This ties into a previous post I had about a 1.3 acre pond ond overpopulated with crappie and bluegill. It now does have a few larger bass( one is 4 lbs), but I need to add more. We have been removing crappie and bluegill by angling. Several of us and our kids have worked hard at it and removed an estimated 800 BG and Crappie this spring so far. We have weighed a bucket full of these fish and estimated we have removed 200 lbs of fish. How do we know when enough is enough? I assume this weight will be replaced by something over the summer and fall? If I add 10, 12 to 15 inch bass, it should increase the bass size and the bluegill and crappie size? Or does it just get replaced by smaller fish? Or does it not have to get replaced?
My concern is we take every bluegill and crappie out that we can catch. At what point do we need to throw the slightly bigger bluegill and crappie back to get bigger bluegill and crappies? Or if only removing by angling is this not a concern because we could never catch them all?
Can we make a decent estimate of the population knowing what they weigh and using Iowa DNR guidelines for weight per acre of average farm ponds in our area? For example, can I assume if said pond's holding capacity of bluegill is 500 lbs, it will have roughly 500 lbs of 1 lb bluegill, or 2000 1/4 lb bluegills? Or if overpopulated and stunted, the weight of bluegills in the pond is actually higher and therefore hard to guess the total population?
Thanks for any advice
