Hey yall I have been wanting to get into some freshwater stuff, their is a pond by my house but it only has small bluegills. My friends on johns island have several ponds in their neighborhood full of bass and bream. So I wanted to catch some out if their this week and drop them in my pond by my house(pond A) and another pond in ji (pond B) and mange them to get some big boy bass. Does anybody on here have any experience managing a pond for bass? I was watching knotright kayak fishing and they were bass fishin some private water and keeping any fish under 16" I guess to emulate competition for food and keep the bigger ones getting bigger? I ease going to try and put fish (any size bass) in these ponds this week and give it until the end if summer until I started taking out small ones or managing them. My ultimate goal is to get a couple of 3 or 4lbs in their possibly bigger. (In tideline this 8yo caught a 10lb in Dorchester on a private pond, CRAZY!) I was going to put some bluegills and bream in their as a food source along with minnows, because theirs no shad. Would this work? Also one pond has overhanging trees and idk what’s on The bottom. Pond b has cattails and I’m not sure what else. I kinda wanna go over to county park and get some lillies or grass under the water and put it in their for some structure? But I don’t wanna choke it’d could I just scoop out excess and kill it? Short of electro fishing foes anybody have experience? I really want to try to catch some big fish. Also what are the bass eating now( buzzbait, worms, frogs, lizards, senkos, topwaters? Any tackle I can at wal Mart for bass.
There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the mud minnow.
i have helped my friend manage a couple farm ponds back in ohio before and we did have pretty decent luck with it. they started with plenty of bream of all sizes and bass up to around 14". what i did for him was thin the small bass population down quite a bit, but not completely wipe it out. during spawning we would watch several small bass demolish most of the bluegill fry and would easily catch 10 6-10" bass a piece all spring and summer, so we kept frying the 6-10" bass until we only caught 2 or 3 small bass each several trips in a row. since the biggest ones there were around 14" we released all 12-14" fish. keeping a FEW small bass in the pond will take a lot of pressure off the bluegill fry allowing many, many more bluegill to survive, but not destroy your bass future either. as for the surviving fish, the baby bluegill got to grow to 1-2" each instead of hatchling size, meaning the remaining bass got to eat much better and put on a lot more size. after the bluegill were done spawning, we then thinned out a good amount of 4-6" bluegill that were too big for bass to eat, but not big enough to put up a great fight either. thinning out a lot of bluegill in that size range freed up a lot of resources for the baby bluegill to grow big enough to be good food for bass and also the big bluegill got even bigger to have something fun to catch. just remember that there is only so much in a pond fish can eat, so thinning them out in a controlled manner will mean more food and more growth for remaining fish. simply put a 1 acre pond will NOT support enough bluegill to feed 100 8lb bass so once the bass get big there will be a relatively low population, however the fish you do catch will be good ones. one of the more important things to remember with pond management is you will not see results immediately…it will take a couple years. the first year we set our management plan, the next year we stuck with the plan set the year before and the biggest bass were 16"ish, next year 18"ish, then the following year
Contact your local county extension agent. In SC they work through Clemson University. They will have a wealth of free information on pond management and local experts who can advise you on site. Their services are usually free, or very cheap for what they can provide.
I’ll check that out cracker Larry. Thank you onn that’s very informative. The only lm I’ve caught has been less than a lb so 14 or 5lber in it would be amazing
I’m a high class redneck.
Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in pfgs and buffs.
I’ll check that out cracker Larry. Thank you onn that’s very informative. The only lm I’ve caught has been less than a lb so 14 or 5lber in it would be amazing
I’m a high class redneck.
Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in pfgs and buffs.
Yakman72! First off have you talked to whoever owns that pond? Might be a good place to start! If it’s as you say a pond by your house someone owns it. You start putting a lot of effort into it and you don’t have control of it, anyone and everyone will be fishing in it. Especially, if they know there are big fish in it! Don’t want to throw a wrench into your plans, but you should check it out first.
For one you need some good structure for the smaller fish to hide and to get a stock of big bass you need a few acres or more of pond.
I messed up and put some bass in my pond (1/2 acre) with little structure. I rarely catch any bream now and have to fish it hard to keep all the small bass out. My daughter did catch a 7lb out last spring. One big bass will eat a LOT of fish. I’m going to drain or poison and start over with blue gill again. They taste better and a lot more fun to watch feed. imo
This was what we used to catch before the addition of bass in a small pond.
Why not just thin out the blue gill pop. and let the bigger fish have a chance to eat more. Just keep catching the 3"-4" Gills and keep them or throw them in a bucket for catfish/bass bait at the other pond. I wouldn’t try to introduce bass in a pond heavy with blue gill, just try to get them bigger. I would take a small pond with 10"-12" blue gill anyday over a pond with 12"-14" bass and no decent Gills. Remember, Gills eat insects and plankton, not fry or eggs. They also spawn all summer long. So it doesn’t take long to have a pond full of small bream that are fighting for food.
Another option it to introduce Crappie. They will eat some of the fry eggs, or fry, but won’t be able to eat the ones that survive. A small school of Crappie will probably keep a bream balance in check, where a bass school will all but wipe out the bream. You probably need about 2-3 acres to introduce bass without destroying the bream. JMHO.
I live with fear everday, and sometimes she lets me go fishing
