Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Deciphering a 20+ year old unmanaged pond

Proud new owner of a 2/3 acre pond in central Virginia. My goal is to have a healthy population of BG and LMB with a few bass getting to 2-3 lbs and the remainder being smaller. Long term I'm planning on aeration and feeding bluegill to boost pond productivity. I recognize a 2/3 acre pond will require closer management.

However, I first have to figure out what I got today...

Pond appears healthy having done the basic water testing of Ph, phosphates, nitrates, etc. with everyone coming back in healthy levels. Water clarity is about 24’, good depth throughout with 3’ at banks dropping quickly to 8’-11’ for most of the pond area, it’s light on aquatic plants, some filamentous algae (not bad but watching), and decent structure with numerous downed trees. I've seen plenty of frogs, newts, toads, turtles. A toad spawn(?) last week was both impressive and raucous.

So onto the fish. Over several days of fishing I’ve only caught or seen small LMB. Of the 30+ fish I’ve caught only one or two was much beyond 10 and none of them were fat. They were not tough to catch. Despite targeting bluegill while fishing, I’ve come up empty. I haven’t set a minnow trap but that is next on my list. So far looks it like LMB need to be culled.

I’ve caught and release everything to date, but haven’t done any length and weight documentation.

What are recommended next steps give what I’ve done so far?

As an aside, I’m not willing to do a drain and start over.

1997, it sounds to me like you would consider the challenge of turning your pond around by hands on management called fishing. IMHO, nice problem to have, and just how I've approached improving our 1/4 acre pond.

12 years ago our primary fish were YP and LMB. I fished it for a couple of years just to be sure what really was in there. I wanted to understand the entire ecosystem, not just what fish were present.

What you could do without "hurting a thing" is remove each and every bass you catch, 3" ones, 12" ones, every one. Eventually your catch rate may go down and bass condition may improve.

After a few years of mainly having only small bass here, I began the cull. We took about 300! out. Concurrently we stocked about 25 adult GSF and 25 7-8" BG that were ready to spawn. We now have recruitment of both sunfish. And, our YP are bigger, too.

All of this is to say, start a ruthless, merciless cull. It is unlikely you'd ever kill every bass. Any survivors could be brood stock for the future. They may have lost growth, but they haven't lost their genetics. That is to say they might not reach their potential size before they die, but their offspring can grow to your desired 2-3 pounds once there is more forage for them and fewer mouths to gobble that forage.

With several more fishing excursions using small hooks and pieces of worm for bait, you'll get a good idea of what else, if anything, is in there, and if and what is needed for forage fish addition.

HSB are a great idea. What fighters!

One item to think about re merciless culling of 2/3 acre pond: As you take out most of the aggressive, catchable LMB, those that are left tend not to bite artificial lures. Research shows that tendency is passed on to future generations. Thus, you may want to occasionally stock a few very aggressive LMB, perhaps northern strain, to preserve catchable genetics. Just a thought.

Thanks jpsdad!

Excellent spreadsheet. I like having the formula behind RW=1 and not being tied to charts! Yes, I am a bit of an Excel geek.

I'll keep fishing and logging. Still surprised I haven't gotten or even seen a bluegill but this is a marathon and not a sprint.

The two bigger bass were taken on topwater along banks with deeper water so Matzilla's prediction is dead-on. Virginia warms up before IA. My surface water temp can already hit 75 degrees in the afternoon on a sunny day.

Matzilla,
One question on feeding fish. LMB don't eat the purina fish chow and I may not have BG, so throwing it in may not be doing anything productive. Do you mean something different or I have gone done the wrong path?

I will also keep an eye on the beds. Right now I'm also montoring the emergence of watermeal. This is my first summer and I'm certain there is no such thing as "a little" watermeal. I'm getting suggestions on that in a different thread: Just a little watermeal

1997pond,

Using RW of 90% for the 8" LMB and 80% for the >10" LMB, I made an estimate of the total weight of fish that you took out. It's ~14 lbs or about 21 lbs/acre. I'll mention this is a really good dent of the LMB population in a 2/3 acre pond. The remaining LMB will gain as you may have removed about 25% to 30% of the LMB standing weight. According to the creel, the population is predominately less than 10" in length comprising 82% of the population. The less than 10" LMB also comprised 42% of the weight of the sample. If food limited carrying capacity were 67 lbs (not out of line but could be less) ... and if the sample is reflective of the remaining distribution (2 big ifs) ... we could estimate the number of less than 10" fish that are remaining. 53 lbs X 42% is 22.25 lbs of < 10" fish that average 0.21 fish each. So there could be as many as 89 or so <10" LMB still in the pond. I think what you have taken is going to make a difference. I think I might give them a chance to grow some before harvesting more. What kind of grow they make will give you a good sense of numbers and possibly even carrying capacity. This fall would be a good time to thin again if growth and condition suggest further thinning at this time is necessary.

As for the BG ... I can tell you that I target them specifically most outings and I use a fly rod with flies I used to use a lot for trout. Lately I've been using a size 10 scud. Its been a really cool spring and the BG just aren't biting as well as the LMB are. Yes, I have been catching LMB up to around 13" on that tiny fly. Its been a hoot much like you guys had last weekend. It is possible that there are only LMB in your pond but it still remains a possible that they just haven't started biting or were focusing on other foods in the pond your lure didn't mimic well. Anyways, a very good harvest, well done.

PS. Please correct the estimate of the total weight harvested if you happened to get a total weight. Would like to know.