Mark out an area on the ground that is 80'x80'. Now think back to all the cover that you put in the pond. Will that cover fill that 80'x80' area? I'm guessing no. If my guess is correct, then those fish in the pond are marathon runners and not couch potatoes. You need to add more cover in the pond for them. They are burning too many calories swimming around trying to catch dinner.
Additionally, the forage fish should be roughly 1/4 to 1/3 the length of the bass. If the forage fish aren't growing to keep pace with the bass, then the bass have to expend more energy to catch "X" amount of calories than if they had the correct sized food.
I will ask since I have seen a similar situation in my pond. Fish are pretty well documented in various posts on this forum. From first fish catch (1 year ago today) up through March 1,2025, 60 LMB have been weighed and measured, of those 60, 55 of them were over 115% RW. Only 1 way under 100%, from April 1 - today, 8 LMB have been weighed and measured. Of those 8, 7 of them were under 100%, I’m pretty confident that the cover didn’t just magically change and the forage base has no holes in it from FHM up to almost 1# CNBG. At feeding I can see at least 6 different size classes of BG along with FHM and GSH from 1” up to 7” long.
In the mean time, my original stocking was 150 LMB and 50 SMB. I have caught more SMB in this time from than I have LMB and the SMB are growing like weeds. The SMB I’ve caught have been thicker and wider then the LMB
My daughter even caught a LMB this weekend, the second she saw it, she said, what is wrong with this fish, it looks so skinny, I’ve never seen a fish in this pond look so bad.
photo is from tonight
![[Linked Image from lh6.ggpht.com]](https://lh6.ggpht.com/_6_-SgakQ9co/S3Nx1jGAJWI/AAAAAAAABKU/DJIy4ZnF1t0/s800/I_subscribe.jpg)
