Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Caught a couple nice bass lately...

I'm seeing some success in my pond (1 3/4-2ac). I've removed most of the Black Crappie - saw none in usual spawning spots this spring - maybe because bass seemed to start spawning in April and took over all the usual spots. I caught maybe 20 - most small from last years spawn. Previous years I'd catch a dozen or more nice ones on a good day during the spawn. My goal was to remove the crappie as they seemed to be having a negative effect on the bass fishing with not much recruitment and mostly low RW fish.

I've removed 25 bass - mostly all the males guarding spawning sites. Seemed to have thinned out most of the under 14" bass. Last week I caught a 4'10oz bass on a BG shaped swim bait and today I caught a chunky 4lb bass on a frog.

One thing I've noticed this year is that there is a LOT more bass fry - have a massive school of thousands of them hanging out around some structure I placed in the deep end. I'm a bit concerned I might have an explosion of small bass once these grow up.

Seem to have a lot of good size BG - not so many smaller ones which is one reason I decided to thin out the little bass. I have a pair of 2lb bass that hang out under my dock that I feed. They opportunistically started eating BG I would trap and move from a small pond on the property. Lately I've been feeding them frozen crappie that I chop up into smaller pieces. When the crappie were biting they would also eats 6-7" crappie that I'd cripple and throw to them.

I'm wondering if my remaining bass will do enough to remove this years bass crop or if I will have to go after them in the fall with an ultralight?

Little bass are very well shaped to fit into the mouth of slightly larger bass.

I think the early hatchers and "jumpers" in your numerous new crop of bass will thin out the numbers somewhat of the little bass. As that entire class gets larger, then the bigger bass will start doing their share.

OTOH, culling a few bass on ultralight tackle never hurt anybody!

nvcdl, crappie typically spawn first so their YOY eat later YOY BG and LMB. Thus, you will likely have greater LMB YOY survival once crappie are knocked down. Harvest!

I've heard this theory that the crappie fry eat bass fry but I've never seen clouds of crappie fry attack bass fry. I suspect that it it older crappie who feed on bass fry and knock the schools down fast. When I first got this pond I'd estimate there were 300 or more 7" -9" crappie in it and I can see why bass recruitment was minimal.