Just wanted to check in and introduce myself - long time lurker who has benefited over the years from the wealth of information on the forum.We have a roughly 12 acre lake behind our house in central NC which was a tremendous fishery 15 years ago but has now diminished to a shadow of what it once was - only stunted bass (and not many of them) OK bream fishing and a few crappie now. Our 3 1/2 year old is very excited about fishing (as am I) and I am looking forward to taking on the project of getting our pond back to life. Thanks in advance for any / all suggestions on my future posts!

- Cullen

Welcome to active posting, Cullen!!

Cullen,

Does your family own all of the lake, or is it a community lake or shared lake?

That will heavily influence your options.

Welcome to PB, and good luck with your renovation project!

Welcome!

I also am curious about the ownership.

Thoughts:
Stunted bass with ok bream fishing. It should be hard to have stunted bass with plentiful bluegills. Wrong sized prey? A bass needs prey that is 1/4 to 1/3 it’s size. And it needs a lot of them. Minnows and baby bluegills should feed larger bluegills and baby bass.

Adequate cover for young fish?