Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Adding 1 Single Bass

Kind of silly situation, but I thought I would get your opinion on this. I have a new pond only stocked with 1500 bluegill, 250 shell cracker and 8000 fathead minnows. All stocked over the last few months. The pond is about 3/4 acre and located in lower Mississippi. My plan is to add some F1 tiger bass fingerlings in June of this year.

I caught a 6 inch largemouth bass in another pond near my house. I have the bass in my aerated live well right now.

Do you think it would be a bad idea to release the bass in my pond?

Obviously I don’t think it would eat all my forage base, but do you think it would maybe be big enough in 3 months and possible eat some of the fingerling bass that will be added in June?

Any positive or negative thoughts on this?

At this point in the pond's history and what I perceive as your goals, I see no positive benefit to the long term fishery by adding the single bass from another pond. Now if you had an overpopulation of some fish specie with sizes that needed to be culled then yes one bass could help you manage and reduce too many unwanted or not needed fish. IMO once you add the F1 fingerlings to the pond you are going to need ALL the forage fish possible to keep those bass growing to reach their full potential. And as mentioned why risk loosing some of your valuable F1 fingerlings? One of those consumed by that early single introductory bass could be one of the F1 females with the best growth potential.