Originally Posted by esshup
Originally Posted by Jason D
I’m no professional but reading through this thread, something seems off.
Dallas area, warmer climate, LMB stocked 2 years ago and only 1 lb in weight
I don’t care what strain they are, they should already be approaching 3 lb.

Sometimes people don't realize just how many bluegill a single bass needs to eat to grow, and they stock too many bass, or too few bluegill or CNBG in the beginning. If the goal was to grow big bass, I'd have recommended stocking 50 bass and 3,000 CNBG or Bluegill per surface acre. It will be interesting to see what was actually stocked.

To the OP: The problem with stocking 3+# LMB, is that they don't know the pond and don't know where the best place is to hang out and be successful catching fish to eat. You may see that they lose weight after being stocked. I'd first spend my $$ getting the pond electroshocked to see how the forage to predator numbers are. If the forage base isn't large enough, then you are wasting money putting in larger LMB - they won't grow. If the pond is fished frequently, and bass caught and released, they may already be getting hook shy. Electroshocking will also show you the fish that aren't interested in biting on a lure.

It will also stun the BG/CNBG to show you how they are doing.

What was the original stocking numbers and sizes of fish that were stocked? How big is the tank/pond (surface acre wise)? What is in there for cover for the LMB to sit and ambush their prey?

Good advice above.

2 quick questions. It looks like you have a feeder on the bank, so what are you feeding, and how much? Is that pond close to your housing, or is it remote from your home? If so, winged critters can be a problem also.

Adding LMB won't help unless you want hungry skinny fish. Added BG will only help for a short period of time unless adequate cover is added to the pond to protect the BG fry/fingerlings. Stacked cedars are a good choice for cover.

Feed trained LMB, F1 or otherwise, can start at $22 to $30 each and require a huge amount of fish food to fill them out. I've done this for the last few years, and have hand fed them daily, so...

Also, the river run is active, and stripers, LMB, and white bass are catchable right now. The Brazos is fairly close to you, and that might help you if you do want more LMB. I'm heading down there tomorrow for most of next week. I'm taking my fly rods, but bright road runners work almost all the time with conventional rods.


AL