Adding Baitfish

[Lobster Monster]

I have a pond near my house which has a quite a bit of bass.  A couple of years ago this pond had bluegill as thick as piranhas.  My dad caught an 8lber out of there once.  Today, I just saw the first bluegill I've seen in two years, and the bass are plentiful but skinny.  I've caught some 3 to 3.5lbers, but their heads have been much bigger than their body.

I was thinking of going to a baitshop tomorrow and buying some shiners or minnows and releasing them into the pond.  There's plenty of cover at the moment.  Would the fish that I buy live in the pond?  Does anyone have any ideas on the cost of shiners or minnows these days?

[SirSnookalot]

I'm in Delray and shiners at a bait store run around $11 per dozen.

[Lund Explorer]

Sounds to me like there's way too many bass in that pond.

If you want to go broke feeding those fish, stocking minnows is just the ticket, just don't expect any of them to survive very long.

Michigan and it's neighbors used to have the same problem with the alewives in the great lakes.  They started planting salmon back in the 1960's and for quite a number of years 30+ lb fish were common place.  But they finally got to the point were the number of salmon was more than the supply of alewives could handle, and weights started to drop.

The cure for this problem was to stock less fish.  Your cure should be to take out a bunch of these fish to try to balance their population to the available forage.

[Grey Wolf]

Start thinning the bass out , way too many bass for the forage.

[tnhiker44]

This is probably just a normal cycle for this pond. As fishermen we want good fishing all the time but sometimes Mother Nature has different plans. Some years are good to the bluegill, some years are good to the bass and then sometimes the bait fish flourish. Some times the conditions exist that provide an algae bloom at the worst possible time for the fish and a fish kill occurs. I think these things happen not only because of us but despite us as well. Despite our best intentions I do not think we are as smart as Mother Nature (or God, if you prefer). We should try and fix things we know we are responsible for and let the other events take care of themselves. As the old commercial went..."Its not nice to fool Mother Nature".

[JuniorFisherJJ08]

If your certain the Bluegill count has dropped and its because of this reason either bring some of those puppies home and have a fish fry or stock them in another pond that has less bass.