Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Adding grown fish to existing pond?

I recently bought 6 acres here on Lake Fork in Texas which has a pond on it which is probably about an acre in size. Basically, it is the tip of a string of ponds which are the result of a finger of the lake being dammed up in several places. Heres a sat picture. Mine is the tip of the finger by the brown dot and the "2946" on the map.



I do not know anything about the history of the pond but would imagine it held water when Lake Fork was created and have no clue when it was dammed up. Also do not know anything about stocking history. Looking around the edge in the weeds, I can see a good amount of small minnows and anytime you go out with minnows and a bobber, 4-6" BG can be caught all you want it seems. After fishing the pond a few times, we caught 5 or 6 bass which were in the 1-3 lbs range. I have not tried catfishing other than one time with worms on the bottom which did not get bit. In the two months Ive been here, I have been adding bass caught in Lake Fork and caught from other ponds. I have added maybe 10-15 LMB so far. Ive added (1) 8-lber, (2) 4 1/2 lbers, and the rest were in the 2 1/2 to 4 lbs range.

The bass in this pond are very hard to catch. I can fish the pond on the other side of my dam and catch 5 LMB in the 2-4 lbs range in 30 minutes but when I turn around and fish my pond 30 feet away, they just do not bite. I have mainly just tried artificial which they seem to not like. Guess I need to get some bobbers and minnows and give that a shot. The LMB which are caught seem very thick, healthy and fat. None of them have looked skinny at all.

I would not be able to afford an electro-shock survey and would not want to drain and start over. I am starting to castnet at the lake and dump whatever BG or minnows I catch in the pond. I have also considered trying to stock some tilapia in the spring to help control the primrose which makes it near impossible to fish the pond from anywhere but the dam. So, is my adding large grown bass a good or bad idea? Im just not sure if the lack of bite on artificial bait is due to low number of LMB or if they possibly have so much to eat they just dont want to go after artificial or what.

Sorry for the long rambling post. By adding the larger bass, Im just trying to have them there to catch another time. Thanks.

welcome to PB nathan.
looks like an incredible setting. my only thoughts reading yer post are 1) you should hold off on putting in any more grown bass until you know better what yer forage base is, and 2) get a small pond boat to both survey the lake bottom and to fish from......

lets hope others chime in w/ their opinions and experience.

Thats on my list of things to do here before too long is check the depth all over the pond. Have a jon boat, just need to get out there and do it. I dont know any depth of it other than the neighbor saying it was deep enough by the dam that it did not go dry during the bad draught.

Would adding a stocking of BG or fathead minnows be a good idea as a "just in case" stocking seeing as I dont know what I have in there yet? Im guessing the forage base is not in dire straights as the bass caught seem healthy and fat.

Heres a close sat picture to better show the shape. You can see the thin dam seperating the pond from the neighbors pond just below mine. Luckily, they let me fish theirs as well

stocking small BG and fatheads in open water could be an expensive snack for the existing LMB population. others here have used blocking nets (also written up in a recent PB article) to grow out forage fish. this might work well for you. you might also actually track relative weights of each slot size of bass, this should indicate the strengh of the pond's forage from small to large fish. you can search this forum for relative weight tables, theyve been posted here several times.

another great place to start is bob lusk's raising trophy bass book available somewhere on this website and through the magazine.

great to have you on board.....i'm sure in the morning you'll get plenty more responses from guys in the heartland and back east who are now snoring to their hearts content, which is where i'm headed too.....

I'd slow down on stocking more bass. Unless, as Dave says, you know and can manage your forage base, they can very easily overeat everything in the pond. Then, that 8 lb'er can go to 6. The most normal thing we see in Texas is bass heavy/bluegill light ponds.

A couple of stats: Bass convert forage (BG) on a 1:10 basis. That means your fish has to eat 10 lbs to gain one pound. Multiply that by the number of bass in your pond and you get an idea of the pressure on the forage base. Next is the predator load per acre. Most healthy ponds will support a max of 100 lbs. of predators per acre under NATURAL conditions. Some consider that number high if you want bigger, healthier bass. To complicate it a little bit, the forage base is dependent on the water quality as relates to the food chain that starts with phytoplankton. Summing it up, too durn many big bass can work your butt off. If you want the bigger ones, either start culling the smaller ones or start spending a lot of time adding temporary forage.

I think the best thing to do is find out all you can about the pond. With size about an acre, electroshocking won't be necessary.

Angle, observe, measure, sound, record, and enjoy all you can. Your immediate assignment is to determine the species, size and weight of the different fish in the pond and the size and depth of the pond. Plus figure out exactly what is is you'd like to get out of the pond - fish and/or recreation wise. When you know what you have and where you want to go, figuring the direction to head is easier.

NathanatFork this link from the archives has info on how to do a population survey on a pond. Welcome to the PB forum.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92492#Post92492

Thanks for all the info. Ill hold off on adding any more to it until I learn a bit more. My pond is shaped so different, Im not sure how to go about figuring out its exact size. Ill research and read the archives and try to figure out exactly how to calculate it. Will also get out there and check the depths. So far, the only thing Ive seen in the pond is LMB, BG, and turtles. But, I havent really angled for other species. Ill try and gain more info and then come back and update here. Thanks for the replies and info.

As for what I want out of my pond, Id like a normal bass pond with the bass as large as I can get them without going to extremes or feeding.

Ewest- following the link you posted takes me to a thread with a bunch of links. Of those links, only the first one works.
The rest all take me to the forum homepage.

I will see what I can do. The forum changes goofed up a lot of links.

Being new my thought might not mean much but I would personally do all that was talked about here already but I would start feeding the bluegills.

I recently got a pond and was in the dark about a lot about the pond. The best thing I did I feel was to start feeding and boosting forage. It made me get a good feel of the place.

G/L with the new place.

That's not true. We really appreciate your input.

I just ment my experiance is not as deep as all yours, getting a feeding program seemed to be what allowd me to feel the place out. I would have loved to and still want to shock the place, hopefully someday I will.

One thing I had to learn the hard way because I didnt listen here.....I stocked to many catfish thinking they didnt make it...well they did. Got three more 16 inchers out yesterday.

Joey, don't worry about being new at this stuff. We learn a lot from guys that don't know that some things just don't have a chance. Then they work great and we all jump on the band wagon. I've "experimented" with a lot of stuff and generally haven't had the results that I hoped for. I always call it an experiment after the fact. On the things that do work, I realize that I just hadn't figure on all of the variables. Since most ponds have similarities, most things are intuitively obvious. However, all ponds really do have different variables. Most of us that have been doing this for a number of years have killed more fish than we would like to think about.

Nathan,
I don't know how it is in Texas, but in Alabama you can request a pond analysis from the local division of the dept of conservation. In alabama, it will be in June or Sept. You just call up the local office and they will send you an application. Fill it out and they will send the state biologist to your pond and do an analysis for you for free. Generally they seine instead of shocking but they give a lot of good info on health of your fish population, the various species in your pond and measures you can take to improve your fishery.

Things may be different in Texas, but it won't cost you but a phone call.


Hope this helps