# small fish in pond, want larger size



## exide9922 (Aug 9, 2010)

Went fishing at a friends private pond yesterday, not large, maybe a 1/2 acre, and it's rarely fished or managed. I had high hopes for catching some nice sized bass and blue gills, but everything was small. biggest blue gills around 6-7 inches. largest bass caught maybe 8 inches. A lot of fish these sizes and smaller. only saw a couple bass swimming around that were maybe 12 inches. How can the size of the fish be improved in this pond?

From what I saw the bass in this pond probably cant eat the blue gills to thin them out. and the overpopulation of blue gills are probably eating the bass eggs?

I was thinking of recommending to thin out the large blue gills, and maybe the smaller bass as well? 

any recommendations would be appreciated!


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

this is a very common scenario for private ponds where they are not fished very much and the bass and the bluegills have both become stunted, first talk to the owner about if he even wants the fish balance changed, if he does then yes, you need to weed out as many bass under 12" as possible and also keep every bluegill you catch for a while, it really wont seem like your making much of a dent and it will take time but you are correct, the fewer bass remaining will have more fod and cross over that 12" size and then be able to start eating more gills, once that happens the bass size should start gaining momentum and at the same time youll start to see some slightly larger bluegills getting the balance back in shape with a full spectrum of gill sizes and a slow process to get the bass to start gaining weight. Be sure to check out pondboss.com as a great refference tool about managing ponds. Ponds can only support so many lbs of biomass and youll have to thin the population drastically before you see any positive results. Lots of variables here but in a nut shell, thats the start of what youll need to do. 


Salmonid


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## exide9922 (Aug 9, 2010)

i kind of thought that might be what needed done, but i'm no expert in the area. thanks!


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## bassfisher1 (Mar 24, 2010)

I'd pump it out, restock with 1" or smaller gills and 2" bass, no cats, 1 bass for every 25 gill's. This is what they do at La Sue Ann. DNR will tell you how many your pond can support. Another thing you can do, sein the pond with a large net, or get an electric shocker. You will need to feed the fish untill they grow to the size you want, floating food can be bought at your local feed store.


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