Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations neglected 25 yr old 30acre pond needs help

Hoping to get some basic advice from you all and thanks in advance.

I recently moved to a small lake community. There are 15 homeowners on a 25-30acre lake. The lake is 25 years old, has lots of shallow, rocky bottom and also gets 25 feet deep. Fishing was great from year 5-15 Ive been told. I don't know exactly how to judge how bad it is now but love to hear some opinions.

I can catch a SMB on first cast most times and catch 5 more in short order. All the SMB are about the same size 12-14" and skinny(100 fish sample). I have caught a couple large mouth that are slightly bigger and also skinny. When we catch a perch/sunfish(don't know how to identify) they are almost always very large and meaty. The crappie are also nice size and meaty but don't catch too many. Always using a swim bait or spinner when fishing. When I boat near the shore I see hundreds of fish darting around almost all the same size. Currently, I don't think anyone is keeping or killing any fish they catch.

My goal would be to have larger Bass. Thanks again for the advice.

Hey Kyle, sounds like you have a good project to take on. I would suggest that you familiarize yourself and your fishing lakelot friends with the use of the relative weight charts and how to apply them to your lake populations. Here is a good place to start reading...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=160456#Post160456

I'm no expert on the topic, but it makes good sense to track and evaluate your catches and react accordingly. The premise is that if your BOW has a size range that is low in relative weight then those fish are hungry. You have a couple choices here, try to create a food source for this size class AND/OR reduce the numbers in that size to make more food available for the remainders. It certainly gets more complicated than this, but my example is to just wet your whistle with the concept.

I also sounds like you may have the right conditions to grow larger perch/sunfish types, but if your goal is large bass then you may have a bit more work to do. Read about large blue gill growing conditions here...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988#Post189988

The very basic concept is to have a large population of bass or predators that eventually get overpopulated and growth stunted. These overabundant predators will eat a lot of the BG offspring but don't get big enough to eat the full grown sunfishes which allows them to prosper and grow big. This concept does not lend itself to trophy bass however, but learning about this condition may help you evaluate your lake.

With that size of BOW, you will need the cooperation of your neighbors once you set up size restrictions and slot limits. I would think that certain fish sizes will have to be taken from the lake without exception to have an impact and at high quantities. Hopefully the experts here will give you more experienced advice.

if you want to go all in have the hoa create a board member position for managing the pond - ask for a pond maintenance budget to include feeding, perhaps electrofishing, etc. Evaluate the population as best you can by surveying catches, netting/electrofishing, trapping, etc. See what needs adjusted to meet the big bass goals. Evaluate the structure, cover, plant live, food sources and water quality. Get more people on board in the community to help out - 30 acres is going to be a nightmare to manage alone

You're going to need a professional consultation to get started for a lake that size. Do you have a budget?

Thanks for all of the awesome feedback. I think that relative weight chart is a great place to start. I will gather some data and report back. I believe I can get funding from the HOA once I have some data to convince everyone we have a problem on our hands.

Thanks again

The tactic I used was to convince the HOA that increasing the quality of the pond in all aspects (accessibility, fishing quality, water quality, trails, dock, etc.) has a positive impact on property values of the entire HOA and tends to decrease time on market for houses being sold. The majority agreed, the minority continue to grumble haha

After money, finding good help is the next hardest thing

You might reach out to Shawn Banks at Midwestlake.com . I've had good interactions with his staff and they're in Polo, MO, so not that far.