Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations small bass

i have a 4 year old 6 acre pond that we are trying to manage for nice bass.the last 3 years our bream fishing has been very good and bass fishing not very good.this year it seems the bream fishing is off about 30-40% and the bass fishing is great for fish in the 7-10 inch range and fair for larger fish.what should we do with the 7-10 inch bass,i just started taking 11-13 inch bass out this past week.but i dont know what to do with the smaller fish.thanks

A couple of questions first, wrt your bream fishing. Do you mean you're catching 30-40% fewer bream than previously? What size(s) are the bream compared to prior years?

RE Theo's post. Keep a log of all fish caught. Do some trend analysis. I think you will see that you are bass heavy and will want to toss all small bass. Don't worry; you can't catch enough to do any damage. I would rather keep a 7 to 10 inch than the 11 to i3 inch.

yes,we are catching fewer bream than in past years.we feed twice a day and you still see activity when feeding but not like past years.bream seem to be all sizes when we catch them.we are not catching very many bass over 14 inches but like i wrote yesterday we do catch about 2-4 small bass(7-9 inch) per hour.i've never heard anyone say to take these bass out but i've had people say to take 11-13 inch bass out.

Bass heavy usually mens bluegill light. Don't worry about it. Hit the small bass hard. Too may of them can influence your forage base.

Steve we started changing our recommendations a few years ago. If most bass were 11-13 inches we would say take those but leave smaller bass so they can grow. NO more.

Why are 11-13 inch bass msall b/c they have to live off eating say 200 tiny 1-2 inch bluegill instead of 2 nice 4 inch bluegill. They use up too much energy. So by taking the smaller bass out you are allowing more tiny bluegill to make it up to hopefully 4 inches a preferred food source for thsoe bass. So Yes take those small bass out as well it will led to a stronger year class growth and help remaining bass. I do not know all details but with info given say take up to 30 lbs/ac of all bass less than 13 inches. Good luck!

Greg's thinking about small bass eating tiny bluegill is right on. At the same time, if you have a population of sizable bass, they prefer to eat larger meals....small bass. Catching big numbers of small bass is an indicator of too few big bass.
I vote with the others. Keep culling small bass.
Regarding feeding bluegill. Keep it up. Right now, your population of bluegill is as low as it will be for the remainder of the year. It should expand during summer months. If not, remove more bass.