Your Pond

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Comment by Walt Foreman on September 15, 2012 at 10:08am

Sharon, if there is a significant overpopulation of bluegill, which it sounds like there is, bass have a very difficult time spawning successfully because the small bluegill will raid the nests to eat the eggs, and then if any eggs manage to hatch, the small bluegill will eat all of the fry before they can mature.  Note that it took Zach two years to see a small bass, after he had stocked several larger ones, multiple times.

I didn't realize your pond is only a third of an acre - that's pretty small as far as management options - more difficult to get in balance.  It will support fewer fish, especially if you don't have aeration.  Which means it's easier for it to get overpopulated.  

Feed-trained bass are not as ideal for thinning out bluegill.  They will eat them, but not as aggressively as non-feed-trained. If your pond is that small, your ideal route for big bluegill would be to rotenone and start over, and stock only male coppernose from Overton's.  They sell pure-strain coppernose up to 6+", and they know their stuff and would have no problem sexing bluegill that size.  They could also do the rotenoning for you.  

I know it seems drastic, but you would actually get the pond turned around much quicker.  Rotenone dissipates quickly in warm weather - you could stock within a week or two of rotenoning.  The pound-class coppernose 'gills that I posted photos of back in April, were from Overton's, and were only 6" just a year before when they were stocked, so they gained about twelve ounces in a year.  And that's in a pond with reproduction - they grow faster in a male-only pond because there's no little bluegill at all to compete with them.  I just stocked a 1/4 acre pond with a few males a couple months ago and am excited to see what develops with it.

If you started from scratch and stocked nothing but 100 6"+ bull coppernose from Overton's, and fed them daily, within a year they would average a pound, or more.  If you stocked about 20 lbs. of fathead minnows and a few hundred crawfish at the same time you stocked the bluegill, it would be a very realistic expectation that several of them would make 20 ounces or more within a year from stocking.  It may seem like I'm exaggerating, but the two three-pounders Bruce caught in January were from a very small pond that was male-only bluegill.  

If you don't want to start over, I would suggest a combination approach to the bass stocking: stock 10 or so 10" largemouth, but also stock as many as you can afford (at least 50, 100 would be better) of 2-3" Florida largemouth, which are not feed-trained and won't eat pellets.  If you sink a cedar tree in shallow water, not more than two feet deep, or ideally a couple trees, and stock the bass directly into the trees, a decent number of them should make it.  If only ten percent survive it will make a huge positive difference for the pond.  Not more than a few days before you stock the bass, I would suggest catching as many bluegill under 8" out of the pond, as possible - if you can catch 500, take every one of them out - dump them in the creek or throw them on the bank for buzzards.  

BUT - if you want big bluegill as much as you seem to, I would strongly urge you to consider starting over, since the pond is that small.  If you re-stocked from scratch with nothing but forage and male coppernose, you would have a better pond than you could ever imagine, within less than a year of stocking.  

Comment by Zach Pierce on September 15, 2012 at 8:50am

You will eventually see some small bass as I had the same issues and was told to add some more bass. I have put them in from 3 different sources where I could catch them and they ranged from 6-12 inches. I had stocked some from a hatchery when my initial stocking was done but sure many of them were eaten when stocked. I finally caught a small bass and it has been 2 years since adding the larger ones.

Comment by 10.5" RES Sharon on September 15, 2012 at 7:07am

Thanks. Shall I assume that the bass in my 1/3 acre pond are never going to reproduce successfully due to other fish eating them? Do you think five each of 6, 8, 10" bass will be enough? And, those bass are pellet fed, will the adapt to live food? I'll try this suggestion first without the catfish, I hate catfish.

Comment by Walt Foreman on September 14, 2012 at 9:23pm

You're 100% correct in that 3-4" bass would get gobbled, likely by your GSF.  But northern-strain bass will work fine for you - they're the largemouth that is native to Texas.  Florida-strain were imported by the state and then later by private hatcheries.  Florida-strain are only native to Florida and southern Georgia.  And, when you get enough bass in there, it won't matter what strain they are 'cause they ain't gonna grow - they're gonna be what I call supermodel bass, as in anorexic.  When you see them like that, make sure you have on fresh line because the bluegill should be big enough to break it:)

Overton's Fisheries is only 74 miles from you, and they sell largemouth up to 1-2lbs. each.  But all you need is 10-12" or even 6-8", though the larger ones would get it done quicker as they would be able to eat a larger percentage of the bluegill right away.  One other thing you might think about is stocking a few blue catfish, which Overton's sells - they're only $5 each for 12"+ fish, which according to their site will weigh over a pound. They're a voracious predator and will grow fast and hammer the small bluegill.  I put five blue cats that were 5-10 lbs. each in a one-acre pond I manage, summer of 2011, and that pond is drastically better now than it was a year ago (of course it also has two tiger muskie in it, and they have no doubt eaten one or two small bluegill).

Comment by 10.5" RES Sharon on September 14, 2012 at 8:49pm

Well, there's a problem with that. No one here sells bass except for fry, biggest 3-4".  They would just be eaten. I have been leaving the big bass in the pond hoping they would spawn this summer. I see no signs of any smaller bass.  Maybe next year? They have to spawn sometime. Also there is a fishery nearby that sells any size Northern LMB, but I don't think that would work in TX. There is not even anyone who has a pond I can buy them from. I really appreciate your suggestions and I would follow them if I could.

Comment by Walt Foreman on September 14, 2012 at 6:51pm

Sharon, you need more small bass in the pond.  Hope I don't sound like a broken record, but that's your problem.  You've posted some photos of some very nice bass - but the fact the bass are getting that big means there are not enough of them in the pond to thin out the small bluegill to where the remaining bluegill have enough food to eat.  I don't know if you have had a chance to visit my blog about growing big bluegill, but one of the articles I have on there addresses the exact problem you're having: if you have too many small bluegill, you can feed the best high-protein food and it still won't make a difference.  Because each individual fish is still getting far less food than they would be if there were fewer mouths.  Bruce told me once that he feels that in an ideal big bluegill pond, the bluegill only get 20-30% of their growth from the pellets, and get most of it from the natural foods in the pond.  There are plenty of those natural foods (invertebrates, zooplankton, etc.) if the bluegill aren't overcrowded, but if they're crowded the food chain gets decimated and even when the pellets hit the water there's never enough to go around.  If you added 100 6-8" bass to your pond, within a year or two your bluegill would double in average size.  

A guy who buys fish food from me for his ten-acre lake, was feeding his bluegill four times a day.  There were no other species in the lake that ate pellets, and he had great genetics, nothing but pure-strain coppernose bluegill from the top hatchery in the Southeast.  But he was taking hundreds of small bass out of the lake each year, and no bluegill, even though he told me his top priority was big bluegill.  (He wanted to also have nice-sized bass.)  I told him he had too many bluegill in the lake, and that they wouldn't reach anywhere near their maximum size if he didn't either leave more of the bass in the lake, or thin out the bluegill, or ideally both.  He didn't believe me (he wasn't using my management services, just buying food from me), thought pouring the feed to them should be enough.  He had some decent-sized bluegill, up to 10", but the lake has been stocked for ten years now and he has never caught a bluegill more than an ounce or two over a pound, according to the owner himself, whereas with coppernose, and ideal conditions, in our region, he should have had two-pounders by now considering he was feeding.  

He had a major fish kill about a month ago.  The lake is aerated and has no weeds to amount to anything.  He had too many fish.

Hope this helps.

Comment by 10.5" RES Sharon on September 14, 2012 at 4:14pm

After 3 years of feeding my bluegill high grade food, and getting mostly 4-6" bluegill I decided to try something new this summer. I have a minnow pond, and feed the minnows  food in a minnow trap. Then, I take the minnows and put them in the bluegill pond. So far, I have not caught any spectacular bluegill, but I have saved a lot of money on food, lol.

Comment by Zach Pierce on September 12, 2012 at 6:42am

I guess no one has any updates on there ponds?

Comment by Zach Pierce on July 31, 2012 at 10:25am

Have you made it back out to fish yet, have not seen any new pictures?

 

I filled my feeder up this morning and it was nice about 78 now it is 99 and should be 108 by end of day.

 

Just makes it hard to fish when it is between 107-113 everyday.

Comment by Zach Pierce on July 18, 2012 at 8:39am

Nice fish Sharon, I need to post some from my pond here as well.  Keep up the good work.

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