Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Quarry LMB

My family has owned three abandoned Brownstone quarries for over 30 years. One of the quarries was stocked with LMB about 10 years ago and we have enjoyed many years of yanking and banking 2-4 pounders. Given the age of the original fish, shouldn't we have some 10-12 pounders by now? While you are fishing you can see pods of fry by the thousands and a great number of bass of various size but no one has ever caught anything over 4 pounds. Are they merely hanging deep? The quarry varies in depth from 20'-180' and the surface area is close to 5 acres.

Welcome Quarry Guy! That's a deep hole. Do you have a selective harvest plan in place for the pond? What happens with ponds where LMB are never or rarely ever removed is they overpopulate and stunt, never reached their full potential. Someone else will be along shortly with more knowledge on the subject, and probably more questions.

Also, LMB generally are not going to utilize those depths past 10-12'.

Most of the older LMB may be topping at around 4 lbs due to too much competition from other bass and lack of larger forage species for the larger bass to efficiently utilize. As bass get bigger they require larger sized and adequate numbers of forage to keep increasing their growth. Are you doing any relative weight comparisions of the larger bass? These numbers will often indicate body condition and growth potential. LMB over 8 lbs in PA are rare. LMB 10 lbs are very rare and only occur in ideal conditions.

Keep in mind the state record in PA for a LMB is 11 lbs, 3 ozs... Any LMB over 6 pounds in PA is a monster. The record bass was caught in the southern part of the state as well where the growing season is just a tad longer as well.