I think the GSF would make a very good forage base for LMB, but what you have is the traditional aged pond with too many bass and not enough forage AND/OR pond capacity. If you want the larger bass, you will need to remove a good number of the small LMB. This leaves more GSF per predator yielding faster predator growth. For example, my 1/4 acre HBG/HSB pond only has 40 HSB in it. They were put in to control HBG recruitment. My intentions are to grow bigger HBG, however. A trophy bass pond could have more bass in it, but you would need some panfish (BG and GSF) to produce the bass forage, and spend a fair amount of time removing the smaller bass that will just keep coming and coming. In your situation, if bigger bass are your goals, you could start removing some of the bigger GSF as well. They are too big for the bass to eat and just taking up bio-space and consuming food that the bass could utilize.

There's alot of variable to consider, but that's my two cents to get the "goals" conversation going. Another thing to think about is managing for a large panfish pond...you are almost there if the BIG LMB dream is not too ingrained.


Fish on!,
Noel