Thanks for all the good info and suggestions. We actually had a discussion the other day about what is the minimum size a body of water has to be to be called a lake, lol.
To answer some questions...
No feeders in the pond. It is surrounded by homes but some residents do hand feed the bluegill when they are up close. For about 4 months out of the year (winter), you will not see any forage fish near the shore since the lake is so deep and gets clear.
The electro survey was a struggle to get any bass since the lake is so deep and the current only goes so far. They made 2 miles of runs but got enough fish to make it worth the effort. It showed the bass at that time were not getting enough food and we needed to add structure and habitat before doing anything. So we did that as much as we could. Once we had a good bit in there, we stocked forage. Since we have been adding it, fish health seems to be going up. Attached is data from the last two years (I do my own study from April 15 onward and this saves the community money).
Yes, threadfin are open water fish. They were in here before we added any. The idea behind the fatheads was to get more bang for the buck with threadfin prices going up and hopefully keep some pressure off the existing population.
It looks like golden shiners are another option - I will inquire about those for 2025.
I 100% agree we could be doing a lot more. We have budget limitations though. The average resident could care less about fish in the lake. So, we have that to overcome. Also, the average person that fishes here wants to catch something without a ton of effort. If grandpa can walk to the bulkhead with his two grandsons and they throw Texas rigs for 45 minutes from the bank and each catch a 14" nice looking fish, they are happy and it's exciting. I think that's great but I'd like to see a few more fish in the 16"-20" range as a "unicorn" fish. I just wish we had like a $50,000 annual budget instead of $5,000 but that is better than the $0 that most communities pay.
Electro survey is a good idea for sure but the issue there is money spent on that takes money away from forage fish stocking.
The structure and habitat is a lot of work for sure. If I had to guess, we have about 1 acre of brush piles, old freestanding trees, other debris and other random stuff. For forage spawning areas, all the shallow stuff is typically tilapia and Texas cichlids. It seems that the bluegill and bass spawn deeper. There are a few bass on beds but not many. Bluegill are never up shallow on beds. They make it happen though because there will be lots of baby bluegill and lots of baby bass. Typically in January we will have schools of 100 6"-7" bass swimming around.
For the selective harvest, only a few of us do it as to not have inexperienced folks killing nice fish. We also do not want to make it a free for all and then all of the sudden 1,000 fish are pulled out of here. That could get some bigger fish but the average person would be upset.
I've attached a couple of graphs - it seems like most of our fish run over 85% on relative weight with a few in the 90% to 100% range too.
I'll also throw in a few recent pics, what we are culling, a structure shot, a ball of shad shot and the tax man with a nice bass (osprey). I have no idea how many they get but I am assuming it has to be a few school fish per week.
Thoughts on health of the non-cull fish in the pics?
