Originally Posted by TGW1
I understand what you are saying when you have to many of the biggest cnbg. Going back to what i said earlier "trying to figure the weights of fish per acre" . My pond is not a laboratory where I can see under or through the clear water. That puts me into an educated guessing game. So, how many big cnbg is to many? It's a SWAG based on catching them and or seeing them the best you can. In my case after two shock surveys, it is a shot in time. A tool, but I am not convinced how accurate it really is. All the fish in the pond are not in shallow water. So, I can not agree or disagree with your good and well thought out comments. I am just saying it is not easy to determine when there are to many.

So I agree with all of this. That said, I think you are erring on the wrong side of this equation. In other words, I think that you may worry most about the most minor risks. It seems to me that your are very concerned that you will remove too many and feel more confident in having too many than too few. I would just say this.

You may be doing more harm by under-cropping than you realize and the risks of over-cropping are probably less than the risks of under-cropping .

BG grow fast. They can easily quadruple in weight in a single season. Even if you were to take out half of their weight now they'd recover their standing weight within a couple of months of the next growing season. I think a good approach is to make that SWAG and just go with it. Take 30 percent of that SWAG each late summer/fall. What you don't want to eat turn into lumps that your feed trained LMB will eat. One approach to ensuring you have plenty of the appropriately sized Male BG is to fin clip 40 lbs of them annually. They should be in the 6" to 8" range. Every other year choose a different location to clip. Once you have done this start removing fish that don't have the clip in the correct location. That is at least one way you could be sure that you have the minimum mature sized BG you need.

If you crop your mature BG, the pond will respond like a tree that has been pruned. The remaining branches (BG) will grow faster and produce more leaves (YOY). The standing weight will be able to endure temporary setbacks in carrying capacity (like extended cloudy weather). Your dependence on feed to stimulate YOY production will be reduced. Some of the nutrients will be removed by you and your guest when they are taken home for eating. It will be a win-win. You just need more faith that this action wont be harmful and more faith in your BG's capacity to fill the capacity you are creating with YOY and new breeding sized BG.


It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers