I have a 4.5 acre pond in central North Carolina. My family built the pond about 20 years ago. We built the pond just to manage for trophy bass. We graded humps and drop off out in the pond, as well as made rock piles, stump piles, brush piles.... We stocked it with F1s from American Sportfish as well as bluegill and some hybrid bluegill. The first generation of the F1s were amazing. In 5 years we were catching multiple fish over 8 pounds per year. The biggest on was 11.22 pounds.
I was just a kid at the time when we built the pond and my dad was managing the pond. The first generation F1s, I am assuming lived their life and died and the pond was still good but never like it was. From what I have read the offspring of the F1s dont carry those same traits and some people even drain the lake and restart at that point. We put a gate valve on the bottom of out stand pipe for that very reason and thats always an option if anyone suggests that. There was a time when my dad lost interest in the pond and there was a 3 year gap between him managing it and me picking it up. During that time the bass got overcrowded and stunted. Over the last 4 years I have removed around 50-80 bass per year under 14". We have 2 feeders that feed the bluegill everyday and they seem to be doing fine. I have started tracking the relative weights and have them recorded for some of the fish. I also bought a tag gun and tags and have about 35 bass tagged in the pond so I can track the growth. I also added some new F1s this year from a friends pond who stocked F1s last year, but stocked his bass density a little too high so he told me I could have a few to put in my pond.
Last summer I stocked 120 pounds of crawfish for additional forage. I dont have a lot of rock around the edge so the bass ate them rather quickly. The relative weights went up for a month or so then went back down around average. This spring I started to fertilize the pond with perfect pond plus. There was a decent bloom and I continued to add more when the bloom would lessen. I have slowed back now with the fertilization because of the high temps of the summer. I can see lots of fry in the pond, I am assuming its the first bluegill spawn of the summer?? The bass I am catching now mostly all seem to be fat and at or slightly above the relative weight for the length. I have about 20 more fish to cull this year and I will be at my goal.
My goal with this pond is trophy bass. I dont care about catching a bunch of fish or anything other than double digit bass. I have caught two bass over 7 pounds this year, several others over 5. I think I have a grasp on what is needed to achieve that goal of double digit bass. However, my question for you guys is this: Is there a permanent additional forage I can add to my existing pond? I think threadfin shad might be something that would work, but think they might die in the winter if we get a cold winter where I am. I have thought about golden shiners, but dont have much experience or knowledge of them. I have also thought about adding a section of rip rap along my pond edge to stock the crawfish around in hopes some of them will last longer than a week or 2. I am not certain but I think tilapia are also still not available in NC. I know if I do stock anything it should be at a high rate to avoid the bass just eating all of the forage. Maybe thats what others do for additional forage is just add them to be eaten rather quickly. I guess thats good for the fish, but I wanted to explore something that would reproduce and become a permanent forage source on top of the bluegill. I have been reading pond boss magazines since I was a kid and I know Bob says all you need is bluegill, but I was thinking more forage equals more forage availability for the bass.....????
I am wanting to get your input on any ideas for additional forage that might become permanent in the pond, rather than just a quick snack. I can list out some relative weight fish information on what I have kept track of on the tagged bass if anyone wants that info. Can also get some pictures of the fish and pond if anyone is curious.
Last edited by Tcbenbow; 07/12/21 02:31 PM.
