Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations First Post - Managing 27 Acre Pond

Welcome to the forum. Here's my take on things.

1) You need to take out more bass than what you think.
2) You have very limited reproduction areas for forage fish.
3) A new electro shock survey needs to be done.
4) Stocking the fatheads is a waste of $$. That is if you want to feed fish greater than 8"-9". If you want to feed larger fish with the forage fish, you'd be better off stocking Golden Shiners, and stock what they call number 30's. If you can stock them in February, that might be early enough to get them to spawn IF you have the correct spawning habitat for them.

Here's why:

Going by your data, you stocked approximately 150-175 pounds of fatheads and between 80 to 200 pounds of bluegills every year. Total weight is between 230 and 375 pounds of forage fish. I bet that 90% of the fish that you stock are eaten the first month they are in the BOW.

The bass that are in the lake need to eat a very minimum of 17,500 to an excess of 45,000 pounds of fish per year to each gain one pound of weight. (Depending on the size of the bass - bigger bass need to eat more to gain 1# of weight) That is just the bass, not the crappies, catfish, etc. that are in there.

It sounds like the HOA's budget for the fishery is not nearly big enough to pay for proper management of the BOW. 27 acres is a LOT of water to manage. There was an article in the Pond Boss Magazine about exactly that scenario. Call the PB office and buy that copy, giving out one to each member that has a say so about the budget for the BOW.

I think you'd be much better off doing the following:

Get an electroshock survey done this year or next year at the latest and spend remainder of the next 2, maybe 3 years budget on improving or making spawning habitat for the forage fish. This is in addition to taking out the amount of bass the electroshock survey shows needing removed. Get the community involved in building cover for the fish that are in there. Look in the archives for ways to build cover inexpensively. You need roughly 5 to 6 ACRES of cover in that pond. That in itself is a huge job.