Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Examining Stomach Contents

Depending on LMB size, my rule of thumb is pre-spawn LMB females have 7%-15% of body weight in eggs, males half of that. In a pond where the goal is to grow large bass, I don't want to see a LMB's RW minus the egg/milt weight at less than 110% RW.. I have seen some feed trained bass that were sitting at 165-173 RW in October.





Was that a healthy fish? No. I say no because would you consider a 400 pound person to be healthy?


Having a slot harvest size vs. RW harvest slot depends on the size of the forage fish surveyed. Just remember that a fishery has to continually grow the size of the forage fish or the LMB will expend more and more calories for every successful fish capture, and could eventually expend more energy than what the capture equals. Having the proper cover for the predatory LMB in the pond is critical too. If a marathon runner and a couch potato has the same caloric intake per day, who will weigh more in a month or a year?