Bones your job as manager is to assess and maintain the population in accord with your goals. If it were me ,given what you have provided in the way of goals , I would manage Faith lake for good LMB fishing and the small pond for trophy BG. The 2 fit together well with your goals , facts and location.

That is the premise of my prior post. You would have excellent BG fishing with fly and live bait in the small pond and healthy LMB in Faith lake. You would still have good BG fishing in Faith but the quality would be better (trophy) in the small pond.

You need to learn how to do a population analysis. Its not hard. You use creel/catch info , seining info and visual info.

Faith Lake unmanaged will tend to be LMB crowded (to many small LMB). The forage pond with FH and BG (I would also put in GShiners and RES) will if unmanaged tend to be BG crowded ( to many small stunted BG). The key word is unmanaged. You will need to ascertain the population's status and remove fish as needed. In year 3 you will likely need to start keeping (take out) some 10-12in LMB from Faith Lake and starting in year 2 seine and trap BG , RES , FH and GShiners from the small pond and add them to Faith. My guess is about 30-40 % of the standing crop of the small pond's fish (in the right sizes). For FH just be sure to leave about half , for BG and RES move all the 2-6 in ones you seine/trap/catch and for GShiners move all you catch. Even if you do a good job of seining (in front of the feeder not whole lake seining) and trapping you will only catch a small % of the fish. My guess is you will need to seine about 4 times per year ( not in April or May) and trap as needed. Seining in late June , late Aug and Oct and Feb will spread things out. In the small pond don't take out the largest BG.

Last edited by ewest; 08/02/08 07:49 AM.