I'm not sure of the pond size, but will assume 0.5 -0.7 ac. Firstly it was initially under stocked with too few YP and too long before predators were added and not enough of them. This assumes a goal of large YP is desired, but we learn below the goal is BIG smallmouth bass. All this will lead to the current status of the pond. The bass should be growing well and getting big and fat. IMO some bass or HSB should have been added in 2014 with the 25 YP for growing harvestable YP. Waiting 2.5 & 3.5 years before 10 (2016) and 10 (2017) SMB were added was not enough predation to adequately reduce the numbers of small fish esp good reproducing YP. However the 20 SMB present should be big and growing very well because of an overabundance of small fish. But only 20 SMB can only eat 'just so much food' if you want effective control of small perch.
Are you trap sampling to see the ratio of fatheads to shiners? With only 20 SMB there should still be very good numbers of FHM four years after stocking. A high FHM to GSH ratio means too few predators and or too many weeds, maybe both in your case.
Now it does not surprise me about the poor ice fishing angling success. Using bee worms when trying to catch bigger perch is not the best method especially when lots of small YP & larger shiners are present. It is normally a good ice fishing method, but I would be using dead or live FHM when targeting larger YP and SMB. Fishing around 10"-12" off the bottom is normally a good ice fishing location esp in the deepest part of the pond, BUT if you have curly leaf pond weed it is very likely growing well now (Nov-Mar),,, up to around 10"-18" tall. Thus the bait was hanging in the weed tops and not readily visible by most of the larger fish who were likely hanging out in the lower parts of the weeds. I never knew this until I got an Aqua-Vu underwater camera and used it ice fishing. I've had this poor ice fishing catch success problem in my pond until I started killing the curly leaf in the fall. Lack of a 16"-18" high weed carpet during ice cover makes a big difference for the winter YP catch success.
IMO you should get some more predators in the pond and or harvest lot of small perch 4"-6" using traps or angling. Adding more predators in spring will not do much to remove the 4"-6" over crowded YP. Newly stocked predators will probably / likely first target FHM and other small (2"-3") fish. If you stock more predators you will still probably need to help the predators reduce the current over crowded 'small' YP. Number of predators to stock will depend on size of added predators, specie/s of predator, and size of the pond.
Also if you had been feeding pellets the new in-pond spawned perch would not have grown so slowly and stayed thin bodied. So instead of them being mostly 6" now they would likely be 2"-4" bigger now at 8"-10" depending on year hatched. Pellet feeding for good growth is very important to keep perch fat and growing when perch tend to be crowded and predator pressure is light to low.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/15/18 04:32 PM. Reason: Mentioned goals
