Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Question for the pond veterans....

This is the first summer I have had with grown bass and their offspring. My bass`s growth has seem to slow down, they have grown on average 2" from last I checked them 6 months ago and they are 1 year of age, also they have lost weight, im guessing do to the high water temp ( high 80`s surface temp). I could see there offspring some around 4" last I saw, from the spawn up to July, now I havent seen any. I dont know if they all have been eaten or just hidding. The bass have been traveling the edges of the pond hunting the YOY bluegill which there are plenty of, but the are still pretty slim. SO is there any thing I can do to help my bass put on weight and get them growing again? or nothing I can do until fall when the water temp goes back down. I fertilize my pond once a month, feed 36% protein feed twice a day, and my Bluegills have been spawning all summer mostly deep. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Bump up the protein to the BG (45%) and they will really take off growing and spawning . The first stocked fish grow much faster than their offspring will due to food or lack of. Feed the BG a high protein feed should help- it did mine-adding structure will allow some yoy to get big enough to feed the growing bass the proper size forage. I had the same thing happen so I dumped 50# fat head minnows and 50# Golden shiners to get mine jump started through the fall and winter. Lack of plants hurt the survival of BG yoy......

Like Pat said, having the proper sized forage (bg) and they will grow. You may have a lot of bg but short in the size bg your bass need at this stage of the game. When I was short of 2 to 3" bg it was recommended to me to add 25 lbs of fhms to my 3 acre pond to take the pressure off the bg. Many will say not to do it, it is a waste of money but I needed more bg in the small size and that was a way to help the situation out.

I had lil schools of 2-3" bluegill and that was what the bass where eating on, but havent seen them or the any or this years bass spawn the past 3 weeks or so, dont know if they all got eaten or moved out to deeper water, I have grass like kissimee grass growing around the edge but no pond weed or eel grass type grass. until I get some grass growing im guessing I need to add more shallow water structure.

I had the same problem when I was short of numbers with the small sized bg with no vegetation. I was instructed to add some brush along the shoreline. I cut down cedars and built 9 brush piles along the shoreline. I was told five would work, so I did nine, lol. I needed a place for the bg fry to hide. It wasn't long before I had a boom in 2 to 3" bg. they were everywhere. So for me, the combination of adding fhm's and building brush piles along the shore line near the bg spawning areas really helped me get over the shortage of the 2 to 3" bg.

Dinsmore is kissimee grass like saw grass? reason I ask is I got a stand of sawgrass around my pond here in east Texas. Fish and birds love it.

no Flame it is clumps of thin cane with narrow leafs around the top, i`ll try to post a picture when I can

Good news! I found my YOY bass!! and as I suspected with there growth they have moved away from the shore line into deeper water. They range in growth from 6-8" and they are staying in small schools much like the adults are doing as well right now. not seeing many numbers of 2-3" CNBG but a bunch of 1" size CNBG