Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Evaluating New Pond and New Fish

Question on growth and culling. My plan thus far in the removal process has been to protect the "best" and remove those that aren't in the top growth categories in the pond even though there is no apparent shortage of foods via RW's. My hope is that we are saving the forage that would be consumed by the slower growers and leaving an ample supply for the faster ones or "banking it for later". In last weeks trip to the property the largest, 17" at 3-1/2 lbs was returned and (3) fish in the 15 1/2 - 16" range were removed. The (3) removed looked to be in great shape but they were also nearly or more than a pound lighter than the current record.

Fair to say there is no way to make up that growth difference of 50%? May look at it again this fall for 2-3 more guests for dinner.


On the BG. Feeder has been very active when it goes off, and the BG are also good on the RW's. Largest I've seen is 9" on a few of the fish but more commonly come across 6-8". Fillets on 6-8" really doesn't yield much in the way of meat but frying them whole (less the head and gut) should be a very easy process. Goal for this would be to protect the largest BG we encounter and remove some of the fish that are out of predation range of the LMB. This would also protect some of the fry in the pond allowing them to grow into a size class that the LMB benefit from more.

I'm not sure I have seen much in articles or in PB posts relating to culling BG. Any opinions out there on how to approach this?