Keeping fish from a Dink Pond

[BassFishingMachine]

Hey, let me ask you guys something. I fish a pond that I'd say is a dink pond. Its not that I haven't pulled some quality fish out of there, I have caught some 4 - 4 1/2lbers out of there, although its not common. Majority of the fish tend to be 8-12inchers. This being said I have heard that if you take small fish you will help the pond produce bigger bass, because the smaller fish that are eating all the food source before the bigger fish get the chance will be removed, thus making the bigger fish grow.

My question is do you guys think this is true? And if so, how many small bass are we talking about removing? One a day in a period of 6months? Two a day in a period of 3months? Two a day in a period of 6months? Is it even worth trying? If it doesn't work out, I'll only be destroying a population of fish. Any clue on how long it'd take before I'd notice a difference in the big fish population after doing this?

Its just that I know the lake has the potential to get some more quality fish, but it just has soo many dinks in it, it seems as if the dinks are creating trouble for the bigger fish. Who knows, maybe im just unlucky.

[tallydude]

Completely viable. There is absolutely nothing wrong with selective harvest, and in some cases, it is a better alternative than a strict catch and release strategy.

[BassFishingMachine]

Well thats the thing. I have incredible respect for bass, and I hate to kill them. I release every bass I catch. Only reason I am considering doing this is to help the pond. I would just hate to see it turn into a dink pond with nothin but small fish (is that possible?). Is keeping fish going to help the pond, or do you think my best bet is to just leave it be, and hope the population of big fish atleast doesn't get any worse.

[IdahoLunkerHunter]

All very good questions and only true answers can come from a study. I am not one to say anything about what to do but I think a more bonified answer might come from your Fish and Game and maybe they will do a study on the water.

[roadwarrior]

Well, my answer is three fold:

1. You should keep your limit of the small, but legal fish unless you are given permission by DNR to thin the pond. Chances are, the pond is overwhelmed and the fish are stunted.

2. The rule of thumb is once you take all the fish you think you should, take out that many again!

3. With permission, you should probably feed every small bass to the coyotes and raccoons.

8-)

[Bass Dude]

I went to school for fisheries management--farmers and landowners used to contact the school to do studies on their ponds.  Look into seeing if any universities in your area have a fisheries program---they will do all of the data retrieval and analysis on the pond, and it's at no charge!!

[Bass Dude]

Here's my additional two cents!!!   There are tons of variables that result in a poor bass population, not only how many bass there are.  A biological study will take everything into account.

[tyrius.]

My question is do you guys think this is true? And if so, how many small bass are we talking about removing? One a day in a period of 6months? Two a day in a period of 3months? Two a day in a period of 6months? Is it even worth trying? If it doesn't work out, I'll only be destroying a population of fish. Any clue on how long it'd take before I'd notice a difference in the big fish population after doing this?

It is definately true that bodies of water can be overcrowded with fish.  If this is the case with your body of water then the best way to fix it is to keep the small bass you catch.  I don't know about the size of water that you're fishing (this presents a rather large varialbe in how many to harvest), but you'd be surprised as to how many fish you'd have to keep to make a difference.  If you decide to do something about it don't mess with one's and two's.  Whenever you go keep you're limit of small bass.

You also won't destroy the population by practicing selective harvest.  You'll mainly be helping it or not making any difference whatsoever.  You won't hurt it.

[Bass Dude]

Keeping the bass may not be the answer.  Do you catch or see a lot of stunted panfish(bluegill, sunfish, etc)?  It could be these populations are out of control, not the bass population.  You may actually have ADD bass to lower the population of the additional species.  Although these panfish are a great food source, they reproduce in bigger numbers and the predator fish (the bass) population may be too small to keep the panfish population in check.  The panfish use the same habitat as bass and an overpopulation of the panfish can have the same effect as an overpopulation of bass.  So you may want to keep the panfish and leave the bass in the pond.  As I stated before, this situation doesn't have a fix as easy as taking a few bass out of the pond.  Managing a pond is a complex undertaking, especially when the ecosystem seems to already be 'out of whack'.

[drmnbig]

I have a similar problem to a pond I fish.  The only other problem presented to me is the fact that it's county owned and only fished by county employees but when they write your permission slip to fish it they put on there "catch and release only".  The bluegill are HUGE in this pond though.  On any given evening in the summertime you can literally catch 20-30 8-12" bass in an hour.  It's fun but you rarely get anything decent sized.  My best out of this pond was this spring and it was about 5lbs. This pond is about 2 acres in size.

[fishinfiend]

My grandfather's pond is dink infested. I have culled a lot of fish this year that are under 12". With any luck, I hope we will see some improvement in a couple years.