Another update, I got a little lazy this weekend so the data is missing a few weights and I have yet to harvest anything but I definitely will tomorrow....definitely. Either way I've got data so I'll dump it here for interested parties especially because it is not entirely expected data. Fished the 19th and today with plastics and worms, both of which were working well. Recaps 10 GSF 5.25 - 7in 15 YP 6.25 - 8.75in no other recaps New fish 10 GSF 4.75 - 6in 23-69g 8 PKS 4.5 - 6.5in 27-101g 19 YP 5.5 - 8.5in 56-104g 4 LMB 6.75 - 7 - 8 - 9in 60 - 84 - 111g (no weight on smallest)
I will drop the full excel file tomorrow. My interpretation is that there definitely are not many GSF, there are less YP than I initially thought, and there may be even more PKS than I initially thought. Nice to see a few more LMB though, but still not real adults so I'll keep looking. I did not clip anything today, not sure if I should have but I fin clipped most of the LMB but 1 did get away.
Good work Ponddragon. Before this latest post, I had adjusted the adult biomass to 150 lbs/acre. Not a big change. I concur with your thoughts on relative abundance. Will be interesting to watch your progress on goals.
Are you marking LMB? Any recaps there? I think those that are there could contribute a lot next year especially if they have grown by the time YOY are reaching 1"-2". There is potential to grow the LMB over winter by adding FHM in sufficient quantities. To reduce competition with the adult panfish, you may want to do some earnest culling before supplementing FHM. Especially get as many GSF as possible out. They are big enough and have gapes large enough to seriously compete with the LMB for minnows.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Most of the LMB are getting marked but 1 or 2 escaped before I could clip them, have not seen a recap yet. I think I might try stocking FHM soon if I can pull at least 50-100 fish out, especially of GSF and YP as they will definitely eat them. Got a little distracted harvesting some geese yesterday but today will be fishing.
Couldn't catch enough to harvest today but I FINALLY caught an adult LMB, 13.25 in and 524g. Besides that it was 1 recap PKS, 3 recap YP and 1 new, 2 recap GSF and 1 new, and 1 other LMB at 125g 8.5in. I'll try again tomorrow if I get some time but I'm pretty pleased to finally see an adult bass. I will also mention that I lost another bass the same size 10 minutes earlier so there should at least be 2 of them (Adam and Eve?).
Alright this time I actually harvested some fish. Culled fish were: 1 PKS 6.5in 106g 2 GSF 7in 90g 6.25in 64g 19 YP 10.25 - 7in 158g - 54g of which I noticed only 4 males Released fish were 4 new GSF 5.5-6 in 44-71g 1 new LMB 7.25in 73g 5 new PKS 4.5-7 in 28-123g 2 new YP 9.25in 143g 7in 61g 3 recap YP 7.5-7.75in 80-94g 2 recap PKS 6-6.5in 68-?g
Also got my seine net in, so I did 2 pulls of that as well. 11 PKS 3.25 - 5.5in 3 GSF 4.75 - 5.5in
Nice to see that you are getting samples of LMB and that your population of marked LMB is growing.
Your population numbers are modestly less than my initial estimate as you have continued to acquire samples. I would only mention that releasing marked fish will sometimes mean that recaptures are going to be counted more than once ... this would scew your population estimate down. Personally, I wouldn't mark any more fish and I wouldn't try to adjust the population estimate with new data. Hopefully, you have already moved past that phase. I think you have done a great job of marking and getting a handle on your population. The results suggest you have a modest standing weight of fish in your pond. So the good news is, working with native fertility, your job of culling will be easier than I, esshup, and others previously thought. You need a smaller, contingent of LMB too to control panfish recruitment. We are still in the process of discovery of just how populous your LMB are.
I would continue to cull in earnest any unmarked panfish you catch ... plus any GSF you catch whether marked or not. Personally, I would try to cull a minimum of 50% of your estimated populations of PKS and YP. If you can do this by ice up ... KUDOS. I base this on the PKS ... IMHO ... having the potential to gain .15 lbs annually. The YP probably have potential for more gain. Keep this in mind. All things being equal, the reduced populations can fill the carry in 1 season so long as they have the potential to gain it back in one season. A population reduced by 50% has the ability to regain the carry capacity in 1 year if they can double in weight. Presently your sampled PKS average .1475 lbs. I definitely think you can take 1/2 of them. The growth you experience next year, however, will probably be less than .15 lbs. Why? Because some of their potential for growth will be competed for by increased production of YOY. You should see evidence of increased YOY abundance next growing season. These will be feeding your LMB and you should see remarkable improvement of LMB condition and growth next year if you meet your panfish culling goal.
The result of the seine survey supports my original suspicion of low production of YOY. In fact, the results are void of YOY. So predation of YOY seems sufficient to moderate recruitment. Conventional wisdom may suggest that you have too many LMB. Indeed, you may have too many LMB (this is by no means certain), but if over representation of LMB were the only problem ... wouldn't there be no problem with panfish growth and condition? The seine survey in combination with your population stats suggest the panfish populations are too numerous and they have been underexploited. They've taken too much of your ponds carry. The combination of cannibalism and reduced carry for YOY has impacted YOY production ... and this ... is reflected in the growth and condition of your LMB. There appears to have been enough YOY production to have maintained your current population structure (modest thin relatively slow growing panfish and very slow growing LMB). Next fall, if all goes well, you should have more representation of LMB in the 11" to 12" lengths, a few YOY in your seines, and substantially increased weights for your panfish. (If you were trying to grow trophy LMB, you would need substantial representation of YOY panfish in your seines meaning they should be significantly more numerous than intermediate panfish)
Right now, focus on your culling of unmarked panfish. Were this my pond, I would mark some fish uniquely of each species. When recaptured, they provide information about individual growth ... and as group of data ... how your populations are doing growth-wise. An easy method for ID is to use binary numbers. Clip the top third of dorsal spines to represent the number associated with that fish. You get N^2 - 1 unique numbers where N is the number of dorsal spines. A paper hole punch can perform this task but you might need to remove that central guide thing to ease the procedure. In particular, I would like to see the LMB growth monitored.
Anyways, thank you for efforts and sharing your data with the community. Special thanks from me as your journey has been very enjoyable to follow.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Also just so there is no confusion. When recommending to stop marking fish ... I meant panfish. I think I would continue to mark LMB and get definitive number of how many unique individuals you have caught.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Thanks for your help as well, it has been very useful! Don't worry, there has been no confusion and all LMB are being marked. I do like the idea of growth rate monitoring by marking unique fish, would that be more important on a particular species or should I try for every species possible? I will also say that my fish trap came in on Friday and seems to be quite effective so hopefully that can add some data although I still haven't found a method to capture the YOY LMB that I see every single day. I will keep updating any progress as it happens.
For unique marking, I was thinking along the line of LMB, PKS, and YP. But whatever species you are interested in tracking. If you catch any LMB between now and ice up, I would especially like to see them marked uniquely.
You have a limited amount of time between now and ice up and it's more important to reduce your standing weight than it is to mark panfish. Don't let marking fish slow you down much. Maybe 5 or 10 of PKS and YP and only if it's not slowing you down. Honestly, for the panfish it can wait until spring. How much time do you have to reach your goal? How much time before ice up? So presently, with your estimate of population, there is about 116 lbs of PKS, YP, and GSH ... 50% of that weight is 58 lbs. Each day you fished and caught 60 fish, you caught around 10 lbs of fish. This catch per unit effort is going to decline as you remove fish so you may not make the full goal before the bite gets slow or your pond starts icing. Just get as much as you can without going over the goal.
For your FHM supplement, I would supplement ... at least ... what you took out (by weight) of panfish. So if you took out 40 lbs of panfish, then supplement at least 40 lbs of FHM. Don't expect high survival of them and hope that all get eaten by spring. It would probably be OK to supplement a little more if you wanted. But I probably would not supplement more than 15 lbs above the weight of panfish that you removed. If I had the choice of size grading, I would chose intermediate sized FHM. The cost is the same, I would want them to be in the 1.5" to 2.25". Wouldn't hurt to have some below those lengths but don't let them push aged adults on you if you have a choice. Smaller FHM have more potential for proportionate gain through the winter. Meaning that, they will provide more additional forage by growing. Also, they will be more inclined to benefit your less than 9" LMB than your two (possibly more) big ones. You are going to lose some FHM to the YP and PKS and to GSF that you were not yet able to remove ... but the LMB will respond to such a supplement, and I do expect that there will be a good boost to size and condition of the LMB that are averaging around 7.5" currently. The most gain (through April 15th) that you could expect would be around .40 lbs each. There is potential for some to reach 10". It will depend on competition for the FHM.
Anyways, good luck and keep us posted.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Good plan, I will try to implement it. When do you think I should get FHM? In October or later than that? Either way I need to remove a lot more fish quickly....
To get more bang for your buck, after you remove your harvest ... but definitely do the supplement do this before temps are too cold. If there is a big difference in water temp of your transport water and the pond, acclimate them to temps. You could do it in steps. Take out 15 lbs ... supplement 15 lbs ... repeat ... repeat. Do the best you can as temps are going to be cooling fast now.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Did another harvest today, we got a drum scaler which speeds the process up a bit. Removed 29 fish totaling 5.1 lbs. Running total is 9.2 lbs. Culls 14 GSF 7 - 5.75in 92 - 59g 3 PKS 6.25 - 6 in 80-89g 12 YP 10.5 - 6.75in 153-59g From a mark recap standpoint 8 new and 8 recap GSF were caught, 12 new and 5 recap PKS were caught, and 12 new and 4 recap YP were caught. There was also an 8 in 166g LMB marked as well.
You are making great progress. I've moved the data to a table that can easily be imported to a database. Also added a few cells for analysis. The green cells are those you can put data in. The rest with data are computed. I added a lookback computation that will provide the lookback of recaps for the lookback number you choose. To work correctly, the data should be sorted by date with the latest dates at the bottom.
With regard to sorting, be careful to only sort all columns or the tags would get out of whack with the original fish. If you want to add new computations, you can unlock with "pond" leaving the quotes off.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Sorry for the leave of absence, I was in the hospital for surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome. Fishing promptly shut down with the first cold snap and collecting any amount of fish has become very difficult. To compound this, my left shoulder is still healing so I cannot do much with the net, but I doubt I would catch much after the last attempt. Either way removals will likely be shut down for the year until spring. I will see if I can get my hands on a few minnows before ice up.
And just as I say that a finger on the monkey's paw curls. An otter would like to "help" remove some fish from my pond. We may have a disagreement on his methods...
Alright, update time and new question time. In the end of June I removed #10 of GSF and then the next week I added #25 of FHM. YBH have reemerged, I have attempted to remove as many as possible but most are <2 inches so its rather difficult. It has been a few weeks since I've seen any so I hope the other fish took care of it. Drought is hitting the area pretty bad and the pond is down about a foot which has made weed control harder. The main issue though, is that I cannot for the life of me locate a single LMB. None have been caught or definitively seen since last fall which is highly unusual. The closest I have gotten to seeing one was a suspicious bass sized splash and a possible predation attempt on wood duck babies we saw from the window. I was under the impression that I had more LMB than this and that they were smaller. So, I need to either locate the existing LMB or admit defeat and add more fish, either more LMB or a different predator. I have tried a lot of normal bass lures to zero success, so I need a more effective method. E-shocking would be nice but seems a bit over kill right now, I could try to seine them but I don't think that works very well for bass. I'm thinking either live bait (but it would need to be too big for YP or GSF) or I guess go snorkeling and find them manually? Not sure, any ideas?
I have put minnow traps (simple double funnel) in my creek, baited with dry cat food. I was trying to sample the minnow population, but have caught multiple YBH on several occasions. I believe the largest I caught were up to 5-6" in length.
I suspect with some experimentation you can come up with a more effective bait than what I was using.
The issue I've had trapping them is the piles of sunfish I will catch before catching any YBH. I don't really want to kill dozens of YOY just in case a single YBH made it through. I'm keeping an eye out for schools of babies but it has been a bit since I've seen any. I got a few dozen yoy out with the trap and one 5.5" individual but that was a month ago now.
