Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations What the H--- do I do now?

JE - Curious on a few items.

Size of the pond/lake?

Age of the pond/lake is 20+ years.

My guess, and I am no pro is that the RW's of the LMB will improve as the forage increases. Your existing population likely has lost some of their possible top end weight but there isn't any reason why they won't continue to grow or the RW's of them won't improve. As the LMB spawn...these are the guys you want to protect as they haven't lost their possible top end gains - IE...this is a multi year project that will will continue to harvest against to promote the best fish in the pond and cull the others. Perhaps a slot limit is the way to go here with allowing the spawn, and protecting the top end that you have now until you reach your numbers of culled or #'s per acre annual goals. That slot could be adjusted at any time as you start to see performance changes.

If there was a desire to introduce some new genetics in the pond, either stocking fingerlings ahead of the LMB spawn (there will be some mortality/predation here for sure) or stocking larger fish that won't be eaten with only a few extra mouths in the water. If the symptom is low RW and the cause of it is lack of forage I don't think I would add additional LMB in. I might however see what my forage base looks like.

What species are available to the LMB to eat?

Can I bump these numbers up?

Is there an additional forage species I could add that will help?

Might be some other opinions out there, but this is where I would start personally. Great to see you are tracking your fish so you can monitor your efforts and how the fish are responding for sure!