Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations 10 Acre Pond: What Size Bass Limits?

I have a 10 acre pond in East Texas that is now 8 years old. It was stocked with largemouth bass, coppernose bluegill, and channel catfish 8 years ago. Four years later I added a bunch of threadfin shad. There are quite a few 10-12 lb channel cats in the pond, and the coppernose bluegill are plentiful. I am also seeing some schools of shad swimming in the deeper areas of the pond when the water is calm. There have also been a few crappie caught here there and yonder although none were stocked.

I should also probably say that I add 100 lbs of phosphorus granulated fertilize every spring, and sometimes another 50-100 lbs in the fall if the water gets too clear.

I have lots of friends that like to come fish for bass, and I try my best to keep track of what they catch and keep. My goal is to raise 10+ lb bass, and we got the first documented 10+ pound fish about a month ago. There have been about 10 bass caught this summer that were above 9 pounds.

Right now, I am letting people keep any bass that is 18" long and under. I am just wondering if that is the right way to approach a size limit on the bass to try and have a nice number of large fish in my 10 acre pond. I have been keeping track of how many were taken out, and for the last three years it has been between 100 to 200 bass, and about 50 channel catfish per year.

What do you experts think I should impose as a size limit on the bass to try and get the 10+ pound fish to be more common?

What type of LMB. 10 lb + northern(regular) LMB are uncommon.

If you have 1 LMB per acre in the 9-10 lb range you are doing well.

Weigh and measure all LMB caught and make a RW chart.

Prof Dick Anderson - he wrote the book literally on LMB RW and PSD. See below for LMB size structure. This is for northern/regular LMB.


Registered: 18/09/06
Posts: 5
Loc: TX, MO, WI

Keep taking <12 in bass until the number 8-12 equals number 12-15. Ideal pond structure is 40% 8-12, 40% 12-15 and 20% 15+

An electroshock survey may be very helpful in your management decisions.

My bass are Florida's.

Am I chasing a ghost? Is in unreasonable to have 10+ pound Florida bass in a 10 acre pond?

I have an east Texas pond of 7 acres with a mix of (mostly) Florida LMB and some Northern LMB. Lake record LMB is 7 lb, but larger fish have been seen. HSB have grown even larger, lake record is a 12 caught this May. Last electrosurvey spotted a 10 plus LMB, but couldn't get it into net before it recuperated & swam off. So based on my experience, multiple 9 plus fish means you're doing great! This is particularly true of Florida LMB, which are harder to tempt than Northern strain.

Re harvest, I recall Bob Lusk talking with a top bass pro who complained about the lack of 10 plus fish in his pond. Like you, he allowed harvest of fish up to 18 inches. Bob listened to his woes, then said, "If you harvest a 4 lb bass, it will never grow to 10 lb."

PS What do your friends use to catch the larger LMB? Plastic worms, live bait, spinnerbaits?

It's not impossible, but probably very narrowly possible.

An incredible forage base, an intensive feeding program, intensive culling program of certain LMB sizes, and removal of all non-LMB predator fish would all be part of the formula.

Large swimbaits. If you want big fish, use big baits.

The recent lake record was caught on a frog shaped lure early in the morning. Many of the fish cleaned this year have had crawfish in their bellies. Spinner baits are catching fish up to 5 lbs. Worms are catching fish up to 3 lbs. Rattle traps and dark sleepers are catching fish up to 9 lbs.

So a rattle trap with a worm on the trail hook should catch a 12-pounder!


P.S. Good luck on continuing to push up the lake record!

Your pond sounds great especially that the shad are surviving and spawning. I had to look up what a dark sleeper was.....Now I want one! Glad I spent some time this spring moving crawdads to my main pond!

If it were only that easy!

One time this year, back in about April, I took my little pontoon out and threw nothing but a dark sleeper for about an hour and a half. I caught about 30 bass in that time weighing between 1/2 lb to 4 lbs. It's a great lure. I did not manipulate the rod at all, just varied my retrieve.

Crazy as it seems, the only 10+ bass that have been caught were on smallish baits no more than 3 inches long.

Well, nobody has offered an advice to my original question. Am I imposing the right size limit?

Same, had to look it up online. May have to order some.

I think you got your answer in the first two responses.

No one can answer your question without a ton of valid sampling of the current fish populations in your pond.

There is no "one size fits all" answer.

Sorry that we couldn't be more helpful, but re-read those first two posts and try to grasp exactly what information they were attempting to convey.

(An additional "sorry" for my bad dad joke in your thread. It is fairly common on Pond Boss to get some slightly off-topic banter going in the threads. I am certainly one of the worst offenders!)

Re-read ewest's post above. He gave you the answer.

"Keep taking <12 in bass until the number 8-12 equals number 12-15. Ideal pond structure is 40% 8-12, 40% 12-15 and 20% 15+"

I see that now. When I saw it the first time I guess I just skipped over it because it sort of looked like a signature line due to the spacing.

Fascinating.

Sounds like (from re-reading your posts above) that you are on course. Multiple different size LMB caught. Watch your forage base for good size distribution (enough food for all sizes of LMB). If you see a large LMB that looks skinny, then you are behind the forage curve. On Doc Anderson's formula it is a guidepost not an absolute answer. Remove all LMB that look skinny (except for just post-spawn).