Great feedback DL - our takeaway here is intensive and thoughtful management strategies have a huge impact on the development of a fishery...you are proof positive even dealing with pure BCP genetics that counter intuitive goals can be achieved. 2000 BCP over 10" is an amazing accomplishment...not much better fillet for dripping in beer batter and dropping into the peanut oil....maybe YP?
Thanks TJ....I'm not saying that anything like what we've done could be accomplished with a 'leave it alone' mentality - I think our success is primarily based on our focused fishing goals....I'm right now in the 400 +- range for BCP removal annually. I adjust that based on catch, RWE and male/female ratio. A pond like mine would fail miserably if not managed, I believe.
Boy I hope YP are better than BCP! My small pond will hopefully be producing some eating size YPs this year! And if they're better than BCP I'll be a happy boy, because BCP is phenomenal!
I actually dislike the taste of most fish, but Yellow Perch and Walleye make my mouth water at the very thought of eating them!!! Both are fish that can be grown in far warmer and more southern latitude ponds than most may think.....I've stocked many ponds that prove it...
Walleye is excellent, but I don't care for yellow perch. Too fishy.
BG from clean, cool water tastes much better than crappie, in my opinion. Smaller bass are actually very good, as well. Steamed scaled whole 10 to 14 inch LMB with ginger & garlic, served with good soy sauce, is delicious.
I'm hoping the lmb, we, and hsb I added last fall can help keep my bcp in check - when my pond held a large and stunted population of lmb the bcp averaged 10-14" and BG were healthy as well.
there's some great info in this thread guys, thanks for sharing!
Pat I'm not sure....after being here two years my bcp have gone from nothing larger than 6", to nothing larger than 9". I'm hoping they get thinned out back into that healthy keeper range in the next few years now that the predator balance is back in play.
Before I moved here and started managing the pond for the hoa there was a great 10 year run of excellent crappie fishing - then one of the hoa members started keeping every bass they caught from the pond sending all other species into a terrible spiral.
Before I moved here and started managing the pond for the hoa there was a great 10 year run of excellent crappie fishing - then one of the hoa members started keeping every bass they caught from the pond sending all other species into a terrible spiral.
Bingo! I remember as a kid in the 70's you kept bass and ate them. Probably the demise of many a pond. White crappie seem to get into nearly every pond like bullheads and GSF via high rainfall events, at least in our area. My neighbors have a couple of ponds above my new pond that reportedly have WCP, so I expect to have to manage for them - perhaps proactively stocking BCP.
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