Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Female only LMB concept debunked?

I've glanced through those threads. The sediment pond is working well for its intended purpose. I can certainly understand how keeping it isolated from other fish would be problematic. You might not be able to implement the idea I mentioned there. LMB recruitment would probably be similar to what you are observing in your other BOWs.

There is more than one condition that results in intermediate sized bluegill predominance. One is low numbers of LMB below carrying capacity and high numbers of bluegill in high proportion to BG carrying capacity. This is the condition where LMB would grow fast, have high RWs, and is the population structure I earlier referred to.

The other situation is where there is a biomass overweight of large LMB and bluegill are below their carrying capacity. Here, YOY grow fast and attain >4 inches in the first year but are hammered all winter. So each year the cycle starts again where 2nd year BG, greatly reduced in number by winter feeding, carry the burden of BG reproduction. This situation would be characterized by large LMB (and perhaps large CC) that have less robust RW. I think this is the population structure my nearby public BOWs are experiencing. In these BOWS, I am beginning to think that large CC are more important to predator overweight than I had previously considered. I have recently observed them actively foraging BG in daylight. At night, I wonder if BG (and small LMB) have little defense against them.

For trophy BG, large numbers of <12" bass and an LMB biomass at carrying capacity is beneficial. This condition is characterized by low numbers of intermediate size BG. Large BG would also be of moderate number. Under this scenario, the BG YOY carry the load for the LMB biomass. Few survive to become intermediate which are also large enough to escape predation by most LMB. For one with Trophy BG aspirations, it is good news that Swingle reported this unbalanced condition is very persistent and difficult to undo by harvesting methods. Even so, it may take some effort, harvest, planning, supplemental stocking, to get a BOW congruent with this population structure. I am beginning to think that CC greatly complicate this scenario if they are allowed to achieve significant biomass as predators. They may be able to swing the balance to the large predator overweight described in the third paragraph.