Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Long time no see! Back for more advice.

It's been quite a while since my last questions. Don't worry I've been lurking for quite some time. Just to remind everyone about my setup.

My wife and I bought a few acres with Approx 1/2 acre pond 10ft deep max in southwest, MI in 2002.
I installed a Koender's windmill (thanks again BC)in July 2003, as well as stocked the following:

100 2-4" Bluegill
100 4-6" Bluegill
5 lbs Fatheads

There was a lot of the Central Mud Minnows already in there but nothing else when I started.

In October 2003 I added a Gast Airpump from ebay and stocked:

50 6-8" Large Mouth Bass

So far I have been a silent observer of the pond. I guess I'm a little nervous about taking anything out just yet. I know they have all spawned. I can see scads of bg minnows and a few bass the size of my finger near my dock. I also see the bass I stocked about 10ft out and the adult bg a little closer.

I guess I'm just looking for assurances that I've done everything I need to do for a good all-around fishery, and lastly, when can I start taking some for dinner and how much?

We finally got our house built and are still unpacking. See the whole thing at our website

http://www.marvins4ever.com

I think your approach with bluegills is a good one. A half-acre lake isn't an ideal place for an abundance of bass.

You should wait until the bass have spawned twice before you go after any of them. 50 bass in a half acre lake is at the high end, so when it's time to cull fish, do so without much hesitation.

I knew at the time that 50 was too many. I wanted to get 35-40 but the local fish farm had a minimum per bag rule and wouldn't bend them for me. It was an hour drive back to the pond so I thought maybe of the 50 that I paid for that a few of them didn't make it. I think there were 25 per 5 gallon bucket or so. I'm also talking to the contractor that worked on our house about widening and deepening the pond. Hopefully close to 3/4 acre and 15-20' deep. Just remembered while they were doing some backfilling around the house, they needed more top soil so I had the clear a spot for a second smaller pond. Its about 1/64 acre and about 2' deep right now. I'll probably take it deeper but probably not wider. I don't think I'll stock it with anything useful, maybe just some Koi or something.

WranglerManJ,

I have yet to run across the pond person who says, "sure wish I had built my pond smaller". I'd opt for widening but not necessarily deepening because I don't believe you get much return on your investment for going from 10 feet to 20 feet depth, but widening yes.

If you were in the South, I'd definitely say you better start removing small bass, now.

Here's something I didn't mention earlier and should have. The 200:50 bluegill/bass ratio isn't ideal. You'll need more bluegill, or less bass. We talked about the number of bass in the previous post, but not the number of bluegill. For 50 bass you should have 500 bluegill. What's likely to happen is your bass will not be able to grow at a rapid rate because of the current number of bluegill. You might consider adding another 200-250 bluegill and then be mindful that your bass population will need to be watched closely in the future. Adding bluegill now will be beneficial, for as the longer you wait, the larger the future stock of bluegill will have to be to have successfull survivalship and spawnings.

Those numbers sound familiar. My thinking at the time was the larger bg I had stocked that summer should have spawned before the bass were added.
The MI DNR has a book out "Managing Michigan Ponds for Sport Fishing". If I go by that it says 25-50 yearling bass per surface acre (so 13-25 for .5 acre) and 500 bg fingerlings (250 for .5 acre) Half of mine were adult bg so i thought a little less would be ok. Is the ratio more important that fish/acre? Seems like I remember reading a post a while back that says if you catch a bass that is under weight for a certain size to pull it out. Any thoughts on that?

Forgot to comment on the pond depth =] They recommend ponds be at least 15 ft deep here in Michigan. They're more prone to winter kills when they're as shallow as mine.

WM3- Use the Managing MI Ponds as a guide. You may need to thin a few bass in a year or two. remove any that are thin. Plump bass after mid June indicates they are well fed. Bass will feed heavily on the mudminnows first and probably eliminate them from the pond; maybve they are already gone. Bass numbers and weight conditon will probably be good until the first bass hatch grows to about 8"-12" long. Pay close attention at this time. Then things will tend to get too crowded bass wise and forage numbers will start to decline.

Your thinking on pond depth in MI is good.