# Pond Management



## FishinsMyLife (Apr 6, 2008)

We went to our private 25 acre pond earlier today. My brother and I started off throwing plastic lizards and that is how we caught most of the bass. I caught the biggest bass at around 3 pounds on a 3X Strike King Lizard. Fish were caught that type of lizards and on Zoom Lizards. I ended up throwing a Panther Martin spinner and that accounted for the smaller fish in the picture. I let the biggest fish go and I let a bream go before the picture. I was also using a little bass I caught as bait and he flew off the hook when I was casting him, so that's why he didn't make it to the picture. My brother had a pickerel (one of the 11 we put in the pond a few winters ago) throw the hook when he was fishing a lizard. If we would have caught every fish we set the hook into, we would have caught at least 20 more.
Biggest Bass





Horse's Ass




Total


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## little anth (Apr 6, 2008)

you eat em???


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## FishinsMyLife (Apr 6, 2008)

Nah, we gave them away to a bunch of people gathered around a big cooker outside of a trailer. Same response as usual, they look at us really weird when we drive up, they tell us they don't have enough money to pay for the fish after we ask if they want them, and then we tell them we're giving them away. At this point, they're happy to take the fish off our hands.


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## Popeye (Apr 6, 2008)

Didn't know you could use a game fish for bait. Is there a size limit for Bass in SC?


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## FishinsMyLife (Apr 6, 2008)

I'm sure you can use game fish as bait in SC and I'm not sure about the size limit. This is a private pond, so the standard regulations don't apply for the most part.


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## slim357 (Apr 6, 2008)

Do you keep the fish to try and keep the numbers down? If this is the case you should try to practice selective harvest, also why did you use the bass as bait and not the blue gil?


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## Jim (Apr 6, 2008)

Good job man!


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## Tompatt (Apr 6, 2008)

how old is that boat? lol got to clean it out.. :lol:


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## mr.fish (Apr 6, 2008)

Nice catchin. But if I were you, I would reconsider taken all those bass from the water. They could be the future of a good fishery.


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## Jim (Apr 6, 2008)

I think fishinmylife has a system for that private pond if I recall from a previous post. I think they are thinning out the smaller ones from certain sizes.


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## FishinsMyLife (Apr 6, 2008)

Jim said:


> I think fishinmylife has a system for that private pond if I recall from a previous post. I think they are thinning out the smaller ones from certain sizes.


Yep. We had a guy from the DNR come out to inspect the pond and he said that no bass (any size) should be put back into the pond. Since we are trying to manage it for bass, all bluegill should be released. I saw over 20 little 6 inch bass in the boathouse (we keep the boat there, so that's why it is covered in pollen and spiderwebs) before I even went out fishing. That pond is way overpopulated and the majority of the bass caught out of it are little. For the past 10 or 15 years, everyone just put all their fish back in and that created the problem we have today. Selected harvest is what I am doing by letting the bigger fish go.


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## slim357 (Apr 6, 2008)

Do you feed the fish? fatting up the blue gills is a good way to increase the size of the bass


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