bass fishing as much and slows the chances of creating hook shy bass, while productively spending your time to continue fishing and managing your fishery,
4. It is a creative way of using small BG that otherwise usually are discarded.
5. It usually improves the balance or ratio of BG:bass in a pond managed for big BG.
6. It is a way to collect and sort BG, put them in a cage, raise them to maturity and restock males into the pond.
7. It is a way to entertain the kids or keep them occupied as they fish for small BG,
8. It is easy and fun.
One interesting way to feed surplus small BG to bass is to slightly or significantly impair their swimming ability and toss them into the pond. The bass will quickly learn these fish are "easy pickings". I impair swimming ability of small BG by cutting off portions of their tails and or fins. These fish then swim abnormally. Some fish managers prefer to cut all fins or most of the fins off rather than just one fin. Single or double fin BG (& sometimes small bass) amputees have been found to survive bass predaton despite having lost one or two fins. Removing all fins makes it very difficult for a fish to survive very long with larger predators present. Bass and predators are attracted to odd or abnormal swimming fish who are usually more vulnerable and easier to catch. Bass who typically have to survive by "working hard" to catch fish, take advantage of this wounded preyfish situation. When you harvest a larger number of small BG, you can put a lot of them in a live box or small cage to hold them for several days. This way the live food feeding of the bass can be spread out over a longer period without taking time to harvest more BG.

Having so many LMB take to pellets is a scenario I never envisioned when I began our BG projects. Those durn bass grow large, quickly. They crowd the BG at feeding time, and they can be difficult to remove. Usually, we have to resort to hooking a small BG as bait.

Sparkie,

Do you use LMB in your Trophy HBG pond to control recruitment? If yes, are they chow hounds as well for the pellets?

right now i don't have any small bg to feed my bass. all i ever catch is the original stockers and they are about 9"s plus now. i do have lots of small ones that i see in the shallow water, but they are 3" or less. mainly less.

it looks like i could catch nearly every male bass in my pond right now. this early warm weather has them really shallow prepping beds. i think the water has warmed just enough to get them going, but not warm enough for a bloom. my water is really clear right now. i did check it on friday and the temp was 65.

if i remove lots of males after this spring spawn in the 15 inch range. then i think i will have a large population of small lmb to eat the yoy bg and keep them in check. also i would have the larger female bass to take care of any intermediate bg ( if any reach that range).

all this sounds good on paper, but i'm sure harvesting enough at the right time will be almost impossible.

Yes on both counts, Bill. These are non feed trained, native to our ponds, bass. And they have taken to feed enthusiastically and in good numbers. Big pain in the butt.

I found the same thing happening in my pond too. Once they realize the feed can be eaten they beef up fast, crowding the BG out. However, I think it would not produce trophy LMB, as the feed is not enough when they get larger. But definitely large enough for a meal/cleaning size. I have not found them hard to catch.....yet.

What you aren't realizing is that the LMB offspring won't get to be trophy size because there is not enough food (small BG) to shoot 'em up fast for good/fast growth when it matters the most.

scott99 says currently he does not have small bluegill 3"-5" to collect and fed to his bass. His larger bass won't get very big either because there is a shortage of 3"-5" BG due to too many bass. Pond has primarily the original stocker BG now at 9" and lots of BG from last year's hatch. This population of BG indicates too many medium & larger sized bass eating most of the midsized 3"-5" BG. There are too many hogs feeding at the BG trough. Solution harvest lots of bass 12"-14" to significantly reduce the predation of 3"-5" BG. I would catch these bass to remove, using live fish or minnow shaped baits to 'help' reduce the number of harvested bass that are eating pellets.

i was planning on the original stocked females having the only chance at being the trophy lmb. the numbers should be low. leaving the young bass to control baby bluegill. i have so may cnbg that are off to a good start being heavily fed, looks like it will be years before the large bg population declines.

Bill, with what you are saying, shouldn't i still have the trophy bg and a few trophy lmb?

""....looks like it will be years before the large bg population declines.""
Not necessarily very many years. Fast growing BG do not have a long life span maybe a total of 5-7yrs and stockers will have significant mortality rate due to too fast of growth and too many unhealthy carbs in the diet. Plus you are in the South where BG life spans are relatively short compared to North ponds. You won't see most of the oldest fish float when they die. Those senescent dead fish stay on the bottom. Then if there are not enough mid size BG annually filling your sudden mortality gap of original BG stockers the fish balance will be further biased.

Electroshock boats can be used to selectively to harvest LMB.

Scott, I think by harvesting the male bass you will be able to reduce the number of bass recruitment in your pond. You will have to keep an eye on the number of bluegills and the size of them. If you see them not getting as large as you like, and start seeing high numbers of smaller BG, I would not harvest any male LMB from the beds for a year or two. That should allow some YOY LMB to survive and start chowing down on the smaller BG.

To grow larger LMB, not only do they need sufficient forage fish, but the forage fish have to be of the correct size. Many small fish won't grow large LMB, they have to expend too much energy catching small meals. Remember, LMB don't catch a meal every time they go after it, so what they DO catch has to be enough calories to make up for all the expended calories during their unsuccessful tries at catching a meal.