# Managing Existing Pond



## MDBuckeye (Sep 29, 2009)

My buddy just bought a place with a half acre or a bit more pond on it and it has a ton of smallish bass with the biggest probably only going 2lbs or so and what seems like very few bluegill. I was out fishing the other night after a picnic and caught what I now believe is a hybrid male bluegill.




  








GiantGill




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MDBuckeye


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Jun 13, 2016


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PB Pond Gill 6/12/16






The pond also has two or three grass carp in it but we rarely see them. It has little vegetation and only cover from a few willows on one side of the pond. The deepest point is about 12' with the average being only 4ft or so. I plan on building a few fish tree's from pvc and hose with cement on the bases for additional cover but wonder if this is enough. The kids swim in the pond so I don't want to do too much.

My question is, how do we improve the size of the bass and bluegill in the pond? Do we stock hybrid gills knowing that the majority of them will be males that won't produce? Start keeping some of the smaller 12" or so bass? Feed the fish pellets or get some fatheads?

Thanks for your input!


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

yes you need to thin out the small bass and give whats left a chance to grow. the gills are probably there you just need to find where there spawning. I have a friend that didn't have sunfish in his pond then stocked it with hybrid gills and now its full of sunfish.

theres a small pond in tn that we get to fish about once or twice a yr and its way over stocked with bass. and we've been keeping a lot of bass but it seems we cant keep up with them. but we are catching a few larger bass than we were when we 1st started fishing it.

my nephew fished it a couple of times for gills before I got down there with not much luck. but when I was there we found where they were spawning and between him and my son they caught about 60 big gills in 1 1/2 hrs. the gills are in there but are scattered when not spawning.
sherman


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## 68bucks (Aug 17, 2013)

You probably need to feed the bass. I have quite a few smallish bass too but it doesn't seem like there are too many. I have been adding minnows to mine on a regular basis. I have some pellets my wife bought somewhere but the bass don't seem real interested in them. They will eat dried meal worms. My wife bought a big container of those somewhere too. My pond is 1/2 acre and about 12' deep. We only moved in in December so we'll see if feeding helps. Check out the Pond Boss forum, they have a ton of info and more experienced pond owners there.


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