Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Culling Bass

I have a friend with a lot of property and at least 20 tanks. I’m pretty much the only person that fishes them. I had not been out there in two years. My sons and I camped out at a 5 acre tank and only fished that one last weekend. We kept every bass under 14” and released the rest. We filleted 87 bass. All looked in pretty good shape. We released about half as many as we kept. The tank has a good bluegill and crawfish population. Most fish released were 3lb range and one over 5. How many should we take out under 14”? Should we be doing something different? I caught one over 7 a couple of years ago. The tank is deep and clear with plenty of grass and over 50 years old.

There are some much larger tanks but this one is where we would like trophy bass.

20# of bass per surface acre is the target removal weight per calendar year. As long as you have a scale and a ruler I'd remove all bass that were under 100 to 110 relative weight.

https://www.fishandboat.com/Fish/PennsylvaniaFishes/Documents/weightlength3.pdf

I bought a ranch some years back with an 8 acre lake that had not been fished nor managed. You would catch a bass literally on every cast - the fish were all stunted.

Took me 2 years to remove enough bass to get the lake back in shape - I took out as many bass as I could between a pound and 2 pound range. I did other management things (like feeding, etc.) but it did not take long for that lake to take off - we had 7-8 lb native bass

I always relate it to deer management - too many deer and too little food results in a poor deer herd - same with bass

Good luck to you

Or too many cows in a pasture without a LOT of supplemental feeding!