Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Another fish growth thread

10/3/24 I caught the first 2+# bass out of my pond
14.8” - 2.03# (first photo)
6/20/25 I caught what seems to be the same fish
16” - 2.64# (second photo)
This fish was caught within 20’ of each other , standing on my dock

First, does this look like the same fish? (Markings and head look a lot alike)
Second does this growth seem correct seeing how you had winter than it’s first spawn
Was not the ideal growing season between the 2 catches.

I’m more posting this because going into last winter my fish growth was pretty awesome, average catch was
14.0” - 1.74#, This one was a little ahead of the curve,
Coming out of winter, March - Late April, everything I was catching was in the 14.7” - 1.70# range. So length growth but weight and RW decline. Even though I knew it was winter and spawn I really thought my fish health was declining.
50% of my catches were between 95 - 105% RW. I had never experienced anything like it. Every fish the previous year was 115% +.
Then this gal bit the hook so I had a comparison fish, did this last 30 days right the ship and get these fish to packing the weight back on or does she just have it figured out?
Wish I had more fish to compare but we just had a flood, water is murky and up about 2’, LMB just aren’t biting

Because you caught this fish close to the same place it could be the same fish as predators will tend to establish a small area where the food buffet is good for them. One easy way to mark a fish is to cut as in shortening by cutting or clipping the end of a certain one of the dorsal spines. Nail clippers work for this ask.

So far you RW and fish growth is on a good track. One note for your fish growth knowledge. When a fish stops getting enough food it will lose weight but not body length. Once body length is achieved the fish's length does not decrease however body weight can be lost.

One suggestion for continuing on your path to grow bigger bass with high RW. A pond can easily have too many bass but it can never have too many forage fish if growing real high quality sport fish is a main goal. Growing the biggest bass is keeping their numbers selectively low and work very hard and be diligent to keep lots of the proper sized forage fish abundant. Emphasis on Abundant. When fish are losing weight there are not enough of the proper size forage fish and too many things eating the forage fish. Selective harvest is very important for producing a high quality fishery. When your bass are loosing weight you have too many bass.

I agree with the fish staying close to home, it’s right under a feeder with good cover
If anything the predator numbers are pretty low, I’m finally getting the initial LMB spawn this spring, no over crowding
Doing a visual at both feeders, what we catch and what I’ve seen in a cast net, the forage is solid and there are many different size classes.
I will reevaluate the bass growth this summer and see if they start packing on weight.
At least the one pictured grew a little bit and maintained its RW
I’ve just been catching too many like this and started getting worried. Still around 100% but not normal for my pond

Jason,
You and the pond are in the early stages of the bass population growth phase. Initial growth of stocked LMB is always good with abundant forage until the first LMB offspring is big enough and they spawn and the growth of these offspring becomes young spawning size bass. This is when overcrowding and over eating the food base starts to be a problem and growth of the original stocker bass does what they call "hit the wall". . That is when LMB density becomes too high, many more hungry mouths to feed, relative weights decrease and growth rate starts to noticabley slow down. Then without significant cropping of the young underperforming bass the LMB weight gain rate and RW often tends to continue on the decline unless forage amounts can remain high. This is the critical time when significant thinning of the LMB herd becomes very important if bass greater than 5 - 6 lbs are the goal.

Jason, when you catch one; mark it by clipping a small piece off the tail. I won’t hurt the fish.

It’s been a while,
Been catching a lot of LMB in 15.5 - 16” range with weights between 2.5 and 2.8#
These seem to be the norm. Then out of nowhere I hooked a 17” - 3.32# fish, by far the biggest one to date
I knew some big ones were swimming around, finally got one to bite the hook.
On another note: My YOY fish are growing at an alarming rate, been catching a lot in the 10.5” range. Seems like there is an over abundance of them.
Also got a 9” shiner and a 9.5” - 1.05# BG.
Today was a good day on the water
I think these numbers are pretty solid for being right at 2 years in.
Up through July I was wondering if I had problems because the LMB were small and didn’t look healthy
On a side note, my SMB are gaining length but not much weight. Have caught 4 over 2# but that’s the exception, not the norm.

Jason, those sound like awesome results to me! Keep up the good work.

I have never fished in a pond with SMB as the only top predator. However, in the ponds and lakes I have fished with LMB and SMB, we have never caught a ridiculously "bulky" SMB. We do catch a few LMB like that, even outside of the spawn.

I do not know if the physiology of LMB and SMB are different, or if the SMB cannot "thrive" to that same degree in mixed bass ponds.

I have caught strong, healthy SMB in ponds where we also were catching some chunk LMB. We have also caught healthy SMB in ponds where we were catching skinny LMB.

Question for people that record relative weights in their mixed bass ponds: Is the RW variance around the mean much higher for your LMB compared to your SMB?

I believe that has been my "non-scientific" personal observation.

I believe the growth cycle or spurt comes at different times of the year for LMB vs SMB.
LMB add more mass from July - October where as the SMB don’t like the warm water and grow more from September - March.
Spring time higher RW SMB, Fall time higher RW LMB, at least that’s what I’ve seen in my pond
The SMB are still adding length so I’m not concerned, they were an experiment anyway and I’m pleased with where they are.
I have also noticed that most of my SMB catches have been on the east side of the pond and the LMB are generally in the other areas

Update,
06/20/25 first 2.5# bass was caught
08/25/25 we caught our first 3# LMB
10/18/25 the first 3.5# LMB was caught in our pond
Today 12/26/25 the first 4# LMB was caught. It was right at 18”
We caught 3 LMB today and they were all very fat,
We also caught a 17” - 3.54#
There has to be something positive going on to get a 4# LMB in Kansas after 2 years
Maybe this is just normal IDK
Seems as though they have taken off in the last 3 months even with the water temperature being below 50* for a vast majority of the time

Now that's a dandy fish!


Something positive is going on. But this doesn't mean there is something special or different is going on. LMB in a Wichita climate can be expected to grow like that when they are satiated. Now if we consider getting to eat all they need to grow at their potential abnormal ... then yes ... we could say something different or special is taking place. But by and large, it is not unusual for LMB to satiate and grow at their potential when forage is plentiful in the consumable sizes. Indeed, growth like this can be expected.

My Northern LMB model is largely fitted to Boondoggle's samples. And tested against Learninbout fish, bstone's, and your samples (climate adjusted). The model makes good estimates of weight gains +- 10% where the estimate may be considered average gain where consumption was at satiation. What satiation means to me is all the consumption required to support an LMB's individual potential for growth. Most of the variation of samples fall within 10% of the estimated average and this might be considered normal variation encapsulating the first two standard deviations. If a population of same age females have greater variation than that ... there is a good chance that the average in the pond is below the model's estimate. This is because when forage is limited, the "wealth divide" is more extreme and some may significantly underperform others because of competition for limited resources. Under forage limitation, it is possible for a limited number of LMB to meet the model's estimate and normal range of variation while others significantly underperform. This isn't genetics per se ... if forage were not limiting ... then the underperformers would do better.

The good news is that there are no signs in the history that would indicate a forage limitation. For example, all of your reported samples fall within normal variation of the model's estimate. Assuming an LMB stocking date of 9/15/23 and 4-6" LMB at stocking .... the model's estimates are below.

6.20.25 2.68 +- .268 lbs -- sample 2.5 lbs
8.25.25 3.21 +- .321 lbs -- sample 3.0 lbs
10.18.25 3.52 +- .352 lbs -- sample 3.5 lbs
12.26.25 3.71 +- .371 lbs -- sample 4.0 lbs

The model estimates that your first 5 lb LMB could be caught as early as 7.20.26 when the estimated average will be 4.6 lbs. Assuming females continue to consume satiation rations ... the average weight of females is estimated to breach 5 lbs. around 9.9.26

Conversing with another member on F1, he had caught a fish 3 times in the space of about a month. The growth followed the F1 model except for the initial span where there was an 11 point improvement in RW. So the weight increment for this period exceeded the model. I think this normal when there is a lot of variation of RW which can happen when forage comes in waves. An LMB will consume above what is needed to make the length increment at static RW and will store excess. This excess can be used to fuel length increment even when followed by periods where the weight increment maybe below model. During such periods, the RW declines.



While it may be normal for LMB to stall or lose weight over winter ... one can expect growth all winter long when forage is plentiful in consumable sizes. The continued good growth and condition of the LMB is a sign that forage in consumable sizes were abundant going into the cold months.

JasonD - Thank you for posting the growth progress of your pond after it was renovated. The information is going to be very useful to members of the PB Forum. So far you have done a very good job of maintaining abunant forage foods in your pond. The growth of your LMB are showing your diligent fish management efforts.

Thanks for the positive words

I feel like my forage and predator stocking plan was unconventional and not recommended. I’ve been told by more than one person on here that what I’ve done won’t work. On the other hand I’ve had a few of the good guys stick with me. There may end up being long term problems but for now everything has worked out.
One thing I have been thinking about, I fish my pond a lot, I have good RW data, I cull some under achievers and YOY. I’m going to guess that 95% of the people reading this don’t get data as often as I do and may assume or think their fish aren’t growing at the same rate, whereas that may or may not be true.
Maybe at some point I can get average fish weights for this same time period instead of just the extreme outliers.
On another note I caught a 20” - 4.83# HSB today, it looked extremely healthy.

Catching bass on December 26th in Kansas seems like a noteworthy event to me.

In my experience, their strike activity just keeps going down as the water gets cooler ... eventually making it not worthwhile to go fishing.

Once again, it appears I have been working from a faulty assumption!

I am NOT amazed at all of the things that I have learned reading Pond Boss, I expected that.

I am amazed at all of the things I have had to "unlearn" due to reading Pond Boss.

Nice work Jason. Keep up the effort. In the next year watch the size , number and condition of the 8-12 inch LMB and 6-10 inch SMB . That is likely where any major issues will be first indicated.

Thanks,
I caught and culled over 50 LMB this year between fingerling and 11”, all YOY fish. I’m not worried about totally fishing out gen2, just thinning the herd.
I have not caught a single YOY SMB, if or when I do I will probably do a back flip into the lake, not very confident they ever got a spawn off. We only started with 54, I have culled 7 that were not in very good physical condition.
The next 6-8 years will be very interesting, after that the SMB and HSB will be gone, in the mean time keeping the pond balanced should be a full time job lol

The more species present the harder to maintain balance and manage. Fun to try though and there are some exceptions.

That definitely looks like the same fish to me. Those markings match up perfectly.

The growth actually seems pretty solid for coming off a winter and a spawn. Bass usually drop some weight during that time, so seeing her jump from 2.03 to 2.64 pounds while gaining over an inch is a great sign.