Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations The shortest path to trophy gamefish?

Apparently I was right about the shortest path to trophy fish. Just as apparent is how bad of plan it is.

Another chapter.

Mr. A , a friend , had a 5 acre BG/LMB pond in the typical LMB crowded state. LMB were at about 80 % RW with the deficiency in the 10-12 in size (10-12in at 70 % RW). He decided to add some BG both 2in and 3-5in at a cost of $1000. He started a minor supp feeding program for the BG. Things did well for a year with RW rising to 80% for the 10-12s and about 85% for the general population. The second year was flat - no change. Year 3 brought a reduction in RW. Head scratching time for Mr. A. What the heck happened.

In his case the temporary increased forage capacity did not result in better/bigger/healthier LMB over time only more 10-12in LMB at 70%. The better conditioned LMB in year 1 and 2 produced bumper crops of new yoy LMB which increased the problem at a new higher forage demand level. You don't always get better but sometimes only more. LMB ,like all fish, respond to natural selection in the larger view both individually and as a population by selecting for survival. They are hard wired to seek safety (fight or flight) , food and reproduction in no particular order depending on time of year (hormones). When they are not starving (65-70% RW) the genetic instructions for survival of the species as a whole take over with a large reproductive response. They will attempt to fill the available space whether it’s a food surplus or room surplus in an empty or low population pond.

The pond fish population pie is like a pizza -- whether its a 10 in low volume pie or a 18in carrying capacity + pie , its still a pie. If you want it to be different/better you have to change the recipe to meet your taste (goals).

Here's another true story.
Steve Cody, from Ada, Oklahoma, built his own 30 acre lake. Literally..he is a tall, stout farmer/rancher who builds feed bins and other agribusiness products. He and his ranch hands built the lake with a dozer Cody bought just for the purpose. Three small creeks feed the lake, and he left almost all the standing timber in those creeks.
We stocked it with coppernose bluegill and fathead minnows in the spring of that year...probably 2000 or 2001. In June, we added 50 bass fingerlings per acre, 25 Florida's and 25 natives. He built a dock and a pavilion, added a cabin powered by solar power and propane and began to feed those bluegill. The bluegill answered the call and all was well. For a year and a half, Cody faithfully feed his bluegill at least a five gallon bucket of fish food every day off his dock. I saw them several times, stacked in a circle that completely filled the underside of his dock. Lots of 4-5" bluegill.
Well, that fall we electrofished his lake. The bass were now 18 months old. We didn't get many bass and everyone of them looked exactly the same. They were at least 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 pound each. We shocked literally thousands of bluegill in the 4-7" range.
Cody had become concerned because he couldn't catch any fish yet and it had been about two years. He thought he should at least be catching some hungry yearlings.
He should have.
We saw no baby bass as we should have.
We saw no intermediate bass, as we might have.
We saw few young of the year bluegill, but we did see three size classes.
What to do?
I understood there were too few bass feeding in this food chain and the bluegill had become the dominant species. Left unchecked over two or three more years, I believed he would have too few bass, albeit they would be giants, the bluegill would disrupt everyone's spawns and we would have a lake where he couldn't catch a bass and would be forced to feed the bluegill to keep them healthy.
So, we talked it over and went to another lake on his ranch, launched the electrofishing boat and started harvesting. By the end of the day, we had transferred 250 bass in the 1-2 pound size class into that lake. We added a "missing" size class of bass.
The next year, bluegill numbers under the dock diminished, those fish were three times as heavy, he could catch more bass, relative weights hovered slightly over 100 and he was happy. Now, the lake is in its 7th or 8th year and is thriving. One of his buddies caught an 8 pound bass last year.
We'll be looking at the lake again this spring to see where it is. I suspect we'll find a lake that's close to balanced...we'll see.

It's seems like there are rules, but we can never fully understand them all.

I'm managing Mr H's pond and the FH stocked last fall are exploding in number. I started adding WM, but I can't add the recommended amount at one time because there's no commercial source. That means I'm stocking extremely low numbers of WM, so far there are 6 small to medium fish. I looks like I've set myself up for a future secenario like what Bob described above.

Maybe I'll be ok in the end because his pond is so small at about 60 ft X 130 ft. If the WM start to reproduce too much it hopefully won't be too difficult to thin them out. What I really need is a trap that will target WM primarily. The traditional traps seem to work on BG, but not so well on WM. Maybe this has to do with WM not taking pellet food well. If all else fails Mr H has a large family and we can recruit some grandkids with fishing poles.

With recent stocking concepts of non-reproductive species and supplemental feeding introducing new variables, perhaps the definition of “balanced pond” should be revisited.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post107069

GW why not seine or trap out some of the FH and transfer them to your or another pond if you think there are to many or carrying capacity is near. If you can't increase the WM #s to what you think then reduce the forage #s.

That's exactly what I'm planning on doing ewest. Mr H has a 7 acre BG/RES/LMB pond that could use the forage. I've already transferred about 300 FH from his small pond to my new pond and that's all I'm going to add for now.

If the few WM in Mr H's small pond have a heavy spawn I'm thinking that I can use the offspring to stock my pond in something close to recommended numbers. Then I just need to figure out what to do for long term forage...

GW,
One thing to remember about fathead minnows...since they are small and have a very short lifespan, they make up by reproducing. Baby fatheads are having babies when less than six months of age. Their reproduction can actually become exponential.
Look at fatheads as a renewable, self-sustaining crop. You can harvest them, and they come right back, so long as there are not too many fish eating them in their home.

Bob, do you think it would be likely that I could maintain a FH population in a WM pond indefinitely?