. . . there needs to be a certain amount of harvesting to keep a pond healthy and well managed, and that amount is higher then a lot of people realize imo, I have a neighbor that has several ponds and will let people fish but would almost rather you didn't keep hardly any, the result is an overstocked pond where you can catch 20 little stunted bass an hr with only a minimal chance of catching anything with any size, same way with the Crappy.
Anyone who allows fishing to neighbors who ask is just awesome. I do agree, however, that they are missing an opportunity for receiving good help in the management of their BOWs. Your first post in the thread included an offer to harvest crappie for a fee. In the case where a BOW owner is reluctant to harvest himself ... its arguably worth something to him both in time and money. The idea of a catch and release farm pond ultimately leads to a BOW like you describe above.
The long term effect of over fishing and removal of too many adult fish I find is usually short-lived, if any effect at all, Ive actually not seen it happen in private water, some public waters I may have seen it.
When a BOW is successfully managed for true trophy LMB, the effect of taking the larger LMB outside a sound management plan can have a devastating effect for the BOW owner's quality of fishing.
BOWs that are unsuccessfully managed for trophy fish benefit greatly from harvest. Typically, these harvests are not intensive enough to make them trophy BOWs but it does make them better providing a better mix of opportunities.
