Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - When do you give up on LMB?

I'm nearing the end of my tether re LMB. Stocked aggressive Northern strain and supposedly elite Lone Star Legacy Florida strain. Fed and fed for years, in rough terrain & rougher weather. Fertilized, ag limed. Placed both natural and artificial structure for fish. When low BG reproduction survival, had pond plants installed to give shelter for their YOY. Bought and installed floating islands to improve periphyton production. Added PK shrimp to boost panfish numbers for bass forage. Stocked FHM to feed little bass, golden shiners and TFS to feed medium sized, BG, RES, CNBG for all sizes. Culled over 200 LMB one year (though only 80 so far this year) Stocked small forage sized rainbow trout. Stocked TP almost every year. Even had a forage pond built for CNBG reproduction which were placed in main BOW.

And yet while every other fish at my place has done great, from hybrid stripers to tilapia, trout, and panfish, the one constant is the failure to achieve good relative weight lunker bass. Hasn't happened, and I fear it never will. Every time I have a survey, no matter what I've done, the same results come back. Perhaps some ponds just aren't suitable for growing big LMB, regardless.

Maybe I should stock alligator gar. Sigh.

Anybody else who's shifted gears away from LMB? What was your experience?

Frank, ponds can be money pits for sure when it comes to growing numbers of large lmb. Frustrated, been there done that! I think you have a great place from what I have seen. What, you have a 5 yr old pond? You have the genetics, just give it a little more time I think. Keep the pressure up on the small lmb and I think you will stumble into a large lmb or two. And enjoy those bg, res, hsb and the bass. As I set back and watch the guest that I let fish the pond, they have a great time, whether it be lmb, bg res or hsb they are after and I don't have all the large lmb that I would like to have. I am betting you have a couple of them out there too. Take a kid fishing and they will show you how great your place is.

Don't take this personally, Anthropic, but somebody has to be the left hand side of the curve.

We give and get advice here that works most of the time, on average, but (pick one)
1) "It all depends"
2) YMMV
3) Maybe LMB just don't like you.

Doing everything right doesn't always ensure success in life.

What's your next best pond dream?

Kind of along the lines of what I'm thinking when I say 'back to the basics.'

Maybe drop all non-native species for some period of time (Tilapia, RBT, PK Shrimp, etc.)

Also, I would think American Pond Weed would not really impede the LMB from eating as much Bluegill as they wanted.

after reading some of your other posts, I can't help but at least consider maybe the RBT really did steal some of the LMB growth from the last few months. Of course that may not be enough growth to make up the difference from what you think should be there.

I don't take it personally. As you say, somebody has to be on the left hand of the curve, and there's certainly no reason it shouldn't be me. Heck, some people have far worse experiences, what with leaky dams, huge fish kills, and otters. I don't have those issues. Really, most of my fish are doing very well. The pond is a dream come true and, like my wife, far better than what I deserve. But you know how it is, you always want what you don't have. Guess I'll keep learning & trying to improve, however frustrating it is at times.

It's guaranteed to work as good as the Shamwow.....

Almost. I guess I've got too much Louisiana blood to get away from at least pan-frying. Those LMB and BG fillets are sweet!

Bruce's instagram is great for photos of these plus the other monsters he pulls out of private and public waters.

Bruce is the mad scientist who either destroys the planet or makes fish grow in ways God never intended.

One of the inherent flaws with looking at body condition is that there is a 6 to 8 week period every year that a female largemouth bass can give the illusion of having a low relative weight because they have deposited eggs. If you could get to even an 80% accuracy with sex identification then you could harvest twice as many fish, but have a resultant significant decrease in females harvested. This would leave you a lot more fish with high-end potential but also simultaneously decrease intra-species competition.

I think it’s time we all learn together. Let’s find some images showing vents.
Remember… We are only looking for 80% accuracy. Keeping a few females during your harvest would be OK as long as those aren’t fish with exceptional relative weights. If you have to check two boxes… i.e. must look like a male, and must have less than ideal relative weight, then we’re getting somewhere.