Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Evaluating New Pond and New Fish

DD1, I could use some boulders in my ponds.

If I take my laptop out to our property, can you just email them to me?

Yeah Rod. All we need is a freight train to haul the mail.

I would love to see some more big rock piles in the pond DD1. Forever structure is hard to beat imo. If Oklahoma ever gets swallowed up in a quake and TX / KS become neighbors I might just take you up on the offer.

Come and gettum

Forage bump for 2024 completed today. 100lbs GSH + 1,000 3-4” BG

TP were very quiet today with overnight lows in the 30’s with highs around 65.

Guessing, but TP should be slow and struggling for easy predation from the LMB.

Your bass are going to be so fat that they won't be able to swim through your vertical structure!

Made it out today. I was a little pressed for time with house duties, car shuttling and what not but did manage to catch one of the LMB in the pond. This is approx a month after suspecting a forage shortage, stocking 50lbs of GSH a couple of weeks ago, and finishing off with another 100lbs of GSH last week.

I found it interesting that the fish I posted a month ago was right at 10" and so it this one. Likely not the same fish but interesting to compare them.

I was not able to confirm a forage shortage, if my LMB just weren't able to catch the TP or a million other questions that ran through my head but...Couple of pics for your viewing pleasure. Happy to hear thoughts.

Hoping my schedule is a little more open tomorrow than it turned out to be today. Would like to see a couple more LMB before letting them enjoy the rest of the year to themselves.

LMB 09.23.24 10" at .61lbs 124% RW




LMB 10.19.2024 10" at .84lbs 168% RW




ACK...I forgot to add the weights... Edited in above.

Awesome fish Boondoggle. It's amazing how quickly LMB respond to forage availability. So from 8.24 to 10.19 a drop of 35 RW and then a gain of 40 RW. 70 points of total RW variation over ~60 days.

So just wanted to mention that you earlier said that falling RW may be normal for Fall. Not that you believed that completely because you supplemented 44 lbs of near optimum length GSH on 9.27. But what say you now? Is falling RW more a function of forage availability? or water temp?

If each fish in your post above is representative of the population at the respective dates, then the average gain is 104 grams gain over the period from 9.24 to 10.19 (26 days). This would equate to an average gain of 4.01 grams every day. Well done. Per energetics, each LMB would have consumed 0.70 LBS of GSH over the same period of time. You could multiply that by the number of LMB surviving to 9.24 to estimate the total consumed. They probably didn't just eat GSH so there may be a pretty good weight of the original 44 lbs of GSH supplement still remaining. With TP being consumed now, this should help with keeping more GSH for future forage. Knowing you are set with forage with the two GSH supplements, I can hardly wait to see your report next Spring.

My personal opinion is that there was a hole in what the LMB wanted to or could eat optimally on a specific forage size was the reason for the lower RW vs the doldrums of summer water temps. Still kind of surprised it occurred with what I was seeing in the pond visually on the numbers of small TP, but RW drop combined with a fish having a thick back/tail with an empty stomach is pretty telling.

One other thing that surprised me was that nearly a month later 9.23 to 10.19 I measured two fish with almost identical 10" length. The fish yesterday had an avg growth per day of 1.47mm per day from stocking which is the slowest growth rate I have seen to date on the fish I've tested. This is still within range of Bill Cody's Trophy Bass Concepts post. I get there is some variation in growth rates but what I thought I was going out to test for was 11-12" fish. Hope to know more this afternoon when we head to the property. Even one more fish would provide a lot of additional detail on how the fish are doing in the pond.

My initial impression is that the fall forage bump turned emergency-fall forage bump was the right call.

I agree with you. They were eating but just not as much as they could have with more optimum forage. Profound difference I think with optimum forage in front of them. With your forage supplements, I think (1.5) lbs in the spring next year would be doable (even as early as 4.1.25). It will depend on the LMB consuming what it would take. But between TP and the GSH there should be plenty of forage out there to support the consumption that would be required.

I don't believe we have seen your latest catch before. It has distinguishing marks much like "Dottie" of Dixon Lake had distinguishing marks. This fish was probably less than 10" on 9.23 ... at least that makes sense to me. Up to now, you may have not caught any particular fish more than once.

The image below is the dead "Dottie"



Have you been out yet to try to sample today?

Yeah. We were out this afternoon. Caught one LMB and called it good for the year. Hopefully those fish forget all about the white spinner over the winter and into next spring. Fish I caught today looked healthy but not near the chunk as the one yesterday.

LMB 10.20.2024 10-1/4" at .63lbs 120% RW 141 Days from stocking



Interesting that the fish the last five fish have been right at the 10" mark from Sept - Oct. Will be very interesting to see what the change is next spring and what winter growth rates will look like.

Did throw a little Optimal BG while on site to see what the response was like around 3PM today. FHM/GSH were the first to arrive and them followed up by some BG and TP shortly after. TP activity is markedly lower throughout the pond. Likely going to mix in the first bag of winter food in the feeder tomorrow as the water temps are running in the lower 60's. We have moved down to two feedings a day with afternoon and early evening.

Boondoggle,

All of your LMB look like healthy chunks to me!

Keep up the good work.

Thanks Rod. It's been very interesting to watch and learn as the little fish grow for sure. As an outdoorsy type of guy that loves to fish it's very evident that it's a process and there are lots of things to learn. Growth rates have really intrigued me, and I hope my small samples are helpful to others.

Here's what we saw for year:

Cool stuff Boon, keep up the good work!

It will be interesting to see how they progress in the next 12 months.

Do any of the LMB nerds have any guess estiments of what the length of Boon's LMB will be next year at this time. It will be interesting to see who comes the closest to his reality Oct 2025. .

I have been following his progress, I’m not LMB nerd but I will play along.
Guess would be his shortest will be 13” - 1.35# and he will find a shooter close to 16” and 2.45#
Average fish will be 14.5” - 1.95#

Boondoggle, your samples are helpful indeed. Thank you.

Bill, what say you for mid October 2025?

Boondoggle's data was helpful to me to design a constraint for modeling first year growth with climate. Knowing his forage in place and with water temp included I'll estimate an average weight of 1 lbs on April 1st and an average length of 11.5".

Not sure how the spawn is going to affect growth. Not sure how many males will be culled. Not sure how much survival of original stocking. Also not sure what kind of recruitment of LMB will take place. Not sure how the current population of BG plays into providing and/or producing consumable forage next year. But I will venture a guess for mid-October next year. I'll estimate a range of weights from 1.5 to 3lbs averaging 2.40 lbs. with lengths ranging from 14 to 16 inches and averaging 15". This could be too conservative, and I hope it is.

Interesting info:

Of the (13) fish I sampled.

Avg growth rate per day for the group 1.66mm per day from May 31 - Oct 19
Avg RW 143%

Of the last (2) fish I sampled.

Avg RW of 144%

I find the RW avg interesting as a group vs the last 2.

As the LMB get bigger, the forage has to grow too. It will be interesting to see if that happens next year.

Boon, there is variability in the data and each time period has a limited sampling of the population. There is always risk of having samples that do not reflect the population. IOWs the average at some sample date does not reflect the average of the population. This is uncertainty and the only way to reduce it is by having larger sets of samples. It is interesting. So one may conclude the RW didn't change over the course of time just from fact the RW didn't change much of the two periods. I would recommend looking at trends in the data. You can do that by charting the RW in your excel worksheet. Right clicking on the data in the chart you can also add a trendline to see what the data is suggesting.

The trends are consistent with what you earlier thought and what prompted the initial forage supplement. The trends are also consistent with a positive response to supplementation. It is possible that the trends were not reflective of the population. Now if this is so, one may ask why even bother sampling? The simple answer is to do it because it is the best we have to work with (which includes the potential shortcomings).

Each of graphs below are across a different period. The first through September 23. The second all data, while the third is from September 21 to October 20.

Not a LMB Nerd either, but also following Boon's progress. I think they will be like footballs if he keeps feeding them at this pace LOL

My guess for the largest this time next year would be 17" and 3#. Hope I'm being conservative and he proves me wrong.

First up....Ima NERD through and through on Bass and many other things!

I'm going to hazard my guess:

April 1 2025 @ 12.5" and 1.4lbs RW of 139%. That's 4-1/2 months (202 days) from my longest recorded fish to grow at .22mm per day. There is still some growing season left this year with the 2024 Fall Forage BoNaNzA still in effect.

Oct 19 2025 @ 16.5" and 3.25lbs RW of 130%. That's 4-1/2 months (200) days at .5mm per day.

Forage should be in full swing for 2025 - Hopeful Cray Spawn, 1st YP Spawn, BG, RES, GSH, GAMs, and remaining FHM.

Will have to figure out TP stocking but they are going in as well again next year. lb/acre still dependent on if LMB spawn which I'm assuming they will. TP would go in at a rate of 23lbs or just over 15lbs per acre if the LMB spawn.

Will be trapping crays to stock as bonus forage again next spring - fall as the water temps warm up.

I hope to blow both of those numbers out too and that they are on the conservative side.

Boon,

I can only say "Why the heck not?" We are learning what Northern LMB can do at your location in low density and with ample ad libitum forage. This question has never been answered before and the facts are that we just don't know. To be sure, it depends on consumption and there are lots of factors that can affect the supply of optimum forage and then there is how much each individual will eat as a matter of satiation. To grow maximally, there must needs be forage at optimum lengths available at all times so that your LMB can eat a surplus of their maintenance needs daily. We just don't understand what ad libitum consumption is for Northern LMB at your location. Heck, we may not understand that even from your experience because how can we know for sure they were able to consume at their maximum potential every day? I do think that your experience as it plays out has the potential to redefine and expand what we think is possible.

Below is chart of your LMB and the model's projection based on a KC location. The growth is function of consumption and temperature plays a role in determining what that maximum consumption is. Assumed, is that each individual LMB consumes as much as it is "individually" inclined to and the model seeks to model growth that is consistent with the average consumption for the population. I found that most of your samples lie within two bands that reflect daily consumption of 5% in excess of model and 5% in deficit of the model. 5% sounds like a lot but as a proportion of LMB body weight it doesn't exceed 1% of LMB body weight even at consumption rates of 20% of body weight daily. This IS the power of compounding. The difference between fast and slow growers are relatively small proportionate differences in consumption.



The model estimated 1 1/8 lbs average weight on 4/1/25 with 1.32 lbs at 5% over model. I did reduce my estimate of average a little above. Part of the reason is because the model eventually way overestimates reasonable growth. It diverges and I am not sure where this would take place. The adjustment I thought would ensure I was close without being over. Even so, the model may be too restrictive in terms of winter consumption. We will see. Why don't you just blow the numbers out?!!! Will be fun to see.

I didn't go past 4/1/25 with the model for a number of reasons. One is that I think the model has limited domain and is practical only for the first year (I give the birth date of 4/1/24 for your fingerlings stocked 5/31/24). The other is that I wasn't for sure how spawn would affect growth. I expect a period of decline and I am very interested in learning what to expect to including the time to recover weight.

On the chart above, how would weight be converted back into a length or RW value?

Heres the Length and Weights I mentioned put into the PB Worksheet

Boon, the model computes only weight which is highly predictable from modeled consumption. What isn't as predictable is the length at weight which is highly variable. It all depends (it would seem) on the individual fish which tend to vary relative to peers. Unfortunately, I am not able to answer the question because of this variability of Length at Weight among individuals. In addition to chubby and short vs thin and long at weight, recent individual consumption can make a big difference in RW. An LMB can only grow so fast in length but recent consumption that exceeds what is needed to support that length increment can substantially boost RW even if only temporarily.