"Rodney Long" wrote in message
...

If you have that many small Blue gills, your bass population is not over
crowded. If you want to grow big blue gills, then you would want to reduce
their numbers.

I don't want to get rid of the bluegills then. I guess I will just leave
them alone.

Of course one of the 'BIGGEST" problems your pound has is crappie, they
will quickly over populate a small pound, this will indeed help stunt the
growth of both them and the blue gills. I would take out as many crappie
as possible, regardless of the size, that little pond can not support a
crappie population. They reproduce much faster than bream,, and they eat
what small bass eat, reducing you bass fingerlings survival and growth
rates. True, large bass eat small crappie, but large crappie also eat
small bass. You can grow some huge bass in such a lake, but not many of
them, and they could be difficult to catch, due to the amount of food they
have available

I had NO idea the crappies were a problem. That's it then, these suckers
are going down!

Secondly, should I kill the snappers should I catch any more of them? I
,
have no idea what snappers eat.

The snappers eat fish, usually small ones, and not many of them, due to
their method of catching them. A 20 lb snapper could possibly be a
"young" (under 20 years old) alligator snapping turtle (if they live in
your state), they are great table fair , but protected in many states. I
have never known them to greatly reduce a pond's fish population, unless
there are a huge number of them in a pond. They can reach up to 200 lbs
and live hundreds of years.

Thanks Rodney. I guess I will leave the snappers alone too. I don't see
many in the pond. I appreciate your advice on the fish management of my
pond.

John