Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry 1 acre 4’ deep pond in middle GA with Alkalinity 0

I bought 22 acres 2023 summer that has a beautiful nearly 1 acre shallow pond.
It’s a water table pond and summer time can get very shallow 3’ or so.
In winter spring it’s mostly around 4-5’.

A little about the pond before I get to my inquiry about alkalinity…

The water through the entire pond is almost crystal clear. This is the main thing I really love about this pond.
There is moderate to fairly large quantity of hydrilla throughout the pond.
The pond is surrounded by loblolly pines, some deciduous, and some type of really pretty fir trees that have large stumps and some exposed roots in places and under the water.
The bottoms mostly near shore have a large amount of “muck” consisting mostly of pine needles and leaves.

It has small bream, decent warmouth, and a variety of skinny sized largemouth bass in it.

For the past 8-10 months I been feeding the brim with an automatic feeder and they are absolutely thriving. We catch some good hand size ones now and they are fat!

My goal is to produce and manage a nice largemouth bass pond.

The bass I catch now are mostly tiny from 6” to 2 lb and some with heads and mouths that should be a 3-4 ponder but just very under nourished. In another post (not discussing water chemistry) it was mostly concluded that there was not enough ambush habitat for the bass to help feed on the plentiful brim. Which I concur with.

I’m adding different structures and want to lay some of the pines down in the pond and this got me thinking about water chemistry. I did lay one large (about 10-11 inch trunk ) pine down in the pond already.

Got a water testing kit and all chemicals were spot on except alkaline which was 0 (and ph low)

Considering the current abundance of healthy brim should I be concerned with the low alkaline and just continue adding bass habitat?

Here is my plan for the pond…

Dig a shalllow water well about 40 yards from bank and supplement the water level with a solar powered pump from the well. I think a consistent topped off water level year round could be the most beneficial effort for the pond.

Secondly, with a pond rake go around the shores and rake out as much muck as I can.

Continue adding bass habitat.

Consider adding an aerator.

Consider adding up to 250lbs of sodium bicarbonate to bring the alkaline up to around 50.

The last thing I want to do however is go from seeing healthy thriving fish swimming around in the pond to belly up fish.

I guess it comes down to is what will it take to get the bass more healthy despite all the other currently good conditions the pond has going for itself.

Looking forward to any thoughts and suggestions

Thanks

CC

CampCobb,

Because of the pond gets its water from groundwater, any water you add will equalize with the ground water. Same thing will happen to chemicals, minerals, and such. Water will kind flow through and there is a good chance that the groundwater is of low alkalinity. So new low alkalinity water may gradually replace the treated water in that case. A ground water flow through probably helps keep your pond clear.

You have a great pond already based solely on your description. It is a great pond that by the time you purchased it had evolved into a panfish pond with slow growing but numerous LMB. You mentioned that what you love most about the pond was that it is crystal clear. That is, in part, because it has low alkalinity and hydrilla. However, if either of those change, then you may see that clear water become less clear. Also feeding may reduce clarity or increase hydrilla growth and standing weights.

So for your question about making the LMB healthier. Reducing their number will accomplish that task. Before sharing more thoughts, I would like understand more about what your goals for the bass are. You can have a trophy LMB pond, a balanced fishery with a few modest but memorable examples of both LMB and BG, or a trophy BG pond. But you can't have all of that at once. If you have a trophy BG pond, it will be dang near impossible to grow trophy LMB (the vice versa is also true). Also, how much are you willing to sacrifice clear water and/or endure more hydrilla? Too me, these questions should be first answered because we need to understand what the desired carry will be and which of three types of balances you prefer before making recommendations on LMB population.

So a couple of other things, I understand that the pond had skinny LMB ... but what were the conditions (and particularly the range of lengths) that the BG were before your started feeding? I am asking this question because I want to gain a sense of the balance of predator/prey and possible effects that your hydrilla may be contributing. Too much of any submerged weed can make BG too abundant to grow to large sizes even though there may be sufficient LMB to control them in the absence of the weed. If it was favorable for trophy BG, BG in 5" to 7" lengths would have comprised a minor portion of your catch. BG > 7" up to 10 or 11" would have not been uncommon. 3" to 5" BG would have pretty dog gone rare. If you predominantly had 3" to 5" BG, then there is a good chance that too much hydrilla was providing too much cover making it more difficult for the LMB to consume as many.

If you can provide an estimate of the range of natural fertility (pond carry capacity of LMB/BG) for your neck of the woods in GA, we could work with that middle range along with the additional carry 'capacity' feed can provide. Then based on that carry 'capacity' and your goals we could make a better rec for population management with your particular feeding program. Some states 'pond mgmt programs' provide information on regional fertility trends.

Finally, you seemed to like the Warmouth and I am not sure how important they are too you. But Warmouth tend to do well in low fertility environments. They have a niche there and can maintain a footprint in that kind of water. The changes that you are implementing, though they will be good for LMB and BG, will not be advantageous to Warmouth. They could be eventually extirpated over say 6 to 10 years.

jpsdad has good questions that should be answered for your getting better management suggestions for your low alkalinity, clear water, ground water, shallow pond.
Do you best to toughly answer all the questions.

Jpsdad, thx for the reply.

As for the thought of supplementing the pond with a shallow water well, in which the water is shared with the pond anyways… that did cross my mind. However I figured, if the pond had the banks/dam to hold additional water, moving it from water table to the pond would actually work. Maybe not. This is something I’ll try and find out.
Though I do completely understand that this low alkaline water supplementation will only make it difficult to sustain a properly balanced alkaline pond. But aren’t most ponds “spring fed”, where this same concept applies… but instead of water table water, the pond is fed by creek water which may also have an undesirable alkaline content?
If so are we saying the only way to sustain balanced chemicals in a pond is if it is a stagnated pond? Nobody wants a stagnated pond do they?

As for the lmb vs bg.

First of all I do not care for the warmouth. If they become eradicated with the lmb/bg efforts that is fine.

Before I started adding lmb structures I had a similar theory that these bg are simply hiding in all this hydrilla making it tough for the lmb to feed on them. So they may very well be the issue for the lmb more than anything.
And to better support this theory… when fishing with a live bream and a bg… it does not take long to get a lmb to bite!!
But since feeding the bg the numbers of them are really increasing. So with those increased numbers of bg you’d think the feeding success for the lmb would be increased. Maybe? I dunno.

I think with the points you made about the alkalinity (as long as I understand correctly), that I’d prefer to leave that effort of raising alkalinity alone if indeed it will sacrifice the water clarity and also be difficult to sustain based on the shallow water well topping of the water level. I justify this by considering a consistent topped off water level and oxygen (especially in summer) is more important than correct alkaline level. Is that thinking wrong? What’s more important? Water level (which may sustain better oxygen levels during summer) or low water level (less oxygen) and correct alkalinity?

I feel we are going to make some progress with this exchange but sometimes one answer just causes more questions.

Thx for your input.

Cc

Though I just walked down to the pond. Noticed a couple of 1-2lb lmb just casually swimming away from the shore with several edible sized bg around them. No effort from the lmb to feed on them. In fact the bg follow behind the lmb. ??

Cc

Those BG must know that the tail won't bite!

BG, don't just give up willingly. LMB are powerful apex predators but there are limits to how frequently they can consume larger consumable sizes. BG that one can fit into an LMB mouth and shove into the gullet are easily consumed when we are force feeding the LMB. But as to the larger sizes of what fits ... those are never a cinch for LMB. They have to work at it, and they are much less frequently successful when they try.

How much difference does a 1/2" in length make? It can be the difference between a meal worth trying to subdue and one that is not even worth the effort (because it won't be successful frequently enough).

As for my questions, mostly I wanted to understand is this:

1. Did you have a skinny bass ... skinny small BG situation when you purchased the property? If so, the hydrilla was probably part of the reason for both.

2. What's a good estimate of the poundage a balanced central GA LMB/BG pond can carry? For example, would it range from 50 to 150 lbs/acre? If so we could work with 100 lbs/acre for the natural fertility and then take into account the increase that feeding would contribute. Coupling this with the population structure you would prefer ... we could recommend a management plan for the LMB population that is consistent with the goaled population structure.

3. What population structure do you want? small LMB/ giant BG ... nice LMB and BG ... or do you want trophy LMB/and mostly small BG. Each of these structures have pros and cons. The keystone to each will be how you manage LMB. How you manage the LMB population will help to build the structure you want. Because the pond is in an unmanaged condition, it will take you some time to move it to a better desired population structure.

4. How much will you feed annually? What brand of feed are going to be feeding.

You are feeding. You are seeing good results from that. The reason the results are good is that you have expanded the carrying capacity. Fish are able to grow when they are not using all available resources to meet the energy needs of their metabolism. But you are now in your second year and by this fall this net effect will be baked in. Thereafter, you can probably expect a similar population structure (if the numbers present each subsequent fall are similar to the numbers you have this fall). If you recruit more than die, the average condition/size will decline in subsequent years. If more die than are recruited, the average condition/size will improve in subsequent years. You will have to shape the future by managing your population through harvest/recruitment. If you don't do this, feed will ultimately give you what you had when you bought the property where the only difference is that there are just more of them than then. Part of your plan may require managing your pond weeds.

Most of the people on Pond Boss with smaller (0.5 - 3 acre) sealed ponds are what you have called "stagnant". Most of the year, these ponds do not have any water running through the outlet pipe. Fortunately, most ponds with healthy plant populations can readily handle that situation and can support large fish populations. Even so, there is a busy section on the forum covering "Aeration" for the ponds that need a little extra help.

Groundwater ponds like yours do not allow quite as much control for the pond owner. If your pond has a good connection to a permeable groundwater aquifer, then I think it is very unlikely that you can pump enough water to raise the elevation by a significant amount. I think the hydrostatic forces will readily push the "extra" water right back down into the aquifer.

However, changing the chemistry of your pond water may be a slightly easier task. The main movement of water from your pond should be evaporative losses that are then replenished from the aquifer. Since only the water molecules are leaving, any chemical species that you add to the pond MAY have a significant residence time, and it may therefore be possible for you to economically alter your water chemistry.

Unfortunately, the groundwater in some aquifers may move very rapidly. This is more likely in areas with greater slopes, very permeable sand/gravel aquifers, or places with a continuous removals of water (like a river at the lowest surface exposure of the aquifer). I don't know how many of those variables apply to your groundwater pond.

I think I would start by following the advice of jpsdad and Bill Cody and see how much you can first improve your bass fishery by sampling and culling as needed. Only after several years of diligent work with poor results, would I then contemplate spending money on changing the chemistry if that appeared to be part of the problem.

Good luck on improving your fishery! It sounds like you have an excellent start.

1) I would say both big and lmb were small and skinny.

2) I am not sure what that balance would be?

3) I’d prefer lmb trophy pond more than any then trophy bg if not a suitable pond for lmb. But if numbers of trophy fish are important to. If this pond was only capable of supporting say 10 8lb lmb vs over 100 trophy bg… I’d prefer trophy bg. Does that make sense?

4). So since I been feeding since last summer I’m gone through about 80lbs of the Game Fish Chow sold by tractor supply. High protein. But then I turned if off from say late November to March. Now that it’s back on I need to increase feeding time to at least two a day. I can let a normal feeding occur. Then throw three more handfuls and the feeding and aggression is not decreased at all. So how are you supposed to gauge how much to be feeding anyways. (There goes another answer leading to another question). 😁

Cc

Thanks fishinRod. I’m
Going to agree. I think I’ll continue on for a couple years to see what I can achieve before dinking with the chemicals.

Also how do I know it’s 100% a ground table pond vs a spring fed (from under the pond somewhere)?
The neighbor who has been there forever claims it is water table. Also when I have dug about 7-8 feet from all around the banks of the pond I’d hit solid clay nearly impossible to blast through. I’m waiting to receive a 33’ manual well auger to get through it. But this depth of the clay does appear to be about where the bottom of the pond would be… but I have not hit the water table yet!!?? Also if the water levels gets much lower in summer drought wouldn’t that suggest it is not water table fed?

Cc

OK, so probably you have a fairly high population of BG relative to the BG carry capacity. This is likely due to having too much cover for the BG rather than too few LMB.

It will be easier for you to have a trophy BG BOW than a trophy LMB BOW. It is very unlikely your pond could support 10 8lb LMB even with a bunch of feeding. The pond is to shallow and too risky to attempt IMHO in your climate. A good number of trophy BG, that is doable if you can get the number of BG down. With feed you can have more of them.


Glad you asked that question. You should be feeding the amount of feed that you pond is missing to support the weight of your goaled population of fish. Hypothetically, lets say your pond supports 80 lbs of BG and 16 lbs of LMB without feed. You could potentially have 160 BG averaging 1/2 lb and grow some of them over a 1 lb. You could do that if you could reduce the population of BG to around 160 or so BG even if you didn't feed. But lets say you feed enough to double the carry to 160 lbs of BG. With the same restricted number you could average 3/4 to 1 lb and possibly grow some examples to 2 lbs. Or you could have twice as many averaging 1/2 lbs and with twice as many reaching 1 lbs. There are all kinds of ways to divey the carry capacity ... but to get what you want ... you have to effectively control populations to meet that goal.

Successful fish management using the ideas presented above based on the effort expended will IMO be determined a lot by what percentage of the pond has hydrilla growing in it. Too much weed cover makes LMB finding and catching BG very difficult.
The 1 ac pond 3ft-5ft deep with water through the entire pond is almost crystal clear. This means light penetrates to the bottom throughout the pond basin. This means the hydrilla could grow on all the pond bottom that provides dense cover for the BG. Best BG-LMB management depends on the pond not having more than 20% to maybe 30% weed cover so LMB can adequately capture the edible BG to keep their numbers from being overpopulated and can grow well.

Without seeing the pond I thing one thing to be doing is reducing the amount of hydrilla in the pond toward the 15%-20% coverage. Hydrilla spreads as it grows so this will be an ongoing management concern or plan to keep the weed growth managed so the LMB can effectively keep the BG numbers in some sort of predator prey balance so both populations come close to your goals.

Since your pond is likely ground water level maintained I would not use chemical herbicides to reduce the hydrilla or any weeds. Herbicides will tend to leach from the pond basin. One herbicide that could be effective would be a granular form that sinks to the bottom and be absorbed by the weeds. Granular herbicide can also be effective for spot treatment for better control of what areas weeds are reduced.

I suggest using white amur (aka grass carp - GC) to eat the hydrilla. Number to stock will depend on how many weeds you want to be removed or managed. My experience is once each GC when 18-20+" can eat about a pickup bed of weeds per year. IMO start by slowly adding GC and allow them to grow (about 1.5 years) to 20" long before adding more GC to see what existing number of GC can do for eating the weeds. GC are a whole lot easier to add than getting them removed which can be very difficult.. I will do a little homework and return to help determine number to stock for control of hydrilla.

Cc,

I was going off of your description that it was a "water table" pond. If you are not sure, then that question is a little bit difficult to determine, especially if you were not there for construction of the pond.

The pond level typically goes down in the summer for both sealed ponds AND water table ponds. I have two water table ponds that go down during the summer because the aquifer cycles fairly rapidly based on annual rainfall. Surprisingly, my water table ponds go back up in the late fall after the first hard freeze! It turns out the tallgrass prairie and trees in the area can actually "drink" more water than the flow rate of the aquifer. Once they go dormant, the groundwater level on my low ground actually goes up.

The water in a "sealed" pond is based on the rain and snow that falls into the watershed of the pond. The watershed is the land surface area that drains into the pond. Frequently, you can tell from the pond design and location if it was placed to capture run off.

However, groundwater ponds are also usually excavated in the low ground so the water elevation in the pond is closer to the surface of the land surrounding the pond. In that case, some surface water would usually also run off to the pond. If close to zero surface water would actually run into your pond, then you can be sure that you have a groundwater pond.

If not, it might be a little difficult for you to be certain of your pond type. The easiest way to test would be to actually pump water from another source into your pond. (Do you have another reachable source of water short of drilling a new well?) If you measured the water flow rate and the volume of the increase in the pond, then those two numbers should match very closely for a sealed pond.

If not, then observing your pond cycles would probably be your best option. A sealed pond should reach maximum water elevation within a few hours of a good rain. A groundwater pond may take a day or two to reach the maximum water elevation after a big rain. (Although it depends on your sub-soil geology.) Likewise, if you mark your water elevation and take readings to track the water loss, then you may be able to tell. A sealed pond should generally go down faster than a water table pond. Evaporation would be lowering a sealed pond by the full evaporation amount every day. Whereas the evaporative losses from a groundwater pond will be mostly made up from the water table. (You can put a pan of water in the shade near your pond and get a rough estimate of your evaporation rate.)

I hope those ideas help you a little to actually evaluate the true circumstances at your location.

If you do try some test pits or drill bores, you can sustain a groundwater pond from surprisingly thin layers of permeable streaks in your subsoils. I have dug some test trenches where I get about 2" of sand right on top of good blue clay. Those pits will fill up to the water table elevation in less than an hour. The same would hold true for a large pond.

You should check this link and see if a contact herbicide might help. They do not treat the water (see Bill's comment above) buy act by contact with the plant. You could also try to see if you can feed train the LMB which would help with their growth without attempting to change the water - no alkalinity. But 0 alkalinity is a fish stressor and is an issue.

Hydrilla Control - Grass Carp (GC)
GRASS CARP INFO and Hydrilla Control

Here is a Very Good info sheet. Read carefully and understand all the details..
https://sarasota.wateratlas.usf.edu...for-Biological-Mgmt-of-Aquatic-Weeds.pdf

Texas
https://aquaplant.tamu.edu/management-options/hydrilla/

https://aquaplant.tamu.edu/management-options/hydrilla/
2. Biological Management Options
Grass carp will seldom control aquatic vegetation the first year they are stocked. They will readily consume hydrilla, and it is, in fact, one of their most preferred plants. Grass carp stocking rates to control hydrilla are usually in the range of 7 to 15 per surface acre. In Texas, only triploid grass carp are legal and a permit from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is required before they can be purchased from a certified dealer.


Water Research Power Point Presentation
https://www.waterrf.org/serve-file/resource/031518Webcast_FINALv1.pdf

Comments from members of PBoss Forum
Greg Grimes - ""yes POSITIVELY identify it first but we have had great results with a one two punch. Grass carp and copper/reward combo as mentioned by JHAP (informative post my friend).

It is a 350 acre lake and we keep less thatn 2% coverage. Every three years stock 2-3 grass carp per acre to keep fresh young hungry grass carp going. The initial stocking 8 years ago was about 8/acre. Also key to stock larger 11" plus size to survive bass predation. Then we spot tret with 2 gals reward/1 gallon ktea/.5 gallon surfactant per weeded acre. I think for what its worth you did not stock enough GC or for the % GC eaten by bass or those that escaped. I suggest more grass carp in the spring before the hydrilla starts back. Then spot treat early as suggested. Hope this helps.""

Chad Fikes - First thing is we need to properly identify plant species that you are dealing with. I have been managing aquatic vegetation for 5 years in North Texas and southern Oklahoma and have yet to see an actual Hydrilla case. Once we id plant we can come up with a game plan to manage plant.

There are basically three different management options for plants. Biological, which you have tried with grass carp, physical removal and EPA registered aquatic herbicides. Each is a tool that we can use to manage plants. Sometimes one works better than others.

I would avoid fertilizing until then. I would be happy to help you come up with and implement a game plan to manage those plants.

Kelly Duffie - If hydrilla wasn't introduced to your lake (accidentally or intentionally), then it is probably something else. Verify the plant's ID before you do anything.
IF it is hydrilla, fertilizing to shade it out is not an option (IMO). Hydrilla is capable of withstanding extreme low-light conditions, which is why it typically dominates plant-communities. Also, fluridone (Sonar, Avast, Whitcap) might be more affordable than you think (despite the high $/gal price-tag), considering the low-dosage required for excellent hydrilla control. Then again, your lake's hydrological characteristics have a lot to do with making it a decent candidate for fluridone treatments (little or no flow-through for 90+ days after treatment is essential).

'Jeffhasapond ' - Also no expert but I've had first hand experience in dealing with Elodea. (Looks very similar to Hydrilla and often mistaken for Hydrilla). I originally was calling our pond weed Hydrilla until I learned how to distinguish between Hydrilla and Elodea, it turned out we have Elodea. Ultimately I used a Cutrine Plus/Reward combination that had a significant impact on our Elodea problem. Now all I do is spot treat areas each year. I believe I spent about $300-$400 to treat our 3 acre pond that had 70 to 80 percent coverage. It worked wonders for us. For a 10 acre pond I think I'd find out what a professional consultation would cost.

FishinRod… I want to confirm that I do indeed have a water table pond of summers will show a decrease in water level. Plus my water temp is sticking around 70 or below degrees. I’ll watch throughout this summer but bread water table ponds temp generally will
Always be < 74. And bro g a shallow pond I. The south of this occurs there’s no doubt it’s due to water table water temp.

As for the hydrilla. I should clarify that there is less than 10% hydrilla coverage on the surface. Most is completely submerged. Much is only 1’ or so in patches on the bottom of the pond.

So 20% coverage? Is that measured only by what is breaching the water surface?

Cc

Coverage is what amount covers the bottom of the pond. Personally even though we sell fish, a more accurate control would be using herbicides. You can't tell the TGC where to eat the plants and fish like the edges of weed beds.........

Bill Cody Note - You could consider using the appropriate herbicide for some spot or zone treatments to get it significantly reduced and then add some TGC for longer term hydrilla control. IMO you want some hydrilla or other submerged plants to be present to compete with filamentous algae (FA) growth. FA grows primarily when no other plants are using the available nutrients. When a pond has enough submerged plants to use the available nutrients, there will be no FA problems. FA lives when there is an excess of unused dissolved nutrients.

Interesting, your comments CampCobb on water temps in Summer. When I run climate on your location, I expect water temps ranging from around 50 to 82. That your water is cooled by the flow of groundwater tells me that there is a pretty good exchange of water. Your water would also be moderated in winter too (only the effect would be to warm the water). You could probably feed year-round if water temps range from 58 to 74.

In addition to managing the weeds to help the bass predation on BG, you could also remove BG with traps and/or fishing.

Also worth considering is tracking your dissolved oxygen levels if you’re feeding year-round. Stable temps help, but during warmer stretches, especially late summer, oxygen can dip even if the water feels cool, and that can impact both fish health and feeding behavior. A simple DO meter could give you some really helpful data to fine-tune your timing and volume

CampCobb,

I am truly unsure of what your carry capacity is/was at the time of the purchase. But the average size and the population are related to carry. Given things you said, my impression is that the carry lies within a range of lower standing weights. I think probably something between 40 and 100 lbs per acre. Reasons for thinking it isn't carrying a great weight of fish is that the water is clear and the pH and alkalinity are low. Some of the best water I have ever fished for trophy BG was a clear pond on sandy soil. Carrying a large standing weight is not required to grow large fish. But having a good balance of population and carry capacity is essential for growth and top end weights. Feeding allows for additional growth ... but not in the absence of the constraint of population. For similar numbers of fish, feeding will increase the average weight of them and in so doing, the weight carried increases. Increases in fertility also increase recruitment and it is easy to imagine an increase in population that could ... if large enough ... negate the effect of feeding on growth as those new recruits grow. Population management is an ongoing effort.

Populations are driven by recruitment and mortality. Mortality occurs naturally whether we adjust populations or not. Some say that 35% per annum is an appropriate expectation of natural mortality. Whatever the case, for a stable adult population and stable adult population structure the recruitment of adults equals the mortality of adults. Generally speaking, populations of YOY and juveniles tends to be highly variable but of relatively low proportions of the total standing weight. So high numbers but low weights. By and large we ignore YOY in terms of population management. They are essentially prey fish that undergo well in excess of 95% mortality being eaten by fish that are larger than they are.

In the spreadsheet below, I work with an assumption of 90 lbs of BG carry in your pond. Natural mortality is assumed to be 35%. In a pond where the average length of LMB is 12" or less, I would consider 4.5" BG essentially "recruited" and mostly immune from predation by LMB. So below working with those assumptions of carry, mortality, and your description (though somewhat vague) of the size of BG when you purchased the property last year. The population of recruits is chosen to balance the mortality with the size range (governed by annual growth) and the assumed carry. So ...... if the size distribution of BG then was similar that in the image below ... we can say that the population is balanced with the assumed carry.



The natural mortality reduces year class abundance each year and it is this mortality that provides for the growth of surviving individuals. So you will notice that are 36.80 lbs of BG dying naturally every year. If you divide this into the 90 lbs of carry, you get 40.88% of standing weight is lost each year. Also, it turns out that the biomass weighted proportionate weight gain averages the same number. So the standing weight falls when a fish dies and this leads to growth of the remaining fish that brings the standing weight back up to the carry. This is happening throughout the year though there may also be seasonal abundance and shortages of the food chain that cause fluctuation. But here we are just looking at population effects.

Now the next spreadsheet is the same pond where recruitment to age 2 is limited by harvest. The carry is the same but what is different is how many fish are comprising the population of age 2 and older BG. This fishing mortality of age 1 BG (132 per acre year) increase the annual growth increment by 665%. There is potential under this scenario to grow BG to around 2 lb. The very interesting part of all this is that total mortality isn't all that much higher in the second scenario. The main difference is when the mortality occurs. It is concentrated in smaller fish of age 1 and so there is less competition among age 2 and older fish for the limited resources.



In your climate (accounting for temperature moderation of your ground water) BG have potential to grow around .536 lbs annually. So even with the reduced population there is potential for growth that is not being tapped. We could either be more restrictive of the population, or, we could add more food to support more growth of the same population. Below, 240 lbs of Optimal BG is fed to support additional growth. This boosts the annual weight gain and top-end weights while keeping the same number of fish. This scenario allows for attainment of 87% of the climate limitation of growth.



So these last two scenarios represent a pond managed for 8 or 9 years controlling the recruitment of age 2 BG. The problem is that you inherited the first scenario. It isn't as simple as just controlling recruitment. The BOW has overrepresentation of age 2 and older fish and so it will require a conversion from the existing population over a period of time. Existing fish can grow, but they will need to be managed. They will not reach the sizes that your new recruits will but if managed correctly they will grow while you recruit a ladder of younger recruits. I can share more if you are interested in pursuing a trophy BG pond.

I just want to say I’m really impressed and grateful for all this good analysis being done on my pond and start up fishery. I’ll admit a bit of it is a little over my head.

I found two interesting things today I’d like to point out which adds characteristics to this pond of mine.

First of all the continued feeding has me surprised at the thriving every weekend I come to visit the pond.
The numbers of bg and sizes are really increasing. And I’m seeing more throughout the pond and not just the feeding area.

Today my young boys were with me and treated to “get in” the pond out in the boat. They had a lot of fun and I noticed it was really producing a big cloudy area in the water.
I decided to join them to check it out.

When my feet settled on the bottom it was pure clay squishing through my toes. I’d go down and grab a hand full of and was just thick clumpy clay.
This covers the entire bottom.
I may have said in prior posts it was a sand/mud bottom. But definitely clay.

So what evidence does this provide if any that this is indeed a water table pond?
And what does it support for things like water temps and ground absorption?

Is it good or bad for the fishery?

Also noticed that tonight after dark we’d shine a light in the water where the fish feed and hold many active visible fish during the day and there was not a single bg to be spotted. Were they down in the grass? Did they got to bother part of the pond? Were they hiding? Why at night?

Cc

BG wait out the night resting with minimum activity on bottom trying to be not noticed. Grass probably mutes vibrations from slow gill flapping and so I could see them using that to their advantage. LMB do feed at night.

Ya know that was the only conclusion I could come up with and I do agree with that.
However silly google will say they are active nocturnal feeders at night.
But we didn’t get a single bite.

Is it that LMB eye sight is better in the dark? Because during the day there were several lmb’s swimming all amongst the bg. The bg weren’t even considering hiding. They’d swim side by side. And when the lmb would “lunge” at a bg the bg would zoom right away.

I DID lose sleep over this last night.
Jk. 😁

But I am finding watching all this in the clear water very interesting and satisfying.

Any idea why the bg hide at night but do not fear the lmb during the day?


Cc

For the larger BG that are unquestionably too large for your largest LMB to swallow, the reason they wait out the night resting on the bottom could be two-fold. First, a remnant behavior leftover from needing that behavior earlier in life too improve prospects of survival. Second, energy conservation. BG feed primarily by sight and the visual reach of their sight at night may be too short to make foraging worth the effort for the tiny things they eat. Conserving energy at night may be a behavior that reduces daily metabolic demands for energy (food) that maximizes the benefits of what they can consume on a daily basis. Just guessing here, I actually don't know. LOL. Mystery is OK in my book, but I do like to try to demystify things I don't understand.

As for LMB sight at night? Probably impaired, but they can approach prey much closer without detection at night. Also, their lateral lines are kind of like eyes that help them identify the location of movements that are relatively close to them. They don't have to see to use this form of determining the location of prey. LMB prey are substantial proportions of their daily energy needs and so foraging at night in stealth mode when the BG defenses are impaired is probably profitable.

BG do not fear a predator that they know has little chance of capturing them. Likewise, LMB have little interest in prey they have little chance of capturing.

So think of it like this. If you have a rabbit nest out back where the offspring have just reached a size they can run about, you will have no trouble capturing them and you could consume them if you want. But as they grow, they will become increasingly difficult to run down and catch, until at some size, you just can't do it anymore often enough to keep you interested, (unless of course the rabbit is sick, dying, or geriatric). When the rabbits are tiny, they don't provide much energy, but as they grow, they provide increasingly larger amounts of energy. If you had knowledge of your success rate for attacking rabbits of various sizes, you could multiply that probability of success by the energy content of various sizes of rabbits and what you would get is the revenue (in energy) of attempting that capture. What you would find is ... that the revenue of trying to capture a rabbit when plotted against the length of a rabbit forms a curve that looks like a bell. So, at very small sizes, the revenue is small but as the length of the rabbit increases, the revenue grows and reaches a maximum at some particular length. This is the optimum length that produces the maximum revenue of energy for a predatory attempt.

It works the same for LMB. No different. As prey grows larger than this optimum length, the revenue of trying decreases and once it falls below the threshold that covers some minimum proportion the energy expended, they just stop trying. Whether a particular size of prey is profitable, that is, can be encountered frequently enough to provide the number of predatory attempts needed to consume more energy than was expended, is more complicated. In part, this is a function of the abundance of that size of prey. So it is conceivable that it is profitable for an LMB to consume large prey that produce only 1/10 the energy of optimum prey per predatory attempt. All that is required, is that the large prey be numerous enough to provide the sufficient number of encounters that culminate in the sufficient number of predatory attempts. In that case, the number of predatory attempts is 10 times higher than the optimum sized prey.

The energy expended is NOT the energy expended in a predatory attempt. This is a very minor portion of metabolic expenditures. Metabolic investment begins at the end of handling the last meal. Handling involves digesting a meal and metabolizing it. When metabolites fall below a minimum threshold, the LMB will resume foraging. It is at the resumption of foraging that the investment of energy for its next meal begins. This investment includes all the energy expended in search for opportunities to launch predatory attempts (including unsuccessful attempts) until it finally consumes another prey item and completes its handling of it. Provided the energy gained by meals exceed the investments of energy expended in searching, subduing, and handling of those meals, the fish is consuming profitably and will gain weight.

Jpsdad, thx. All that anout the night time behavior makes sense to me!

So here is one of the larger bass in the pond we caught today.

Notice the large head and mouth in proportion to the body!!

Also caught a coupe of really nice fat bg. They are thriving.

Oh and a couple pics of the weed coverage on the bottom and on rake. This is hydrilla right? If not what is it?

CC,

What that is ... is unknown by me. Reminds me a lot of what we have here plaguing our ponds here (which I have been told is southern naiad). If you can get some out and take a clear picture against a white background, I would bet someone here will be able to identify. How long is that LMB? Please post pics of the BG as well.