Thanks for you pond fish update. Interesting situation you have.
If your goal is natural trout production for this pond then yes be concerned, VERY concerned. Those abundant small bass as they grow to the 6"+ sizes will eliminate your minnows - ELIMINATE them. so to keep your trout fed you will have to resort to feeding them pellets. As you know now bass will not enter a trap even one that is baited. I doubt you will ever be able to catch out all those bass before they spawn again. Then it is a repeat of this year. It will be difficult to catch the last few bass out of the pond because the final few will eventually learn to be hook smart - hook shy and not bite anything with a line and hook attached. I have experienced this in several ponds. You have to be a very finesse angler to get the last 2-4 bass out.
You could sustain the trout fishery by regularly feeding them pellets. However if you do not daily go to the pond then pellet feeding trout is more of a hurdle problem.
IMO you will need to decide to renovate the pond OR stock additional fish to create a more balanced predator prey fishery. And if you do nothing else the bass will eventually achieve a weight & number balance to where there are around 30-50 bass per acre and their top end size would be around 10" to 12". The existing adults eat almost all the bass offspring before the next spawn. If you could try and keep the adult bass number down to around 20-25 per ac then they would by themselves grow slightly larger to around 12"-14" max. Their top end size will be based on the amount of food each one gets each year.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 09/02/19 08:35 PM.
