any suggestions on improvements

[cal okeefe]

hey there any input would be helpful.. i fish a piece of land that is about 350 acres.. the biggest lake is 27 acres.. the others are small 2 or 3 acre ponds.. the bass fishing is real good and you catch all different size bass.. the channel cat fishing is awesome, crappie fishing is top notch.. the bluegills are hit and miss.. alot of 4 or 6 in bluegills that you catch.. we do catch some slabs but it seems like there is alot more smaller gills then larger.. now i thought about adding some pike or muskie or something like that but i dont want to make any dumb moves .. any suggestions

[cal okeefe]

well thanks guys. i think what i will do is try to manage the smaller ponds for big bluegill.. i will take the advice and probally add three tiger muskies to roughly one acre of water.. and i will leave the bass population alone.. hopefully with doing this and throwing all the dinks on shore in a couple seasons i will get better gills on average..

 

now someone said take all bass over 14 inches  .. please explain

[Tony Livingston]

In a pond where one is managing exclusively for big BG,  more of the smaller Bass is what you want. It goes back to the biomass, or the carrying capacity of a BOW. Basically,  by removing a 14" Bass, you free up space for 2 seven inch Bass, which will do a much better job hammering your smaller, and young-of-the-year BG.  That's key to preventing overpopulating, and the resulting stunted BG. A 14" Bass  would rather eat a 4 or 5" BG, not the smaller ones you need to get under control.

This assumes that growing big BG is the primary objective, as obviously your LMB fishing would suffer with this approach. Raising trophy BG in a smaller pond usually requires an understanding on the pondowners part, that the LMB are there as a tool to help grow the BG, and are not there to evolve into their own fishery.

If a sizable population of 4-5" BG already exists in the BOW, I would try trapping, netting, fishing, and above all... FEEDING. This is crucial to success. Be ready to start feeding next Spring, when the water temps rise above 50-55 degrees.

[cal okeefe]

ok so if i take the 14 inch and over bass and add the 12 or 14 inch tiger muskies wouldnt they also eat some of the larger size gills also

would this defeat my purpose by adding them or should i add smaller tiger muskies

theres alot of small gills in there but some are maybe 3 to 6 inches and a few bigger than that.. but the crappies are 10 to 14 inch rarely catch a little one.

also im not worried about the bass in the smaller ponds i  would like to have better bluegill on average .. nice ones for the fryer

[Tony Livingston]

If you're not worried about the bass in the smaller ponds, then that's where I would concentrate my efforts towards growing bigger BG.

In a nutshell, you need to remove the smaller fish, and feed the remaining ones. Yes, tigers will consume larger prey as they grow, same as a largemouth. Adding  a species to correct a problem with another, already present species, can pose it's own problems down the road. There are few perfect solutions when it comes to correcting a pond already full of fish, there will be compromises that have to be made. That's why a well thought out stocking plan is crucial before stocking a freshly filled pond. It's much easier that way.

In the Spring, when the male BG are guarding their nests, what size are they, and how many of the biggest ones do you see?  What I'm curious about is whether the BG are small because they're immature, or because they have become stunted. When a male BG becomes sexually mature, it's growth rate slows dramatically. Delaying that maturity will usually result in a larger fish. If your fish are maturing at, say, 5-6", it will probably take a lot longer to see the results you want. If, on the other hand, your fish are small simply because of immaturity, then feeding and reducing their numbers will produce a lot faster results.

Personally, I would try removing fish with a trap, or net,  and implementing a feeding program in the spring. Be patient, it takes time, effort on your part, and some financial intervention (feed costs), to produce results.

[cal okeefe]

the gills are pretty small over all.. probally a 3 to 5 inch average but then you catch one thats 7 or 8 in..

sorry if this doesnt help you..

these lakes dont really get fished too much.. even my family goes to the bigger lake most of the time

i like the little pond and had a great year .. i caught 27 crappie over 12 inches in just a few hours

[Walt Foreman]

Cal, this is just my $.02, based on thirteen years of experience managing dozens of ponds and lakes ranging in size from 1/4 acre to 120 acres.  I would personally recommend leaving ALL of the bass in any pond you wish to manage for large bluegill.  Every bass you remove translates to a whole lot of bluegill that would have been eaten, that are not going to be; also, the size bluegill that it sounds like predominates in the pond you're looking at presently, is too big by far for a 7" or even 10" bass to eat, whereas a 14" bass can easily eat this size 'gill, and will readily do so.   It will take a bass at least a couple years in your location to reach 12" or better, the size to where it can eat the most common size bluegill in this pond; if you were to remove even just ten 14" bass from that pond, it could make the problem a lot worse rather than better, because by the time a new crop of bass made it to 12" to replace those 14"'s the bluegill will have had time to further overpopulate (fewer mouths eating them down). 

The tiger muskie will make a big difference.  Taking out lots of 'gills, female and male both, under the size of 6", and females under 8" or 9", will also make a big difference.  Feeding makes a huge difference, if it is done daily - occasional feeding does nothing.  A feeder, even if it's just a cheapo, would be the single best investment you could make in your bluegill fishing.

 

Don't bother with muskie smaller than 12" because they'll get eaten by the bass already present in the lake.  Even a 12" muskie is about as big around as a magic marker - they're really skinny at that size, and a 6" muskie would be no problem for a 12" bass to swallow.

[Walt Foreman]

One other suggestion: if you have the dough, at the same time you get the muskie, think about stocking 40 or 50 6-8" largemouth.  Bass this size are much thicker than the cigar-thin muskie, and would be less likely to get eaten by the bass already in the lake.  You want to do everything you can to get a high density of predators in the pond; that and feeding are going to be your two keys to growing giants in your area.  If you were further south you could fertilize, but that can cause winterkill in your neck of the woods.

[Tony Livingston]

I agree with Walt on adding the 6-8" bass. It's hard to have too many small bass, if trophy BG are your goal. If 3-5" BG are the norm in the smaller ponds, then it does indeed sound like you're missing a size class of Bass that would normally prey on them. The way I see it, there are two ways to approach this problem. You can add predators of the appropriate size, or you can remove smaller BG.

Removing the BG, via trapping or netting, will probably show the quickest results, but it will mean more work on your part.

The Crappie are the wild card to me, in your situation. They consume BG fry, and minnows, probably a good thing for you, but when they pull off a spawn their numbers can get out of control, and they can actually compete against your BG for any available food, hence slower BG growth.

Make setting up a feeding program your top priority for next Spring... it is critical for success, especially with crappie present.

 

[Walt Foreman]

Amen on the crappie, Tony.  Sometimes they can be a help in growing big bluegill, by consuming lots of YOY 'gills - but other times they compete with the 'gills for food, as you noted, and hinder bluegill growth.  I totally agree that a feeder should be top priority.  You can get the 'gills to growing fast even when they're crowded if you have a feeder; then of course when you get them thinned out, they'll really take off.

 

[cal okeefe]

ok guys thank you for the great replys.. im gonna get my feeder up and running for spring.. and add some predators

 

couple more questions though lol

the two smaller ponds that i want to turn into panfish heaven are both probally 1 1/2 to 2 acre ponds  they are pretty small

would you suggest putting that many in each 40 or 50 or is that too any for these little ponds????

[Tony Livingston]

40-50 Tigers? I wouldn't go near that many. 40-50 Bass? Heck yeah!!

[Walt Foreman]

Actually, I was thinking the smaller ponds were an acre each.  If they're two acres each, I'd go with 100 6-8" bass per acre.  When bluegill get overcrowded, which everything you've described about these ponds suggests (large bass and crappie, lots of small bluegill), it takes a lot to get them thinned out.  And when you start feeding them, their reproduction is going to kick-start into turbo gear - they'll easily spawn twice or three times as many YOY, and that's a conservative estimate - you won't believe how much more young they produce until you see it.  You still want to feed them as soon as possible, because they'll grow many times faster on the food; but thinning them out is not going to be a one-day affair, and even if you managed to get them thinned out some by trapping, unless you get a high density of predators in there, they'll quickly refill the pond with thousands upon thousands more.   I don't know what your budget is, but if you can afford to put 100 bass in each pond, you'll be way ahead of the game, and get results much faster.  If 100 is out of reach money-wise, stock as many as you can afford. 

 

In the best ponds I've managed for trophy bluegill, pound-class bass become so common that we typically catch as many or more of them in a couple hours' fishing for bluegill, than we do bluegill.