Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Options for managing fishery in and old pond

I am new to the forum but have subscribed to Pond Boss for around 3 years. I am looking for some input into options for managing the fish in my pond. Before subscribing to Pond Boss I had little idea what I was doing. I will try to be brief but I think background may help. I live about 65 miles NW of Houston. We bought this place in 2015 and it has a 1-1/4 acre pond when full. When we moved here the downcomer on the overflow line that went underneath the dam was swiss cheese so the pond would fill during rain but drain down to the mud line of the downcomer. So it always set about 3-1/2 feet low to full and started evaporating from there - it would get really low but never close to dry. I tried to fish quite a bit but never had any luck at all. The spillover was fixed in 2017 and the whole ecosystem of the pond changed for the better. Right after getting the overflow fixed Harvey hit and we had 29" inches of rain in 48 hours. Afterwards we found three 5 lb or so bass floating. I now understand the pond probably turned over and killed the fish. I started fishing and caught a few bass. I have tried everything I know to catch catfish but have never caught anything although people around me tell me that the prior owners had catfish. I have decided they are gone for some reason - may have been the drought in 2011. I have a friend who manages ranches for wealthy Houstonites and when he stocks their ponds with forage fish he put me on the route for a couple of years - much cheaper since they were already out here. However, I had no idea what I was doing so I let him stock FHM and BG but have no idea how much.

Here's the question/issue. I have never added bass and they are really hard to catch. When we do catch them they seem healthy and run the gamut from <10" to over 20". The biggest was 27" or so. I harvested some. The BG are abundant and I recently installed aeration and am feeding. I also put in 106 CC this spring. I am thinking about fishing the bass hard and harvesting everything so I can have mostly a BG and CC fishery. I want to catch fish and am not that into the trophy LMB thing. Also thinking about adding a few HSB for sport. I am worried that the LMB probably hammered the catfish I put in and that the BG population will explode if I take out too many bass. Is this a bad plan? I don't have a ton of natural habitat. The pond is about 12' - 13' deep when full. Basically I want to increase catch rate and start putting fish in the frying pan - I don't think LMB are the answer to that.

There is more detail on what I am doing to mange the pond if more info is needed. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Ok, what’s a downcomer?

Basically a pipe/tube that directs fluid in a downward movement. I had to look it up myself because I hadn't heard of it either.

Yep, common term used in industrial construction. In this case the vertical pipe that runs from the overflow inlet to below the mud line where it takes a ninety degree turn. Where it takes the turn and then goes horizontal is the drain pipe. From the water surface to the drain pipe is the downcomer.