Thanks for the input jpsdad. To add some clarity I will give the the data from all fish catches this year. I have only caught fish in July and August, not much fishing effort was put in earlier.
1 GSF <4 in
12 GSF 4-5in
10 GSF 5-6 in
4 GSF <6 in
1 LMB 7.25in
3 YP 8,8,8.5 in
Eight fish were caught in one day using minnows, this was the best day of fishing so far. Because of this, marking 150 fish seems pretty unlikely. I am also doubting that there is 1000's of adult sunfish in the pond. I could be wrong as I do not fish the entire pond but I feel like there should be more fish biting if there was more fish in the pond. I am definitely trusting the new tech I bought too much but I want to try it before I resort to herbicides, I have been trying to establish more desirable plants and nuking the pond would be two steps back but I will do it if the circulator does not work.
I would not be surprised if there was some event that reduced the bass population at some point but I am unaware when it would have occurred. Poaching is nearly impossible as the pond is in full view of the house and not in view of the road. A low DO event is possible as I believe there was a short period of time without aeration (~1 week), or it could have been animal predation (otters or blue heron). Despite this I have seen large schools of bass fry earlier in the year and now I am seeing single individual bass around 2 inches swimming in the shallows. If I am seeing this how necessary is restocking with bass? Is there a genetic diversity angle if we are concerned about a low adult population? If I can reduce the weeds I will begin fishing a bit harder to get a better picture of the fish stocks. I might also buy a fyke/seine net, leaning towards the seine for cost but I have more experience with fykes and prefer them.
