Discussion with some other wise fish managers concludes that you can PROBABLY do this IF you feed the fish best quality protein foods and PROPERLY aerate the 3 ac pond so it gets at lest one complete turnover per day; better is 2 turnovers per day for the main basin. .
One pellet size for growing BG and also feed the 2 LB+ bass the hand throw type of high protein pellets. Pellets for the BG grows the 10" BG and the hand throw 1" pellets help in growing big bass where it helps take predatory pressure off the the BG to better create the 10" BG. For growing the best fishery it is often recommended to have one automatic feeder per acre of water. Less than that expect less than the best results for the type of fishery that are your goals of 1 pound BG (10.3") and 8 lb bass (23.8") .
Comments regarding growing larger bass. With proper feeding and aeration do not expect to have more than 30 total bass over 5 pounds (10bass/ac). IMO I don't think you will be able to have more than 2 "top end" bass at 8 lb in 3 ac assuming a normal number of 4lb, 5 lb, 6lb,and 7lb present and coming "up" to replace the natural attrition that will occur of the largest oldest LMB in a system. The population structure PER ACRE of the mature BG-LMB fishery (of 5-6yrs) if you do all things correctly would be something similar to 6bass@4lb; 5@ 5lb; 3@ 6lb; 1or2@ 7lb and 1@ 8lb. And If you are lucky 1@ 9-10lbs for the 3 acres of water. This all assumes that you carefully manage the numbers of 10 oz to 1 pound bass to provide adequate food to keep these larger 5lb+ bass growing properly each year. Example - A 7 lb bass needs to eat 50-52 pounds of fish a year to grow to 8 pounds. The challenge is can you manage the fish foods and correctly manage the fish numbers per year to accomplish your goals?. Time will tell the rest of this story.
LMB do not live forever especially if anglers do not know how to properly handle big old bass to minimize handling stressors while the bass are unhooked and released. Anglers will likely kill your largest bass from latent or delayed deaths due to improper handling. Body slime removal kills lots of fish despite the fish swimming away. Body slime is the fish's defense of fungus, bacterial and virus infections. Despite the obvious, the biggest oldest LMB are not the strongest most durable bass in a pond.
Another important piece of the puzzle for growing big bass is learning to correctly handle the large LMB once caught. You don't want to grow them large, then injure or even kill them by handling them incorrectly once they are caught.
A. Use a rubberized net, don't grab them by the lower jaw.
B. Use two hands to support the fish to take it out of the net. One on the lower jaw, one supporting the back 1/3 of the fish.
C. Do NOT let it flop around on shore or in the bottom of the boat - that removes the slime coat and opens the fish up to infection. Doing that is basically a later death sentence for that big fish even if it appears okay as it swims away. Body infection with fungus and bacterial growths takes one to two weeks to take its toll on a big fish.
A pond owner in Texas that has a 35 acre trophy LMB "lake" has a few rules. Break the rules, and you cannot fish in the pond. 1) Barbless hooks. 2) Support the fish with 2 hands. 3) Net the fish, keep the fish in the net in the water while you figure out what you are going to do next. This is important because of the next step. 4) The fish can only be out of the water for 30 seconds max. If you want to weigh the fish, leave the fish in the net, weigh everything and then weigh the net after the fish is released, don't hang the fish by it's jaw or worse, the gills. Texas Share Lunker has had LMB come in with broken lower jaws because of poor handling, and the fish never recover. Loss of body slime coating almost always eventually kills fish from various types of mishandlings.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/12/23 09:12 PM.
