Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Good Control for Growing Big BG

Hello Pond Boss members. I have a BG problem and am now paying the dumb tax. My northern Ohio pond is a dug pond built during the summer of 2022 and slowly filled naturally with rainwater, plus runoff from barn and house spouting. Pond is triangular approximately 0.5ac acre with a perimeter of an 8-foot limestone rock shelf over a well compacted clay basin - maximum 16-17 feet deep. Beach is 80 feet wide at the narrow end of the triangle. Secchi disk clarity ranges from 5 – 7 feet. Bottom aeration will begin later in 2026.
Some chara is now growing in addition to some filamentous algae growths which both have been controlled each summer by Tilapia.
My Problem: As a gift for some quick angling and probably in error,,,, last spring (2025), I stocked ONLY pure BG of 100 @ 2-3" and 25 @ 4-5". I saw them making beds for spawning late last summer - 2025. Now I am concerned I have too many BG for my GOALS of a quality big BG pond.
Last fall and late summer by angling and trapping, I began harvesting some of the BG. I've harvested approximately 50 bluegill last fall, and 18 BG so far this 2026 spring by trapping with a Z trap and cloverleaf trap both have 0.5” mesh. All BG removed so far have been mainly 3.5"-5" long. I set two ¼ mesh minnow traps at various depths and all I have caught were large tadpoles. Smallest BG in all trapping was one 2” and most have been 4”-5” long. Recently an angler caught one 6.5"-7” BG; thus the stocked BG are growing.

Because I was not catching fingerling small BG in traps, I sampled just a portion of the beach with a 50ft long seine. I caught 30+ 1”-1.5” BG and three 4-5” BG. Numerous small BG are probably abundant in other shoreline areas as no bass predators are present.
Soon this Spring in early June, I expect BG spawn again, I want to introduce the best numbers and sizes of LMB to the pond for OPTIMUM control of what now seems to be over abundant BG and their lack of soon to be good growth rates. I would not rather have to feed fish pellets as it tends to create some excess fertility and FA problems.

Would you folks please provide some experienced PBoss opinions of what sizes and numbers of LMB to stock, to effectively reduce the now probably abundant BG population to then to grow mainly big BG WITHOUT the pellet feeding? Remember the water clarity so far has been 5-7ft indicating lower productivity. I can buy all sizes of LMB (2-4", 4-6", 6-8", 8"-10", 10-12" & even 12+" bass).

Please give your suggestions and or ideas for numbers and sizes of LMB to help get these BG thinned out for mainly having larger average sizes of BG. Thanks in advance for your expertise.

30 6"-8" LMB and 30 8"-10" LMB and maybe 10 to 20 4"-6".

Reason for those numbers?

The 4"-6" will be feeding on this years spawn in the beginning. 6"-8" will target the smaller BG and quickly grow to 8"-10". The 8"-10" will target some of the larger BG but will mostly target 3"-4" BG until they grow bigger, which they will do quickly. Without pellet feeding, what do you consider to be a big bluegill?

Once the LMB spawn in your pond (next year) take out every LMB that you catch that is over 14" in length. Leave the smaller ones in there. You don't want a larger LMB eating any of the larger BG that survive the smaller LMB.

Ask the supplier that you are getting the fish from what size the LMB are running. Are the 8"-10" running on the small side of the range and you will be actually getting 8"-9" fish? Or are they running large and you are actually going to be getting 10" fish or maybe a touch larger?

How much cover is in the pond for the bass to ambush their prey from?

Well I finally returned to offer my opinion of the Carrying Capacity for Brad Biller’s 0.5 ac clear water pond managed for no pellet feeding of the fish and growing larger sizes bluegill. This will be a management challenge for sure for Brad Biller. I also included estimates going forward for the fish to be removed. Brad says the water clarity still has usually been 5ft-8ft for Secchi disk.

I have spent some time gathering various informational items; some from AI, my literature library, plus I added my opinions when appropriate.

As a review, for an unusual first fish pond stocking of just mature bluegills, the current results from a 10 month later sampling of the initial stocking of larger BG using angling, a couple types of fish traps and a 50 ft long brief seine survey all methods revealed the stocked BG are growing to sizes of 4”-8” and reproducing. The new hatchling 2025 crop of BG now range in sizes of 1.3” to 2.0”. Largemouth of at least 4 sizes up to 12” have been added.
Note the pond now has at least 4 to maybe 5 year classes of LMB.
Bass Added were as of 5/19/26 – 125 3”-4”; 12-6-8 “; 10 8”-10”; 10 -10”-12”; and 13 of 12”+ inch bass.

Mr. Biller prefers no pellet feeding to help maintain the clear water conditions. However with the clear water, he is dealing with green string algae. IMO the string algae is absorbing nutrients from the pond, competing with phytoplankton and helping to maintain clear water conditions.

Going forward, always keep in mind that my suggested weights of the fishery (carrying capacity) are for a good balanced community where fish are not overcrowded and where prey and predators are growing good or for hopefuly the best growth they can achieve in clear water of 5ft to 8ft.
Overcrowding always reduces the ability of the fishes to grow optimally. This is where good management of the populations of your herd of fish becomes important when GOALS of keeping good growth rates are important. Methods for managing a fishery are very similar to managing a herd of land animals. Basically control their numbers and keep them well fed.

Ewest’s above quote “”As to Bill's points on carrying capacity in this pond as described, my guess is no more than 200 lbs of total fish.”
Thanks ewest. I contend that carrying capacity is strongly influenced by water clarity and IF light reducing pond dye is used then it reduces the amounts of plant growth, which includes the growth of phytoplankton as the basis of the NATURAL amount of fish foods produced. Pond dye as colorant is designed and intended to reduce ‘most’ but not all forms of plant growth. Reducing phytoplankton reduces the ultimate weight of fishery production for a pond. Mr. Biller up to now is not using blue pond dye.

CLEAR WATER from AI.
• Too Clear (> 30 inches): If you can see deeper than 30 inches, the water is generally considered infertile. This limits natural food production, makes prey fish too visible and more vulnerable to predators, and leaves shallow areas open for too abundant or excessive rooted weed growth, this includes green string algae. Largemouth do not grow well when too much vegetation is present i.e. >30% coverage of the pond basin.

For non-chemically managing the overly abundant algae and weeds, I usually suggest herbivorous fish such as grass carp and or tilapia. These fish I contend the goal should be to consume around ½ if the vegetation and ¼ should be manually removed and leave ¼ of it to provide beneficial habitat and compete with nuisance algae for space and nutrients. When harvesting tilapia or ANY fish specie from the pond this removes nutrients from the pond eco-system to help minimize the total fertility that grows more plants including problematic plants and string algae (aka FA).

AI says Unfertilized Clear Ponds: Max carrying capacity is typically 50-100 pounds of sportfish such as Largemouth Bass and Bluegill PER surface acre.

AI - Carrying capacity is determined by several limiting factors. In unfertilized waters, fertility is a limiting factor as it produces living items that fish eat i.e. fish foods. If just live fish foods are the limiting factor and are the primary fish foods, then water quality will generally be good and conducive to long lived fish; also known as Bob Lusk’s “Happy Water”. For a given natural fertility, most pond water is "under-optimal" for the production of food. Then for improving fish production a good mix of structure, plants, community players, and edge habitat increases food production naturally and sometimes results with an improvement of water quality parameters i.e. more happy water.

Thus unfertilized ponds with water clearer than 30” may produce less than 100 pounds of fish per acre, thus this can result in as little as 50 TOTAL pounds of fish in 0.5 ac as roughly 40 lbs of BG and 10 LB of bass. In ponds,,,, note the proper water alkalinity has a big influenceence in the amount of total fish production starting with the amount of good types of phytoplankton at the bottom of the food chain.

In comparison, a fertilized, un-aerated pond, with good alkalinity(>40+mg/L aka ppm), the maximum carrying capacity of fish can be 300 to 400 pounds per surface acre. This is roughly three to four times the limit of an unfertilized or low fertility pond. Thus Pond Fertility makes a measurable difference in the amount of fish a pond produces.

With the addition of supplemental feeding and mechanical aeration, this carrying capacity can even push upward of 500 lbs to 800+ pounds per acre. Fertilized ponds contain various forms of green water and at times the types of green growths can be abundant or over abundant forms such as phytoplankton, filamentous algae, and other forms of submerged weeds. In over nutrient enriched water (hypertrophic), the green water can then be composed of mainly varying concentrations of harmful toxin producing Cyanobacteria (old name bluegreen algae) with sometimes some good green phytoplankton mixed in.

The total pounds of fish in all types of ponds will usually be distributed among all sizes of the fish species present. Those pounds will most always be divided by the numbers of prey and predators.

This is 'how in theory' it works. In natural food produced pond populations,,,, the prey to predator ratio is or should be at least 10 and often 20 prey (fish) or more to every predator. So right from the onset, the natural food pond will ideally have about 15 times more pounds of prey fish (forage) than predator fish.

Let's assume that the Biller 0.5 ac pond is "low average" fertility with 75 fish pounds (150lbs/ac). This means that the Biller pond should have around 70 pounds of prey fish and 5 pounds of predator. We will assume that there are 5, 1 lb bass in his pond. Each should or can eat 6-10 lbs of forage per year. This should ideally leave a remaining 20-30 pounds of preyfish (panfish) in Spring to reproduce and then provide the main foods for the next year.

However, often what happens is the predators reproduce each year, not enough are removed, and now more predators are too abundant and as a result they over eat the prey fish depleting their numbers and sizes (pounds). Now the pond is out of ideal balance. Predator growth suffers as their growth slows down and predators get skinny. This is where many pond owners use fish pellets as a supplemental food or add forage fish to compensate for the lack of natural prey food items to hopefully boost the number and sizes of sustainable larger sized prey fish and often too many predators. In theory an unbalanced situation.


Ponds can be managed and maintained without feeding pellets. The pellets cause more fish pounds to be raised, as hopefully more larger fish, and hopefully faster growing fish. To do it WITHOUT pellet feeding, one just has to MANAGE for a lot fewer fish so there is always adequate numbers of forage food items (small fish and invertebrates) available so the few remaining fish do eat well and grow well.

Good pond management depends on one’s goals but you can't have it both ways i.e. only natural foods and lots of big quality fish per acre. The all natural foods pond can have some or a few quality big fish but not lots of them. As the water becomes clearer fewer fish ponds will be raised. Lower fertility and less natural foods can produce a few high quality fish per acre.

Here are suggested AI examples for some average fish harvest rates PER ACRE for unfertilized bluegill / bass ponds.
Bluegill when they reach 7” remove 40lb (120 fish) per acre per year. (Biller = 20lb as 20-40 BG mainly as females)
Largemouth bass 2nd+ year remove 10 lbs (8fish) per acre per year. (Biller 2-3lbs).
Ref: Bluegill Standard Weights: 7”=4.4oz, 8”=6.7oz, 9”=9.9oz
LMB Standard Weight:
6”=1.5oz, 7”=2.4oz, 8”=3.7oz, 9”=5.5oz, 10”=7.2oz, 11”=10.6oz, 12”=14.0 oz

Thus I estimate the harvest rates per year in 0.5 ac of Brad’s CLEAR WATER ponds can be bluegill as 10-20 lb (20-40) and bass 2-4 lbs = 2-3 bass.

IMPORTANT NOTE
Since Mr.Biller only initially stocked several sizes of mature bluegill and no bass, one bluegill spawning season has passed. Advice of some experienced PB forum members suggested before the 2nd BG spawning season to stock several sizes and relatively large numbers of bass to compensate and have best control for future generations of BG. The management task now going forward is to MONITOR the initially stocked LMB to keep the BG/LMB fishery skewed toward a high predator balance for the goal of producing large BG. For growing extra large BG it is okay to have thin bodied bass who are continually hungry and always looking for small BG as dinner guests.

Several items to be aware of. 1. Too many LMB were probably stocked especially the 3”-4” size group to insure good predation of the first and newest crop of BG. 2. How many of the initially stocked bass survived and how is this determined?. 3. Did any of the initially stocked mature LMB reproduced their first Spring in the pond? 4. How many and what sizes of LMB should be removed in 2026?

Going forward if the water clarity and amount of plankton growth shifts to even more clear water and more weed and FA growth occurs in the even more clear water of 7-9ft this will change the movement of nutrients up the food chain and IMO fewer pounds of fish that can or should be harvested per acre because less actual plankton in the pond grows fewer pounds of fish. In the opposite water clarity shift however, with more cloudy greener water and water clarity decreases to 3ft then the fish harvest numbers could be a few more bluegill can be moved per year. Let the pond angler catch records guide you going forward as proactive fishery management tasks.

Background Info of Trophic Levels and Energy Structure in a Pond
Energy is transferred up in a food web or food chain from the lower plant & zooplankton levels to the animal consumers in higher trophic levels. Typically, only about 10% of the energy at one trophic food level is made available to the next level. This representation is usually shown simplified by the standard ecological pyramid.
The remaining 90% of the energy from each higher consumer level to the next higher level is used for metabolic processes for swimming and hunting or is released into the environment as heat. The energy loss simplifies why there are rarely more than four trophic levels in a food web or food chain. At times there can be a 5th trophic level, however, generally, there is not enough energy remaining to support any extra trophic levels.

Rationale and Reasoning.
If we use B.Billers 4-6ft of clear water with no pellet feeding, this average water clarity equates to a low eutrophic production category. Using the standard 10% of the energy of each level is transferred to the next level, I calculate that the usual amount of phytoplankton (plant) production in this type of pond having a medium high alkalinity will amount to a total of 9,180 pounds PER ACRE as a basic production level of annual plant production hopefully consisting mainly as phytoplankton and not composed mainly of FA and rooted plants. This equates to 4500 pounds of phytoplankton in Biller’s 0.5 acre 1,000,000 gallons pond.

Moving up from 4,500 lbs of phytoplankton production to the next trophic level will be a consumers level consists as mostly all invertebrates that includes the zooplankton and all “bugs”. Then this amounts to around 450 -500 pounds of ‘bug’ life in his 0.5 acre 1,000,000 gallons pond. The third consumer level will be small fish and panfish (BG) and the carrying capacity of panfish (forages) will then be around 40-45 total panfish pounds. Predatory fish weight of largemouth bass at the very top of the pond food chain or level then results in a Biller bass poundage of around 4 - 5 lbs that are living in the 1,000,000 gallons of a 4ft to 6ft clear water ecosystem.

FROM BOB LUSK’S POND BOSS ARTICLE FOR GROWING BASS AND BLUEGILL
The article was based on discussions of four BG/LMB pond managing pros.
https://www.pondboss.com/news/free-articles/selective-harvest-or-catch-and-release---by-bob-lusk
Main points for growing BG-LMB were as follows.

"You need to have a goal of what you want the dominant fish species to be, and what you hope their sizes will be," Cody said. "Once you have that objective, you can manage the populations toward that goal."
For every surface acre in a CLEAR-WATER pond you might end up with only 4-to-5 pounds of predators and 40 pounds of forage," Cody said. "In fertile, naturally alkaline waters, the numbers might be 40 pounds of predators and 400 pounds of forage."
"In an all-purpose fishery, most of the harvest will be 5-to-7 inch bluegill and bass that range 8-to-12 inches," Cody said. The management goal here should be to maintain large numbers of 12-to-15 inch bass that will control bluegill numbers and provide a good run on a medium-action fishing rod. Cody's recommendation: Impose a "slot limit" that will protect bass in the 12-to-15 inch class. A plump 15” bass should weigh 1.8lbs.
As population densities go up, the likelihood for top-end trophy size goes down.
• Bass convert food at a rate of 10:1. Ten pounds of food for one pound of weight gain. To grow bigger fish, the pond owner must feed his forage base and/or reduce the competition for food or as Cody said, "thin out the brothers and sisters."
• To keep panfish numbers in check, anglers should consider keeping most bluegill they catch. But, don’t remove the largest bluegill. Keep the next smaller size.
• When bluegill are marquee species, Cody says pond owners are always tempted to lop off the population at the top. Give those mature fish a chance to do their jobs, the consultants say.
• "Be very careful not to overharvest the large bluegill," Cody said. "Harvest mostly the mid-sized fish 5-to-8 inch range, and release all the fish greater than 8 or 9 inches long." Release especially the males and you can harvest some of the large females.
"You can manage for trophy panfish by limiting harvest of your largemouth," Cody said. "Leaving a dense population of bass will directly control the abundance of bluegill. The panfish that manage to escape predation will have lots of food and space to grow quickly." When on the annual paper catch records that the largest size of BG is not getting gradually larger then there are too many of the smaller sizes of BG in the pond. More foods are needed for the group of largest BG be it natural foods and or pellets.

When big or even giant bluegill are your goal, Cody suggests not removing bass less than 15 inches long. These vigorous predators will be the most active when serving on bluegill patrol. If bass become skinny, looking as though they are all head and no body, Cody recommends removing some bass in the 8-to-12 inch class.
In trophy bluegill waters of the Midwest, where growing seasons may run from Easter to Labor Day, the harvest of large bluegill should be moderate and thoughtful as for which sizes and numbers that are removed .
"You should take no more than about 20-to-30 bluegill per surface acre per year," Cody said. "In this scenario, bluegill should weigh two or three times more than bluegill in the general all-purpose fishing ponds."

Thanks for attending and reading Pond Boss Forum.

I like the advice and ideas that have been good and very relative for an unusual first stocking of just a couple sizes of bluegill(BG) with no predators into a 0.5 acre pond. Indeed - an unusual first fish stocking. A 10 month later sampling of bluegill(BG) with a couple types of traps and a brief seine survey using a 50ft long minnow seine revealed the stocked BG are growing and the new 2025 crop of BG now range in size of 1.3” to 2.0”.

I contacted Brad Biller and provided my bass stocking advice for his goals of ultimately having generally bigger sizes of BG. My advice was very similar to what has been suggested by the PB Forum members.. In addition to what the LMB moderators suggested that be stocked, I suggested to also add some 3”-4” LMB who would focus only on eating the new 2026 crop of hatchling BG.

As an update, here is what B.Biller said he has done as of May 19 2026. Note the pond now has at least 3 to maybe 5 year classes of LMB.
Bass Added were as of 5/19/26 – 125 3”-4”; 12-6-8 “; 10 8”-10”; 10 -10”-12”; and 13 of 12”+ inch bass. Originally Mr Biller ordered a few more numbers of the medium bass, then he changed his order and asked the Fish Farm for some of the smallest 3”-4” bass as a substitute for a few of the medium size bass. Well the fish farm did what IMO many fish farms do and over provided 125 of smallest LMB to replace seveal of the medium size bass. IMO the number of smallest 3”-4” LMB should have been closer to numbers of 20-30 instead of 125. IMO likely a good number of the smallest bass will now be fish food for the larger sizes of bass.

Now going forward, I think Mr.Biller’s pond management challenge will be to monitor the numbers and sizes of BG to achieve fewer numbers of larger BG so all remaining BG have excess foods so they can then grow to sizes that meet his goals of having larger BG for his pond.

I am currently and slowly working on a general idea of how many pounds of BG and bass his clear water 5ft-8ft transparency new pond will be able to grow to have carrying capacity in very clear water of 5ft to 8ft without pellet feeding. Stay tuned for what I come up with for BG and LMB pounds that the pond can grow.

Interesting conversation ! From the info provided it looks like OP has a more or less balanced BG population at this point (all sizes of BG present and growing). The conundrum is time. If you want it fixed fast ,you do one thing (rely on the newly stocked LMB adding numbers of larger LMB than suggested)) to control and if you want a longer term fix (relying on the smaller newly stocked bass plus their offspring) to control that is a longer term project . Neither is a permanent fix as over time one of the populations (BG or LMB) will get out of balance with the goal. If you want to hedge your bet then reduce the # of smaller LMB to be added by 20% and add 5-6 12 inch LMB. That will speed things up and likely add an additional year class of LMB. Lots of unknown variables at work so with all of our suggestions - buyer beware.

As to Bill's points on carrying capacity in this pond as described, my guess is no more than 200 lbs of total fish.

jpsdad would impress the heck out of you if he posted pictures of some of the great big BG he has grown in his pond!

Since the Moderators are near consensus, then perhaps you should go with that. Possibly a blend of esshup's and ewest's recs. EG 25 8"-10", 25 6"-8", and 10 or 20 4"-6".

Were it me, I would request the supplier to provide the LMB fin clipped. If each length class of LMB were fin clipped in a different fin location so that the initial length class info is preserved and can be tracked.

esshup has an idea of what he anticipates as growth for the LMB. Long story short, the faster those LMB grow, the more BG they ate (or if you will ... the greater number of BG were controlled). Success would be defined as enough BG population control that the growth of the BG provides the BG fishing experience you are seeking. So long as that is reasonable, and so long as your predators are a good match for the goal, then you should attain your goal.

So I am not sure what is reasonable expectation in OH. But my favorite decades old ponds in OK for BG grow BG to 10"-11". They do that with native fertility and with little or no human intervention. They tend to be overpopulated with LMB ... although I do occasionally catch LMB up to 15" in them. In these ponds, there is enough LMB predation so that that oldest BG can reach in excess of 1 lb without culling the BG or the LMB. I figure the standing weights are pretty low relative to the forage potential. So a pond that may support a total of 650 lbs of BG (without predation) may only have 200 -300 lbs of total fish. These ponds are old enough to have accumulated the nutrients that support a forage potential of 650 lbs. The difference between the forage potential and the standing weight is the biomass of mortality annually. The major portion of that mortality are BG consumed by LMB.

With a goal, to harvest BG, a pond like these top producers of BG top-end sizes needs to have some the LMB thinned. This should have two effects. 1st it should allow greater survival of BG that can reach harvestable sizes. 2nd it will necessarily reduce the rate of annual growth. In a case where LMB are cropped to allow greater BG survival, where one still wants examples exceeding 10", the harvest becomes a necessary part of growing BG to >10". Just talking a stable system where the recruitment of BG bigger than the LMB gape equals the sum of natural and harvest mortality. Well managed, you could harvest a consistent number of BG annually and grow dandy BG (though a modestly smaller top-end weight than when predation is greater). A pond managed with less predation will attain a greater standing weight of total fish.

Even though there is a consensus, you will still need to monitor the situation. IOWs, you can't take success for granted. Success means you are happy with BG growth. BG > 5" are capable of growing up to an average of .39 lbs annually in OH. I base that on a model sourced from the forum and posted by Bill Cody. Your expectation should be some partial/whole fraction of that. The lower the growth ... this is evidence that the number of BG exceeds what would be required to attain the maximum potential.

You've allowed the BG a year without predators and so the biggest concern from my perspective is the population structure of the BG. Your preliminary seine census seems to indicate that 1"-1.5" BG are 10 times more numerous than the 4"-5" BG. If this were reflective of the whole pond, then the standing weight of 4"-5" BG is roughly 6 times greater than the standing weight of 1"-1.5" BG. It's not clear how close the standing weight BG is to forage potential. If the forage potential is mostly filled, then growth will be moderated mostly by mortality. IOWs, the surviving BG can and will grow into the potential freed by natural mortality. So the key here, is that mortality must be high enough to support the growth you are trying to achieve. That's where the predators come in. You want them to provide that mortality.

The biggest challenge ... as I see it ... is the control of BG >4" in length. 8"-10" LMbass averaging 9" in length will have a maximum consumable prey size of 3" BG (33% length). The laterally compressed body of the BG will serve as protection against predation LMB. Given your census indicates a biomass of 4.5" BG 6 times greater than the smaller BG ... and the 4.5" BG are to large fit a 10" LMB gape ... it seems the food the 8"-10" LMB will be relying on will be smaller than 3.5" in length and so they will be competing with the smaller LMB for those resources. They have to eat ... don't they? And so they will eat but they will not eat BG bigger than their gape.


Long story short, I do believe you are going to have to introduce mortality to the BG >4" in order to get growth to a good proportion of the BG potential. Traps, fishing, seining ... these can all help. If you don't do this I think the number of LMB you are stocking would lead to poor growth of the LMB where they never reach the size required to thin those >4". Natural mortality (excluding LMB predation mortality) will drive the growth of BG.

FWIW ... I do not believe that there is an optimum number of LMB to reach your goal of large BG. The present condition of the BG size structure is favorable to an LMB size structure that is low in number, with high rates of growth, and large average weights. It is not favorable to an LMB size structure that is high in number, with low rates of growth and low average weights. The latter is what you are trying to move your pond to in order to grow larger BG. You need a good population of LMB but the BG the population structure is like a desert to such a large number of LMB which means they would not grow sufficiently to consume your 4.5 BG which are probably presently over abundant to reach your goals. Removing some of these fish will free forage potential for the survivors growth and it should increase the number of BG YOY recruits that your introduced abundant LMB will need.