Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Too many agressive blue gill!!!!

Here is info from Greg Grimes web site.

http://www.lakework.com/articles.php

They are for LMB in the southeast. I can't edit this to seperate the colms. which are in half inch increments. BG are also on the link above at the end of the article.

RELATIVE WEIGHT (RW) TABLE
Largemouth Bass
Length Std. Wt.
10 - 0.5
10.5 - 0.6
11 - 0.7
11.5 - 0.8
12 - 0.9
12.5 - 1.0
13 - 1.1
13.5 - 1.3
14 - 1.5
14.5 - 1.6
15 - 1.8
15.5 - 2.0
16 - 2.2
16.5 - 2.5
17 - 2.7
17.5 - 3.0
18 - 3.2
18.5 - 3.5
19 - 3.9
19.5 - 4.2
20 - 4.5
20.5 - 4.9
21 - 5.3
21.5 - 5.7
22 - 6.2
22.5 - 6.6
23 - 7.1
23.5 - 7.6
24 - 8.1
24.5 - 8.7
25 - 9.3
25.5 - 9.9

Geez! And I thought you just put girly fishies with boy fishies and you get baby fishies and then they grow up to be supper! I'm a teacher, but I never got that logrithm stuff and I definitely don't know when to apply it in formulas.

We're fishing again this weekend - hoping to catch enough keepers for a meal and get rid of a bunch of little ones while I'm at it. I'll probably lose my fishing rod if I hook one of those two big bass we put in there. They were huge when they went in - now they are probably big enough to pull me into the pond!

Then we'll float around and read for a couple hours before dinner. I can't wait - this week has been hectic! I've been nursing sick goldfish in my aquariums.
(I know - I nurse fish at home and throw small bluegill into the woods when I camp. I'm a little conflicted. :p )

I didnt provide credit for data but this is the graph

[img]http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m166/cliffbrook/?action=view¤t=LMBSE.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch1[/img]

uhg, dont have photo figured out...
link instead
web page

OK, here's an update. I fished our pond yesterday and today and we got a big surprise. I caught 2 young LMB. One was about 4" and the other was 7". These are the first LMB we have caught, ever! Several years ago a friend put 2 huge LMB in our pond and about 15 years ago we put in 100 3". We think the little ones we put in got eaten by the larger bluegill or green sunfish, but that means that we were lucky enough to get one big female and one big male from our friend. I don't know what happened, but somehow, we obviously have bass.

If they have had lots of baby bluegill and green sunfish to eat, how old do you think the ones I caught today are??

Oh, by the way, I also caught ninety 3-4" bluegill and green sunfish and netted another 140 with a butterfly net. The net thing was really easy - took 20 minutes. I was floating around in the pond with a bucket sitting on a closed-foam mat next to me. I used bread to get the fish to gather and had the net under the water. When a bunch of fish came up to eat the bread, I just lifted the net up. There would be 8 or 10 fish in the net each time.

We're going to do the same thing tomorrow.

I forgot one more thing:
The two LMB that I caught were kind of skinny - is that normal for young bass? (As you can tell, I'm not real familiar with age of fish/size of fish, height if fish from stomach to back, or thickness of fish - at different ages)

yeah i know its kinda late...we had a fire here today and i'm still hyped up.....PB is helping me settle down.

you are my kinda gal Stormy.......your husand is a lucky guy. and for that matter.....there aint many women on this forum, so cheers to Stormy, Pondmeisteress.

i'll let the experts chime in on your skinny young bass........but my 2c. is that LMB have a fairly streamlined body til they reach 10-12-inches then if the forage is good they start getting real chunkey, otherwise they exhibit the big head, small body of a stunted population. i dont know how long it takes the average LMB to reach 12 inches, but probably at least 2 yrs.

OMG, Dave! I hope no one was hurt! and I hope the damage wasn't too severe!

I know how fires make you feel - some teenagers burned down the trailer and screenroom at our camping property where the pond is. (We call it the "Outback.") For a couple days we couldn't even go back - we had to work through the anger and frustration. All that was left was the chasis of the trailer - It's amazing how the entire trailer just burned and melted. It even changed the chemistry of the concrete patio blocks that were on the floor of the trailer and the patio - one bump and they fell apart. In the end, however, we ended up with a little nicer trailer and rebuilt the screenroom. As soon as I learn to post pictures, I'll post some pics of the pond, trailer, screenroom, and outhouse.

I haven't read what happened in the case of your fire, but somehow things will end up being improved in the long run.

Spend several days or even weeks making lists of what was damaged or destroyed - We are still remembering things now, and it's been 5 years. You know, little things like tools, and equipment that we forgot were in the trailer.

Thanks for the compliment - I love our Outback and try very hard to take care of the pond. I'm hoping to get control of those little 3-5 inch fish so we can enjoy swimming more and still have fish to eat once in a while. I only caught one "keeper" yesterday - an 8 1/2 inch - very fat - green sunfish. He is now coon food. I wasn't going to let him fertilize any eggs again,

I'll keep you updated on the fish - and soon will have a few more questions.

Thanks so much for your advice. I can't wait until we have enough bass to have a meal or two each year. Yummmm!