Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Bass overcrowding not a problem?

rrd- The relationship of bass to bream or predator to prey is ultimately based on the OWNER'S GOALS for the pond. Different goals for the fishery will require different percentages of numbers and sizes for prey to predator ratio. This gets a little complicated or detailed based on what species are present and what goal is desired. The more species present the more complicated it becomes to maintain proper balance of all species due to the interactions / behavior of each species with one another. Actually the pond's whole food-web ultimately gets involved in achieving each goal.

Put most simply, there are three main goals for a fishery.
1. General Fishing - where the system is in a "normal balance" and a variety of all sizes are present with a predominance of fish being in the smaller to mid-range of sizes; a few large ones will be present.

2. Trophy Panfish. . This is where a large portion of the panfish are large and of harvestable size with numerous truly "dandy" or trophy class specimens being present.

3. Trophy Predator . This management technique results from "adjusting" all the fish populations (prey and predator) so a larger percentage of the predators, usually bass, are larger than average and bigger than those in the general fishing category. This involves maintaing the proper sizes and numbers of larger prey so the higher numbers of large predators are healthy, plump and thriving not just surviving as big thin bodied fish!.

Each goal requires different proportions of fish sizes and fairly frequent adjustments are needed to the fish community to achieve or maintain those desired goals. This is what fishery management is all about.

Back to what I think was your question.

What is wrong with bream being overabundant? Answer. There are several reasons.

1. The main problem with this is overabundant bream will over eat the food source and become stunted. Stunted and slow growing bream are always very hungry. During bass spawning abundant small bream surround a bass nest like a gang of thieves. One brave bream enters the nest territory and the male chases him out of the nest area. While the male bass is briefly gone from the nest, the other bream thieves are eating bass eggs and or fry. It does not take much of this type of activity and a bass spawn for the year is decimated and often it is totally eliminated in smaller ponds.

2. Small bream eat the same things that very young bass eat; zooplankton and small invertebrates. Overabundant bream over eat the food source and bass fry either starve or grow very slowly until they are big enough to eat the smallest bream. Depending on circumstances, but often many of the small bass starve to death.

3. In over abundant bream and always abundant agressive green sunfish conditions the bream not only rob bass nests but they have no alliances and they rob other bream/sunfish nests of eggs and fry. This leads to very poor spawns of bream, and bream fry are scarse. Thus, young bass grow slow due to low numbers of fish prey.
The longer a bass stays small the greater its chances of becoming a food item for a bass that is twice its size.

Some others will maybe provide some other reasons.