You are on a good start. What are your fishery goals for the pond?
I would check the alkalinity now and if it's not 40 ppm or higher add an other 25 tons. Do not add any more fertilizer until the alkalinity is over 40 ppm.
You are on track for the bass population, but the goal for this year would be remove 120 pounds. I would take out every other bass that you caught that is under 12" and keep them to weigh as a group at the end of the day. It doesn't matter if they are fat or not, Then if the pond is electroshocked again this year, you can determine how many to remove next year. The less LMB in there the faster they will grow.
I know this is a different situation, but in a customers new pond, the bass that were stocked in early May at 3" grew to 13"-14" by late October. So, just remember that if the bass have sufficient forage to eat they will grow very fast. You want a variety of sizes of forage fish in the pond.
10# of fish puts 1# of weight on one LMB and they have to eat that 10# of fish in addition to the fish that they have to eat just to survive.
If you stocked medium CNBG they were 2.75"-3" and 8000 fish weighed 120-192 pounds If they were 4.25"-4.5" they weighed 360-472 pounds
If you aren't feeding the bluegill in there, feeding then would help the situation.
Annual evaluation should happen before the next planned application of fertilizer anyway, so no problem there. They will check the PPM on that visit. They will electroshock as well and help speed up the process for the annual harvest.
I am definitely taking out everything less than 12 inches at least until I hear otherwise from the annual eval. As far as mass weighing the fish, any recommendations on a scale for that? That would be great to have a way to mass weigh the small fish
I am feeding the bluegill. I have one supplemental feeder at the end of the pier. Goes off twice per day at 10 seconds. Probably need to up that to 3 times a day, actually
Thanks esshup.
