Yes, the lake was drained to nothing but a creek when the dam broke in 2005. It stayed that way for about 4 months during reconstruction. There was no restocking nor any other management efforts after this.
This same situation also occurred two other times in prior years, 10-20 years apart from one another. Same results each time, no management, but the fishing got better and better as each year passed with exploding populations of huge bream, crappie, bass, shad and shiners.
So this is good and it clearly demonstrates the fertility is there and what conditions must exist to replicate the BOW in its heyday. Successful management will prevent the overabundance of bass, crappie, and bream.
One observation perhaps worth noting is the north side of the lake is bordered by a 300 acre field that runs the span of the entire lake. This field was used for row crops for 40 years until about 5-6 years ago when the land was purchased and planted with pecans. No clue if this would have had any impact from fertilizer/runoff?
I would imagine that the water quality has not changed from years past, but there is no way to know this.
I think the field change of use probably reduces some of the nutrients but I also think it is small given the size of your water shed.
Another note, the biologist is coming to shock/remove as many small bass as possible starting January. He says 4-5 trips at 5-6 hours each should get it done.
OK. But I am going to give you some advice. He needs to remove enough to make it worth your investment. He can't just go out and spend 5-6 hours and then tell you they were to deep to dredge up. I would put some thought into this. Think about the value of pounds of fish removed. You probably need at least another 1000 lbs removed. That should get it done. If the 4 or 5 trips cost $600 each, then offer him 2 to 4 dollars a pound to remove them. You would be surprised how resourceful people can get with incentives/disincentives. If its a waste of his time ... its probably a waste of your money too. The cost/pound removed needs to be acceptable to you or you should seek alternatives to electroshocking to help you with culling.
I am very interested in the organic fertilization you described, but I know nothing about this so I’m all ears. Is this typically more or less cost effective?
Organic fertilization is more expensive than inorganic but is more cost effective. Its food for micro-organisms and then when they poop it, its manure for the pond just like the feed for the big bluegill would be manure. It is much cheaper source of nutrients and energy than fish food is. You wouldn't need a feeder to administer it. What makes it different that it targets the lower trophic levels which means it targets survival and growth of YOY bluegill (as a opposed to feed which targets adult bluegill). Don't get me wrong, adult bluegill benefit from organic fertilization but they are not first at the trough. Fish hatcheries, particularly state DOWs favor them for growing fry and fingerlings. Another good organic fertilizer is rice bran. That said I urge you to hold off on both feeders and/or fertilization until you have an LMB population structure concentrated in fish larger than 3 lbs. I would only do it then if the culling effort is manageable and any additional culling costs are acceptable. There is really no point of doing it if you are catching lots of fish.
As far as the neighbors contributions, they have already committed over the past year to keeping any small fish, however not many of them fish regularly. Only a few other folks ever come out to fish regularly besides us land owners. We’ve loosely tallied what’s been taken out and we estimate that somewhere around 600 small bass over the past year total.
Metrics are great. Having numbers on things gives you leverage in understanding effects of things you have done and next step appropriate actions. The metric missing however is the weight of those 600 small bass. But this number is good to have ... if they averaged 1 lbs then you removed 7.5 lbs per acre. Now I can tell you that unless your lake supports a small weight of LMB (say 20 lbs or less) this just isn't enough to get the results you need.
Going forward also weigh the culls. You don't necessarily need to weigh each separately but at least keep a creel weight.
I do also agree with your humble opinion about the capability of the lakes water quality to produce healthy populations as we’ve seen it for decades. My fear too with fertilizing is that this would almost over stimulate things, if it’s even doable, given the flow through rate.
I recommend delaying both. The critical piece is culling and the action of fertilizing will undermine that effort by recruiting more small bass than would otherwise be recruited.
The management of populations by culling creates vacuum ... similar to but not exactly like the condition when you were refilling. Creating vacuum pulls the system allowing favorable conditions for existing fish. Feeding and fertilization creates pressure. It forces a body of water to produce more fish than it otherwise would. It is not equivalent to creating vacuum. It reduces water quality and restricts the space individual fish have. It should only be used when one needs more production of fish (all fish ... predator and prey alike). So 1 acre isn't a lot of water, someone wanting 2 acres worth of fish needs to use fertilization and/or feeding. It just isn't "a given". Nutrients are necessary but they are a two edged sword that many scientists view as a form of pollution in natural waters. So whether one should feed? It is not always yes but rather it depends. In your case, with only 8 participating on 80 acres that has a history of being great water ... I think it isn't necessary and that it carries risks that may increase culling cost and/or lower ultimate weights relative to the water's historic potential.
