Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations I finally caught a decent a LARGE bass in my pond.

For the past few weeks I have been catching dozens of small bass, 10-14", each day, but no large ones. I finally got the little ones to leave the lure alone long enough for a sizable bass to pick it up.

At 7.4lb, he ain't gonna set any records, but is definately a big fish for a pond up north.

Ironically, after the big one, I went right back to pulling the small ones in.

Where are the 2-3lb fish?

Congratulations, Duke! A 7.4 pound bass is one heck of a northern bass!! That's a gem!

Do you have panfish in your pond? Bluegills? If so, most should be 8-10 inches long? I'm asking because it relates to your question about the bass sizes.

Dave

The panfish are actually pretty small (4-6"), and are quite few and far in between. there are alot of frogs, and that is what the bass seem to be eating, although i did not check the stomach of the big guy, I let him go unharmed, hopefully to be caught again another day.

Well, Duke, you caught me off-guard with that one! Makes me wonder about your pond fertility. I had assumed that you had a classic pond scenario: high density, slow growing largemouth bass that thin reproduction by the sunfish, so surviving sunfish grow to large sizes. Hmmm. Wonder what is going on in your situation. Do you know if the largemouths are thin, average, or plump? I was guessing that the 10-14 inch LMB were probably pretty thin.

Regardless, my initial comment on the large bass remains the same. A 7.4 pounder is a dandy!

Duke,
If you want to know for sure you would need a shocking survey for the most accurate info. Your next best bet would be to keep records (length and weight) of all of your catches and check their distributions and relative weights. You can look online for a 'fish calculator' that will give you an idea of the average weight per length of your fish. One can be downloaded from www.ibnature.com (guess its ok to post the link). I would be a little concerned that you may have too many bass in your pond and may need to boost your bass harvest, and take out some of the 10"-14" bass, in order to let some of the others grow up... Well, thats my 2 cents.
Sarchasm

Duke,

Congratulations, you may have earned the right to go to pond managment 201.

I am moss green with envy. Are you dyslexic, was she 4.7 lbs? Just kidding. How long was she? Was she heavy with eggs?

A bass that size means she got a lot of food, and a lot of baby bass was most likely included in her diet.

Your 2 to 3 pound bass may have got eaten by the big momma when they were just fingerlings. She and others may have wiped out a generation or two of baby bass a few years ago. A lot to think about.....

Are you are missing small six to eight inch bass? If so, you may need to harvest a lot of the larger ones.

I bet there are some other large females in the pond. Try night fishing with a large bluegill, two hooks, very large bobber, perhaps two or three bobbers. Big bass hit big live-wounded blue gills, bass see well at night. I like to fish with rubber worms at night.

If you kept the 7 plus pounder, it should help your blue gill to recover and allow some of the other bass to put on more weight.

I am not an expert by no means, I am just repeating some stuff I have read in books, some university web sites, and stuff from this site. I have more questions than I have answers but here are some "Facts" you may want to consider:

An extremely well managed pond with proper bluegill and forage fish for bass may grow out as much as 80 lbs of bass per year per acre. An average managed pond will perhaps produce 50 pounds per acre.

It takes about 5 pounds of bluegill to add one pound to a bass. You have to feed the bluegill to get them to support the bass. This is done with fish food or fertilization of the pond which is a touchy subject. Can't wait for the May / June issue of Pond Boss. Bob Lusk has promised it will have a great article on fertilization.

A recommended harvest is 25 lbs of bass per acre per year.

Bob Lusk's book, "Basic Pond Management" recommends harvesting 4 to 6 pounds of the largest bluegill for every pound of bass harvested. This is based on an existing proper balance of forage fish in the pond.

A fish survey is the most accurate method to determine what your situation is for forage fish to bass ratios. A survey may also show you have some other preditors in the pond. Northern Pike is a possibility.

The relative size and quanity of existing blue gill and bass is also a good indicator of too many large preditors.

I am "hobby managing" 3 ponds and I am keeping a record of bass length to weight and also note if my bass are "skinny, full size or fat". Just 2 inches (from 17 to 19) can put a lot of weight on a bass. In one pond, the 19 inch bass weigh less than the 17 inch bass in the other two ponds. The skinny bass pond needs more harvesting and restocking of the bluegill. It becomes more of a science and less guessing once you have some numbers.

A well managed pond will have all sizes of forage fish and all sizes of the top of the food chain preditors.

Sorry, I gave more than 2 cents worth but it helps me focus on my ponds and put some prespective on my harvest plans for this summer.

Thank you for the responses! We first weighed the bass on a little hanging scale, and it was between 7-8lb. I then weighed it with my boca grip which agreed. Finally, we used a neighbors digital hanging scale, and it stated 7.4lb was the magic #.

I'll give a bit of background about the pond, and I guess myself. Prior to 1985 the entire 70acre property was part of a dairy farm and it had 3 small ponds. In 1985 the farm was bought, a new house was built, and the three ponds were joined, making one long and narrow pond. The are of the pond is roughly 8.5acres. It varies from about 250' wide down to 150' wide and is a 1000+' long. The max depth is about 8'. Half of thepond has an average depth of about 4-5', and half of the pond has depths between 1-2'. Most of the inlets (mostly seasonal runoff)are in the shallow end The deepest parts are down by the earthen levy. The shoreline is heavily brushed.

The previous owner (1985-2005) did not fish at all, he used the pond for duck hunting. His son pulled a few fish out, but did not fish often. He never stocked the pond with anything except triploid grass carp, and did not use any feed.

As you walk along the shoreline you see schools of bass ranging from about 6-14" in length. If you paddle out in the canoe, you can see the occasional LARGE bass hovering by the submerged logs, but never any 2-3lb'ers. I also don't really see many sunfish/bluegills. You see the occasional small ones hiding in the weeds by shore, but I haven't seen any big ones yet. I ahve only owned the property for a month, and work has kept me from investigating it very much.

I don't know anything about pond management, I am just an avid catch and release fisherman. I wasn't planning on keeping any fish, but I guess I will have to if the population is becoming stunted. I didn't really do any length to weight comparisons, but I will start soon. Based on the bass that I having catching in lakes in the area over the years, I would say these fish are average in terms of girth and muscle mass. I have noticed that they tend to tire more quickly than the lake bass, but otherwise are very similar.

Any input is appreciated.

Duke, there are all kinds of stragies you can use with your lake, not just one.

Here's one to consider. That is putting in a feeder for your bass. In our case at least, a significant minority of LMB did learn to eat pellets. Since your LMB might be very hungry, you might get even more of them to start eating pellets.

An update, although I still haven't seen many 2-3lbers, I did catch several 4-lber's and I can now confirm that there are many sunfish in the pond. They are spawning right now and there are hundreds of sunnies in the 4-6" range, hopefully the bass are eating their full.