The last thing to consider is aquatic habitat.

Large Channel Catfish can also help serve in this capacity, to a limited extent. Generally, we recommend not doing this in small ponds, under an acre, because those systems just are not dynamic enough to support large predators. Northern Pike, Tiger Muskie or Muskie are efficient predators of bass, and small quantities, like 1 or 2 per acre, will definitely help keep bass in check. Care must be taken here, otherwise the balance can rapidly swing in the other direction. On the other end of the spectrum you can attack the problem by stocking top end predators that will help control the bass. And guess what, the minnows get wiped out within days of stocking. We have customers that donвЂ™t mind spending the money, so we stock up to 100 pounds of minnows and/or shiners per surface acre every month, April thru November. This is a great short-term boost to the bass population, and they will thank you for it, but it is not a long-term strategy, unless you want to invest in ongoing monthly minnow stockings. The other thing you can do with forage is to add minnows or shiners. But in general, you want to manage the population to be balanced and diverse like the bass - you do not want another bell curve! See the article Bluegill Stunting for more info on this. Many things can happen, including Bluegill stunting, disappearing, or growing very large. But their population may need to be managed, just like the bass. Bluegill are the species that stands the best chance of withstanding, and thereby providing food for a bass population. If you do not have Bluegill in the pond, then the forage fish will likely get wiped out. The most important of these is to keep track of what is going on with the forage population. You can sometimes notice a difference in months.ДЄlthough nothing takes the place of harvesting stunted bass, there are other things that can be done to help. But if you reduce the population to 250 bass they will have twice as much food available and will grow roughly twice as fast.

Very generally speaking, if you have 500 bass in a pond, they will grow at rate X. Every pond has a finite amount of food available for the bass. Why will the average size increase? Think of it this way. Commonly people in the Midwest will remove 50 per surface acre annually, and still have an abundant population! In general, you want to keep harvesting until you notice the catch rate decreasing and the average size increasing. How many should I harvest you may ask? Well, this is just about impossible to say, but you can take out a surprising amount. This in effect pushes down on the curve and makes it flatter. What you want to do is catch and keep the most abundant size class, but throw back the largest and smallest. Think of a stunted bass population as a bell curve, with an abundant amount of the stunted size class in the middle at the top of the curve, and less and less smaller and larger as you move away from the top in either direction. The first thing you want to do with a stunted bass population is to harvest the most abundant size class. In severe cases you will notice that the bass have large heads and skinny bodies. In a typical case you will notice that there are many bass somewhere in the 10 to 15-inch size range, but few that are larger or smaller. So, if the fisherman is not reducing their numbers thru harvesting, then it does not take long for them to decimate their available food supply and begin to stunt. Largemouth Bass are the top of the food chain in your average pond and they are not fussy about spawning habitat. However, it did not take long to realize that a far more common issue is Largemouth Bass stunting. Once upon a time I believed that myself, and that is part of the reason that the first species we raised at Keystone Hatcheries was Hybrid Bluegill. A common misconception is that Bluegill stunting is the biggest problem with your average midwestern pond fish population.

Carnage largemouth bluetail