Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch Some of my better pond bass.

My first "near 10#" bass from 1969 in a small, public pay lake. A 9 lb 12 oz and 6 lb 10 oz.



Nineteen years later, after a number of "near 10#" bass, I finally break the barrier with this 11 lb 8 oz dandy.



Six months later on February 23, 1989, I win the lottery with this 13 lb 12 oz bass. I had both mounted by an award winning Taxidermist. Most of the ponds and small lakes I fish in Georgia and South Carolina have a simple management plan. Keep all bass under 3 pounds and all panfish. Keeping a trophy to mount is allowed.



Nowadays I spend most of my time fishing for bass and big bluegills with the fly rod. I haven't sampled the bluegills in our pond for three months due to hot and dry conditions which dropped our pond 24 inches. We decided not to stress our larger bluegills by weighing and measuring. Our biggest bluegill to date weighed 1 lb. 6 oz. From my observations at feeding time I believe the larger ones will now push 1.75 lbs. We hope to top the 2 lb mark next year. When we decided to renovate our pond and start over, we would have been happy with pound bluegills. We caught and released our first pounder 19 months after stocking. We have held to our management plan and are amazed at the number and size of our bluegills. Much of what we've learned about growing big bluegills came from this site.

Some dandy fish!

Chunting, you have me beat when it comes to your largest. Having a lot of lmb that were between 9 and 10 lbs but breaking that 10lb size took me awhile before I broke the 10lb mark. Nice fish.

Chunting , you should write out in this thread your specific plans and actions on your pond so others can see how your plan was developed , implemented and the outstanding results.

Congratulations on some terrific fish & your pond! Please let us know how you did it -- I've never caught a 1 lb BG in my life.

You can read about our pond and followed its progress under "Pond Construction;Grandmother's Old Pond." I will update in a day or so as soon as I sample some bluegills. As I noted earlier, I believe the best opportunity to best the 2 pound mark will be with the original stockers. With that in mind we have intentionally limited the fishing to sampling and family or friend gatherings where I can supervise handling of the larger bluegills. Once the original stocking passes on, we will open the fishing more and simply manage for a large population of pound plus fish for our guests and family.

I now carry a Chatillon 2-pound spring scale in half ounce increments to weight the big gills. The scale was modified with the addition of a size 8 barbless hook to scale's hook to facilitate ease of handling the fish.

Here is the Thread

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=467723&nt=3&page=1

That is a wonderful picture show!!

You clean up real nice, chunting!!