Suggestions above for improving RW of the now skinny LMB are sound. Reread and affirm them. Corrections or solutions to thin bodied bass (predators) have been talked about a lot in past posts. I do not recall the specifics of dinsmoreoutdoors' initial pond stocking which is important to fixing his 'problem' and why I did not provide a lot of details.
General advice. Firstly make sure of or reaffirm the fishery goals. When you have too many slow growing thin bodied predators and you want fast growing, bigger predators the most obvious fix is reduce the predator numbers, then work on improving forage numbers and maintaining adequate numbers of all proper sizes of forage based on the predator size structure population desired.
It is not a good idea to money whip it by just adding more forage. It is a good idea to read the recent PB article Nov-Dec 2018 pg 28 by D.Beasley: "Thinking Past the Obvious". In the article he tells us to know the cause and effect of the problem "manage the entire ecosystem" for getting at the real fix.
I would add quite a bit dense cover habitat that can be removed when needed to achieve fewer forage and better RW. Ideal amount of dense shoreline cover, edge to 6ft deep, is supposed to be 20%-25% of the shoreline length which is one whole shoreline of a square pond. Keep in mind most tree branch twigs quickly decompose in 1-2-3 yrs. Also keep in mind that the dense cover will also allow good survival of YOY bass which will happen in 2018!.
If one is really serious about growing premium sport fish you should have some sort of forage pond without predators to mitigate unforeseen shortages of forages to keep the predators growing while your adjust predator density.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/01/19 04:30 PM.
