Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations WR for small LMB

All the WR Charts I find start with 10" fish. Most the LMB caught in my pond are in the 7" to 10" range with some as small as 5". Out of 28 fish caught this last weekend only 6 were 10" or bigger. WR for these 6 LMB was from .463 to .648.

Does anyone have a chart that shows WR for the smaller fish?

Thanks,

Sounds like way to many small LMB and low RW. I have not seen a RW chart for those small size LMB although there may be some info available. I will check.

Lets see what ewest digs up. Off the cuff thinking, with fish that small, if they were to eat a meal vs empty stomach, that could change the WR drastically.

I agree, but if you were releasing all the LMB with good WR, those fish (no matter the sizes) would be the ones that always had fullest stomachs. If their stomachs weren't full, then there isn't enough forage, so you reduce their numbers. What you think, am I on the right track?

I have yet to see a LMB with a decent WR in this pond. It would be safe to assume I will be removing all the LMB caught. As esshup suggested in another thread, I need to remove 30+ lbs LMB per acre.
2 acre pond = 60+ lbs. Average fish so far is less than 5 oz. With 28 fish removed I have another 164+ to go. Now to convince my wife for the health of the pond I need to fish every day.

I did find another WR chart that had 8” and 9” LMB, .31 lb and .44 lb. But the weights for other sizes are less than what was on the chart that was posted on this site. Such as a 12” LMB here is at 1.08 lbs and the other chart its 0.88lbs. It states that there could be region differences but doesn’t say which area it is for. I may have to sharpen my math skills and adjust these to the other chart. Anything less than 8" will be recorded but have a WR.

Thanks for the help. I will post results as more fish come out.

Hi All,
Here are the results of week one of the fish removal project. The weather did not cooperate and the pond was not fished as heavy as I had hoped. I am only fishing with lures right now and targeting LMB. I’ll update weekly. Goal is to remove 60-75 lbs of LMB this summer.

LMB
42 LMB were caught and removed
Size range was from a 5-1/2” to 11-1/4” with most in the 8”-9” range.
WR ranged from .429 to .694.
Total weight of LMB removed = 12.13 lbs

Some items of note:
All the fish had empty stomachs.
About 25% of the fish had eggs.
I did hook into one nice fish that stripped the line off the light tackle reel I was using. It jumped and spit the hook after about a 40’ run. I guesstimate it was about a 20” LMB. Must be the pond cannibal.

Bluegill
15 BG were caught, marked and released
Size ranged from 4” to 8” with the average being 6”.

All comments welcome.

Good start for managing for larger bass.