Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations It's 6:00 CST......I own a 7 acre........

Lake in Kerrville Texas. The problem I'm having is the lake is overpopulated w/ black bass. The water is crystal clear, vegetation is sparse now, but as it warms up the vegetation gets much more abundant. I have ample perch for forage, but it seems the smaller perch disappear after a few months. I have done a length to weight survey, and the bass are 50% underweight. Last year I started taking out everything 14" and smaller, although I caught a mess of fish........it seems that this year, I'm having the same problem. I went fishing last Sat....caught about 30 bass……90% were about 11" in length..........no size at all. Any suggestions???

Larry:

Have you done a seine or electro-shocking survey to determine your forage base? It's sounds as though you may have too many hogs trying to feed at the same little trough.

A bass population that has been ignored can get badly out of balance, as shown by your 50% relative weights. (Take pictures. That's about as bad as it gets.)

In a lake with seven surface acres, the problem can take a couple growing seasons, maybe even three, to correct. This is especially true in the case of a deep lake with abundant aquatic vegetation. The depth gives fish more room to expand their population, but the vegetation gives the forage (baitfish) places to hide.

In quail management, they call this "escape cover." In bass ponds, it can spell trouble with skinny fish.

A couple things: I'm in Boerne. Thirty minutes away. Maybe I come over some day and take a look. If you do, in fact, need to remove bass, I might have a cost-effective way to do that for you.

McD
830.816.2548

BTW, I watched Texas play Okie State in baseball Saturday. Horns won 2-1 in one of those classic, air-tight pitching duels that I love. I was most impressed with the way OSU handled its business. Guys from both teams were making diving catches, awesome throws to nail baserunners. I mean major league plays. Crowd was going wild. Good college competition. Big 12 is cool to watch.

It's 7:27 and not much traffic..........Mark I tried........I really believe this format is going to work...You just need to let your readers know the site is here, and give them a little push........The best thing about this format is once people start coming here on a regular basis.........you start to get to know posters.......and you start to make cyber friends w/ the same goals, and intrests that you have......give it time........it will come.

Dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyymn.........Hello Mark!! No I haven't tried a electro shock. They did one several years ago, and recomended to thin out the bass.........but it wasen't done at the time, and now I'm paying the price.

Those horns are kickin' butt.....but like I told you...I'm not a big Augie fan........now maybe if they win a N.C......I could warm up to him a little,

I'll take you up on that offer to take a look at my lake.......that would be awesome........hell I'd even spring for lunch......Bring your fishin' pole....I just might put ya' to work!!!

Hornstrider,
Your lake sounds like a classic case of too many mouths, not enough to eat. The best scenario is this...understand it takes at least ten pounds of baitfish for a bass to gain a pound. Too many bass distributes too little food, so your fish aren't even maintaining their weight. Remove as many bass as you can while focusing on increasing the food chain with adult bluegill, a feeding program and monitoring aquatic vegetation. Lots of factors, but simply focusing on removing mouths and increasing bluegill will make a difference. One important note...don't worry about removing too many bass from your system. That's not likely. You probably have a bass spawning haven, so recruitment of bass into your system will not be the problem. And, if a bass if 50% underweight, he probably won't recover to a large size anyway. Younger fish will fill that niche. Take out all small bass, stock adult bluegill if you don't have any, and focus on bluegill production with floating fish food.