Ewest, Jayman, and Cecil, thanks for your comments and inquirery. E, I think I spend enough time at the pond searching for any signs of spawning, I live right next to it and this was the first time I have seen any bass on beds, I have a canoe and the Dog and I frequent it regularly. You bring up an interesting point about the BG population; they are abundant in the 3-5" and I catch a few 8-9" when I'm fishing for them. I raked the shore around my dock last weekend and pulled in several 1" BG so there is a big BG population IMO. I know the bass were chasing the BG from the bedding area so I now worry that they may in fact destroy the bass fry. I may have one thing going for me in the way of the cover surrounding the LMB beds, their in the shallows and they're in an abundant crop of coontail, filimentous algea, and fallen trees. I can only hope I have some survive. The one day I watched the spawning activity I counted up to 18 LMB in the 2-2.5 lb range, seemed like the gender ratio was pretty even. After the first winter I lost several bass for some reason as I found some of the bass and BG on shore after ice out.
There seems to be some disagreement on the spawning age. I asked last year and I thought I remembered someone telling me the bass would reach maturity at aprox. 2 lb range.
One last thing, I have not harvested many BG from the pond and have taken no bass to this point.
Again, thanks for your input, it is appreciated.
FH
