Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations fish hatchery said

Bill, Have you read steps for raising trophy bass by dan suttle? he calls for 10 to 1 bream to bass why is this?

I've not read Suttle's Trophy Bass but I did read B.Lusk's Trophy Bass booklet. Where did you get Suttle's book?

You did not say that you wanted to raise Trophy Bass. Not sure you can raise trophy bass in a 1/2 acre pond. At least more than 2 or 4 of them. And it depends on what "we" call tryphy. Trophy is different is Ohio vs Tennesseee vs Texas. If you can get 6 to 10 bass in your small pond in the 3.5 to 6 lb range I say you are doing great; esp for a first timer.

My bgill to bass ratio is low for raising big bass. My ratio was to minimize the chance of overpopulation of bgill and produce some bigger eatable /harvestable bgills mixed in with a good number of 1.5 - 3 lb bass with an occassional 4 lber. If you are going after trophy bass in your small pond then the bgill numbers will have to be increased and the number of quality bgill will be fewer. You need high numbers of intermediate sized bgill for raising big bass. Other forage items or hand feeding also helps.

I think if you are going to try and grow several truly large bass in your small pond you will do it easiest by training the few big bass you have to be hand fed fresh killed bgill. That way you can get them to grow big and they not expend much energy chasing food. At least it worked for me.

Bill,no im not looking for trophy bass i just want to be able to catch bass that average 2 pounds with the occasional 4 or 5 pound fish i hate going to the ponds and lakes in my area and catching 10 to 12 inch fish all day,i will try to forward the website that his info is on.

Bill,just type in "raising trophy size bass" you will find it from there. Mark

Hosty - "type in raising trophy bass". Where?

If you haven't figured it out yet, You will use different managagement techniques to grow trophy bass than a predominance of 2 - 3 lb bass with an occasional 4 or 5 pounder. It is in how you thin the numbers of remaining bass and the available forage items. Bob's booklet discusses most of this we can help you here when that time comes. Initially I think you will only get about 8 to 14 two to 3 pound bass in a 1/2 acre. The rest will be 1 pound or less. You might be able to boost this number once you get more experience. You might want to print all this and save it for later (4-5yrs) and look back on all this. See how close all this worked out.

Bill, just type it in on your search engine and pick the one that has suttles name on it.

Hosty - I found that site and short essay on Suttle's recommended method of raising trophy bass. Keep in mind that Suttle's is in the south where stocking rates usually vary from those for the northern states. Also he is talking about raising trophy bass. Both things affect stocking densities and management methods.

I disagree with one statement made, somebody said that "the reason he recommends this is to..." NO, the reason that the person that sells fish recommends putting all the forage and predator fish in at the same time, is...

so he can make a lot of money! (you might not buy from him but once, he wants to get all he can in that one shot.)
Look for the motivation.