Alright people it's been awhile since I've posted and I thought I would check in as I have more questions as the scene at the pond gets weirder.
Alright the last two weeks I have started feeding my fish and today in a light drizzle saw my first action. Fish in NE corner of the pond were very active once the food made it to the covered edge.
I've been fishing at least 4 days a week and I have seen more of the same with the sunfish. It looks like I have three different species in there. Most of what I catch looks like either the pumpkinseed x GSF or what we thought were pure BG from above. When the water cleared on Monday I saw tons of small YOY fish, but what I'm catching are these larger sunfish or BG(60% 5"+).
I have also found the bass and what I'm seeing is not encouraging. The bass are still in the 5-7" range and the heads are large compared to the bodies. Maybe this is common at this size, but they just don't look right. I've been catching quite a few and not one has been over 8". The bass need another couple inches to thrive in this pond, but I have a feeling they are really struggling getting there.
I also have caught a couple crappie. Recently I have removed all the barbs on my hooks as I inadvertently had a bass swallow a rooster-tail (As I grabbed the dogs toy out of the water). It was sad as he was a larger one, may of made it but it didn't look good. Anyway I didn't get a pic of the crappie as it fell off as I went to grab it, but this thing was HUGE (at least 12" possibly 14"). The presence of this guy along with two other nice ones I caught are telling me that my LMB aren't the kings of pond.
OK my question is what can I do to favor my LMB? Also I think I need to start harvesting some of these larger sunfish and crappies, but do not want to hurt the reproduction of the sunfish. What size forage fish do I take and what rate of harvest is safe? (Definitely open to all suggestions.)
