What should I kill?

I need advice from the group. I live in a small sub in MI that has a
private 4 acre pond. I am the only person who fishes it. It has bass (a
couple in the 5 - 7 lb range), some yellow bullheads, a whole bunch of
bluegill, a couple small perch, and some good sized crappie. Yesterday, I
even caught a 6" pike. I also caught 4 doz bluegill and a 22 lb snapping
turtle.

Most of the bluegill are quite small. Very few are larger than my hand.

Should I cull the small bluegill from the pond? I seem to recall some
ancient wisdom that says this is a good approach to managing the fish
population. Would this help or hurt the bass population?

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

johnval1 wrote:

I need advice from the group. I live in a small sub in MI that has a
private 4 acre pond. I am the only person who fishes it. It has bass (a
couple in the 5 - 7 lb range), some yellow bullheads, a whole bunch of
bluegill, a couple small perch, and some good sized crappie. Yesterday, I
even caught a 6" pike. I also caught 4 doz bluegill and a 22 lb snapping
turtle.

Most of the bluegill are quite small. Very few are larger than my hand.

Should I cull the small bluegill from the pond? I seem to recall some
ancient wisdom that says this is a good approach to managing the fish
population. Would this help or hurt the bass population?


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.

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

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.




--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

"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

I may be biased in that I'd rather catch 1 5 pound bass than a hundred "big"
bluegills, but I'd say killing the small bluegills may be cutting off those
hawg bass' food supply, at least somewhat. Sounds to me like you've got a
pretty balanced deal there overall, with plenty of bass to catch. The pike
might need to go - in fact if you caught a 6" one there's a good bet momma's
in there too. Call me anytime to wet a line!

Oh - snappers make great scavengers & even better soup.

Warren


"johnval1" wrote in message
news
I need advice from the group. I live in a small sub in MI that has a
private 4 acre pond. I am the only person who fishes it. It has bass (a
couple in the 5 - 7 lb range), some yellow bullheads, a whole bunch of
bluegill, a couple small perch, and some good sized crappie. Yesterday, I
even caught a 6" pike. I also caught 4 doz bluegill and a 22 lb snapping
turtle.

Most of the bluegill are quite small. Very few are larger than my hand.

Should I cull the small bluegill from the pond? I seem to recall some
ancient wisdom that says this is a good approach to managing the fish
population. Would this help or hurt the bass population?

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

johnval1 wrote:


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


Take them out for table fair,, your not going to hurt a 4 acre pond
eating the bream out of it, with you being the only fisherman

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


I've seen 20 acre ponds get ruined because of the number of crappie in
them. They are not recommended in any pond under 30 acres, and then
they must be targeted for harvesting on a regular basis, at least 50 lbs
per acre removed each year, with a 100 lbs not too much harvested per
acre each year.

I don't recommend using live minnows in a pond that small, they to, can
overpopulate a small pond, and some get away when your fishing with
them. Try using very small jigs and spinners, toss out every crappie
caught regardless of the size (of course eat those big enough, or give
them away) You might need to put a couple of trees in the lake to get
the crappie to hang out in a couple of places, it makes catching them
much easier. Don't be surprised to catch many under 4 inches long.

I would also be a bit worried about northerns eventually being a problem
in such a small pond, they are not one yet, in your pond, but they could
become one as you get those crappie out.

We have a 60 acre state lake that sells 22,000 daily fishing permits a
year. They keep it stocked (regular stockings) with bass (only when
needed), blue gills, and catfish. They do not restock the crappie, yet
they harvest over 6,000 lbs of them a year (they require all kept fish
to be weighed before leaving). There is a healthily, sustained,
population of crappie in that lake.

--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

"WARREN WOLK" wrote in message
news:k0ANg.12048$c22.7503@trnddc07...
I may be biased in that I'd rather catch 1 5 pound bass than a hundred
"big" bluegills, but I'd say killing the small bluegills may be cutting off
those hawg bass' food supply, at least somewhat. Sounds to me like you've
got a pretty balanced deal there overall, with plenty of bass to catch.
The pike might need to go - in fact if you caught a 6" one there's a good
bet momma's in there too. Call me anytime to wet a line!

Oh - snappers make great scavengers & even better soup.

Warren


Well, the whole pond is only about 6 - 8' deep. It really is nothing more
than a spring which feeds into a series of lakes in the Oakland County lake
chain. The next small lake up the chain is a "kettle" lake reputed to have
good bass and mucho pike. Depth on the kettle lake is about 40 feet. I
have not obtained permission to fish the kettle lake yet but am going to
work on it this winter. I think the pike are migrating from the kettle lake
to my pond. I had no idea the pike were present on this pond until
yesterday.

My pond is totally weeded, with lilly pads, hyacinth, and milfoil. It is a
blast to fish in the spring, and very difficult the rest of the year. I
generally catch the blue gills and crappie on small jigs. The bass go for
frogs and top water lures.

Looks like the pike and crappie have to go.

Why are the crappie a problem???

"johnval1" wrote in message
.. .

"WARREN WOLK" wrote in message
news:k0ANg.12048$c22.7503@trnddc07...
I may be biased in that I'd rather catch 1 5 pound bass than a hundred
"big" bluegills, but I'd say killing the small bluegills may be cutting
off those hawg bass' food supply, at least somewhat. Sounds to me like
you've got a pretty balanced deal there overall, with plenty of bass to
catch. The pike might need to go - in fact if you caught a 6" one there's
a good bet momma's in there too. Call me anytime to wet a line!

Oh - snappers make great scavengers & even better soup.

Warren


Well, the whole pond is only about 6 - 8' deep. It really is nothing more
than a spring which feeds into a series of lakes in the Oakland County
lake chain. The next small lake up the chain is a "kettle" lake reputed
to have good bass and mucho pike. Depth on the kettle lake is about 40
feet. I have not obtained permission to fish the kettle lake yet but am
going to work on it this winter. I think the pike are migrating from the
kettle lake to my pond. I had no idea the pike were present on this pond
until yesterday.

My pond is totally weeded, with lilly pads, hyacinth, and milfoil. It is
a blast to fish in the spring, and very difficult the rest of the year. I
generally catch the blue gills and crappie on small jigs. The bass go for
frogs and top water lures.

Looks like the pike and crappie have to go.

"WARREN WOLK" wrote in message
news:8HBNg.3516$xr.257@trnddc03...
Why are the crappie a problem???


Warren, take a look at Rodney's post about 6,000 lbs of crappie being
harvested yearly from a 60 acre lake. This when the crappie are naturally
progenated. I believe Rodney's point is that on a very small pond, the
crappie proliferation could easily unbalance the fishery.

WARREN WOLK wrote:

Why are the crappie a problem???

Crappie over populate a small pond quickly, they feed on the same things
that small bass feed on, and they feed on bass fry. Left unchecked you
will have thousands of little stunted , 4 to 6 inch crappie in a pond,
and just a couple of huge bass. and no small ones coming up. A small
body of water can only support so many pounds of fish, regardless of the
species, unless they are artificially fed, then you have O2 limits that
will only support so many lbs of fish. It all depends on what you want
your lake to produce. You want 80% of the Bio-mass, to be small stunted
crappie, then let the crappie go. It takes years for this imbalance to
occur, but it will happen, especially when you just have one fishermen
harvesting any fish.

You can check this out out at any pond management company, (and some
DNR's) that stock small ponds. They will also tell you how much "total
fish weight" a body of water can support in your area. Perfectly
balanced "ponds" require quite a bit of fish harvesting of all species.
Natural balancing (no fish removed) becomes un balanced after a number
of years, as there is really no way to control the spawn, so you will
have unbalanced results, one way or another, or even back and forth, but
eventually it will get totally screwed up for fishing, and hoping to
catch "any" good sized fish.

--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

I hear ya John, I just think it's a mistake to generalize about such
things - what a species might do in one tiny ecosystem may be completely
opposite of what it does in another. I know you said there's some whopper
crappies in there, but you said nothing of a crappie population problem. If
you're only catching large breeder crappies I doubt you have such a problem.

While Rodney is a true expert on ecosystem biology (among other things), I
suggest you get a true biologists take on your specific case before you
start killing critters that may just be keeping a fragile system in good
shape.

Warren





















wrote in message
. ..

"WARREN WOLK" wrote in message
news:8HBNg.3516$xr.257@trnddc03...
Why are the crappie a problem???


Warren, take a look at Rodney's post about 6,000 lbs of crappie being
harvested yearly from a 60 acre lake. This when the crappie are naturally
progenated. I believe Rodney's point is that on a very small pond, the
crappie proliferation could easily unbalance the fishery.