Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Fall RBT for LMB Stocking

Very good growth for the sample you have taken. There is a lot of forage and it may be helpful to use minnows for bait to take samples in September.

Just love the fact that your will be trapping to sample forage. In a conversation with another member, we discussed the need for standardized traps and procedures to estimate forage populations. I have read research for estimating GAM populations. They related trap rates to known concentrations and these proved to be effective predictors of populations with an acceptable range of error. Perhaps something can be done with BG, GSH and such but I have not seen any research on these species. Keep good records of counts, size ranges, and soak times.

The mentioned present size of prey is perfect for the LMB you sampled. As a general rule of thumb, LMB are able to easily consume prey less 2% of their body weight. As prey grows larger in weight proportion, it becomes increasingly more difficult to capture ... not to swallow so much ... but to chase down and subdue. More than 84% of the prey that LMB consume will be below 2% of their own body weight. Larger prey happens the rest of the time and it is not unimportant but the lions share (more than 70% by weight) will be derived from prey less than 2% of the LMB's body weight. Prey smaller than 1% of body weight doesn't stand much chance of escaping an LMB. They are easy meals. For forage supplement, an average weight of between 0.5% and 1% of the targeted LMB body weight is probably ideal because this allows growth through the vulnerable window of relative sizes. The key is stocking sufficient weight of forage that enough survive to grow through the vulnerable sizes. This will maximize the ratio of consumption over starting forage weight. If few grow past the vulnerable sizes, this is also good. That increases carry capacity available to vulnerable forage.