Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Empty bellys on bass

Made another trip to "Lake Beirut" today, and again noticed sunken belly's on all the bass I caught. I culled and cleaned around 30 last week, and all their belly's were empty.

The bottom end of my lake is very clear, and I saw tons of CNBG, Tilapia, and the banks were covered in baby frogs jumping into the lake. The bass were cruising, and blowing up on the baby frogs. It was incredible to watch.

So, should I be worried, or has the heat just slowed their metabolism down? The fish I caught today, seemed healthy other than the belly deal, so any thoughts?

Thanks, Al

Maybe the prey isn't the correct size for the LMB to eat?

I found the same thing last weekend on BG.

That was my thought also. Visually, there seems to be plenty of 2-4" available.

I just added a bream pond to my place, and plan to start self stocking this winter. This whole thing just baffles me.

I did add 100 Blue Cats this summer, and have spent the last few months running Egrets off the water, but the only big change has been the loss of cover due to the drought here in TX.

In the past, thousands of fry swam freely through the weeds, but that vegetation has disappeared due to the falling water level.

I'll keep culling, and refocus on forage fish this Spring and see how it goes.

Thanks as always.

What size is the pond/lake ? A lot (high %) of LMB with empty stomachs is telling you that there is a problem and its not the heat. LMB eat up to their terminal max heat just in lower amounts (they will die from heat before they starve). What size were the LMB ?

Normal pool is around 13 acres. Right now, it's probably a little more than half of that.

We're culling everything below 14", and can usually fill an ice chest. The biggest we caught is 10, and have caught multiple in the 6-8 lb range. The fish we culled last week were 1 to 3 lbs, with 2 over 8 thrown back.

The lake is around 8 years old.

The more I think about it, they must just be underfed. I'm guessing we should be eating more fish. We add 1000 CNBG, and 80 lbs of Tilapia a year, but that doesn't seem to be keeping up with the bass population.

That's a lot of big bass to feed and a lot of small ones that want to be big too!! 8 and 10 pound bass need a LOT of food. I bet you are right when you say you don't have enough. You have a LOT of eating machines in that there pond!!

Remember bass can eat 1/3 their length! So if you have bass that are 24 to 26 inches long they need food that is 8 to 10 inches long. Or a bunch of 4 inch long fish that they have a hard time catching and can't keep their weight on because of it!

If those 100+ Blue Cats don't get eaten by the LMB they will IMO make matters much worse as to lack of forage.

ewest, I agree.

I'm pretty sure now, I've pampered these fish to death. Current plan is to fish/cull the lake hard for the next few months, then:
1) Fertilize next Spring.
2) Establish my Bream pond for feeder fish. The dam backs up to my big lake, so I can pipe the fish directly into the lake.
3) Stock my Tilapia, and add Threadfin Shad if the water is right.

I spent to much time manicuring the lake, and not enough time fishing it. The guys at the fire station should love me soon. We'll be eating fish every week.

Again guys, thanks so much.

If you can’t catch enough then get one of the guys here to electrofish out a bunch. I have found that to be better as you don't end-up taking all the aggressive fish out and leave the non-biters.