fatback
Senior Member
If it is a private pond then yes you can shock and take all you want.
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Revitalizing a farm pond
- Thread starter Ugahunter2013
- Start date
JakkBauer
Senior Member
lol if its private you can rotenone the whole thing if you want to
JakkBauer
Senior Member
I think Paul (Coenen) said it best about draining, starting over with bluegill (I might add for a few years) and then add bass once you have varying sizes of bluegill in the pond. You mentioned it would be hard to get everyone on board but I do believe if you explained to them the reason that everyone would indeed be on board you might just have to present it properly to their ears 
paulito
Senior Member
If you think getting everyone on board for starting over is hard.....then you are fooling yourself that they will commit and agree to "manage" it back into shape. It takes a LOT of work and will take several years to do so.
First, you can't think your pond is "x" acres you have to know.
Second you need a plan and you have to keep records of what you do. They say that removing 12-15 pounds of bass per acre per year just to keep you "in-balance". So if you are over populated you are going to have to remove more to make a difference. obviously you want to know or at least have a good idea of how much you are removing. Trust me most of your family is gonna "think" it is too much. When we did it years ago for a buddies pond we literally just tossed bass on the backside of the dam for the coons. We couldn't eat enough. Was hard to do but means to an end.
Remember, a pond can only support SO much bio-mass, which includes all fishes big and small, predator and prey. Fertilizing and supplemental feeding raises the bar on how much bio-mass the pond can support. However, it WILL NOT do anything to help your over population condition. That has to be done by fishing or shocking out the hungry mouths to get things back into the balance yo are shooting for. Otherwise you are just throwing good money at a bad situation. There are plenty of quality fishing ponds out there that haven't seen the first dose of fertilizer or seen a fish feeder.
I by no means am an expert. Have those that work for us though. We always recommend shocking to at least get an idea of what you are working with. The good thing about ponds 5 acres and less is that they are fun to play with. You can make changes relatively quickly and if you don't like them......you can do something else or start over. Same buddy in bama has drained one pond 3 times. Had a trophy bluegill pond for a bit, trophy bass and lastly just went with balanced with some catfish. Why not and again, it can be fun. Just gotta have a plan so everyone can be pulling in the same direction.
hope that helps
First, you can't think your pond is "x" acres you have to know.
Second you need a plan and you have to keep records of what you do. They say that removing 12-15 pounds of bass per acre per year just to keep you "in-balance". So if you are over populated you are going to have to remove more to make a difference. obviously you want to know or at least have a good idea of how much you are removing. Trust me most of your family is gonna "think" it is too much. When we did it years ago for a buddies pond we literally just tossed bass on the backside of the dam for the coons. We couldn't eat enough. Was hard to do but means to an end.
Remember, a pond can only support SO much bio-mass, which includes all fishes big and small, predator and prey. Fertilizing and supplemental feeding raises the bar on how much bio-mass the pond can support. However, it WILL NOT do anything to help your over population condition. That has to be done by fishing or shocking out the hungry mouths to get things back into the balance yo are shooting for. Otherwise you are just throwing good money at a bad situation. There are plenty of quality fishing ponds out there that haven't seen the first dose of fertilizer or seen a fish feeder.
I by no means am an expert. Have those that work for us though. We always recommend shocking to at least get an idea of what you are working with. The good thing about ponds 5 acres and less is that they are fun to play with. You can make changes relatively quickly and if you don't like them......you can do something else or start over. Same buddy in bama has drained one pond 3 times. Had a trophy bluegill pond for a bit, trophy bass and lastly just went with balanced with some catfish. Why not and again, it can be fun. Just gotta have a plan so everyone can be pulling in the same direction.
hope that helps
across the river
Senior Member
In my experience, if everyone in the family owns something, no one owns it.
Ugahunter2013
Senior Member
I am the only person who really fishes it. Besides some friends who join me. But yes getting everybody on board with anything is difficult. Revitalizing what we have would be much more feasible than starting over in that aspect.
Ugahunter2013
Senior Member
Well i went for about an hour and a half today around lunch. Caught 17 bass and 4 bream on a small beetle spin. I threw back 1 bass that looked good. The rest were pretty much the same as each other.
All together i caught 17 bass that weighed a total of 9.75 pounds. And 4 bream that weighed 1.75 lbs.
I did see a very nice looking bass right off the bank next to the drain pipe. Looked to be about 3-4 lbs.?
All together i caught 17 bass that weighed a total of 9.75 pounds. And 4 bream that weighed 1.75 lbs.
I did see a very nice looking bass right off the bank next to the drain pipe. Looked to be about 3-4 lbs.?
You should reach out to this guy. This is what he does. And follow his Instagram page, he gives a lot of info that is right in your wheelhouse! https://www.instagram.com/aquatic_biologist/
Limbhanger2881
Senior Member
Your best option is to drain and rotenone the pond. It is extremely difficult to get the amount of bass out of the pond that you would need to do to reach optimal potential. It is difficult to keep the amount of bass out of a pond that is managed mush less a unmanaged pond. Paulito was correct about the 12-15 pounds of bass per acre per year. On top of that you need to keep 3-5 pounds of bream per pound of Bass per acre per year. Draining and stocking is your best bet and you should have some 5 pounders in two years. Also, you should lime and fertilize the pond during the growing season. This will double the productivity of the pond.
buckpasser
Senior Member
My guy says he only accesses 10% of the fish.
Sounds like my pond built in 73 never drained. Bass bream and crappie with a few cats. I would keep every bass under 14 inches . Then get you a feeder and feed the mess out of the bream. After 4 years we have some really good bass and some huge bream. We keep every crappie we catch and have really nice slabs. I have added few catfish but the big bass really hammer them. Make sure you start out slow feeding will take few weeks for fish to get used to eating then bump up feeder till you still see fish feeding after 15 minutes. You will want a smaller floating food for bream . Good luck but really keep every bass you catch. It is not recommended to fertilize with a feeding program in place .
Ugahunter2013
Senior Member
I did join pond boss and you are right, there is some good information there.
I took some more bass out this past weekend. Below is the total in 2 weeks
5/31: 17 bass = 9.75 lbs
4 bream = 1.75 lbs
6/5: 11 bass = 8.25 lbs
5 bream = 2 lb
6/6: 25 bass = 15.5 lbs
Total Bass weight = 33.5 lbs
Total Bream weight = 3.75 lbs
Average Bass weight = 0.63 lbs
I took some more bass out this past weekend. Below is the total in 2 weeks
5/31: 17 bass = 9.75 lbs
4 bream = 1.75 lbs
6/5: 11 bass = 8.25 lbs
5 bream = 2 lb
6/6: 25 bass = 15.5 lbs
Total Bass weight = 33.5 lbs
Total Bream weight = 3.75 lbs
Average Bass weight = 0.63 lbs
yeah they probably seem really skinny according to relative weight chart if you look.
