Farm Pond Pics

[Chad]

Holy smokes... that's what I'm looking for!

[AJS]

Sorry for all the pics, kinda got carried away

[Chad]

Given the quality of the crappie, I would expect these guys are pretty common in about this size. Nice fish! What sizes are the bluegill and crappie running?

[AJS]

The biggest bass we have pulled out is about 4lbs. Lots of stunted bass, so many they are a nuisance. Plenty of good 8-9 inches bluegills with a couple of MA peppered in there. i fear the crappie have been thinned out a little too much. i am not the only one fishing this pond. When i first started fishing it i thought i was the only one. After talking with the owner she decided to let others on about the same time i started fishing it three years ago. Prior to that no one fished this lake for 5 years! So when i got on there i was like a kid in a candy store. I have since put most master angler crappie back only keeping enough for dinner. This past fall i caught two 16 inch 2lb crappie, personal bests. i just hope the other people fishing it will have the same courtesy to put back trophies and just keep dinner.

[Willie Boy]

Originally Posted by AJS

The biggest bass we have pulled out is about 4lbs. Lots of stunted bass, so many they are a nuisance. Plenty of good 8-9 inches bluegills with a couple of MA peppered in there. i fear the crappie have been thinned out a little too much. i am not the only one fishing this pond. When i first started fishing it i thought i was the only one. After talking with the owner she decided to let others on about the same time i started fishing it three years ago. Prior to that no one fished this lake for 5 years! So when i got on there i was like a kid in a candy store. I have since put most master angler crappie back only keeping enough for dinner. This past fall i caught two 16 inch 2lb crappie, personal bests. i just hope the other people fishing it will have the same courtesy to put back trophies and just keep dinner.

Well done AJS...

[AJS]

Originally Posted by AJS

The biggest bass we have pulled out is about 4lbs. Lots of stunted bass, so many they are a nuisance. Plenty of good 8-9 inches bluegills with a couple of MA peppered in there. i fear the crappie have been thinned out a little too much. i am not the only one fishing this pond. When i first started fishing it i thought i was the only one. After talking with the owner she decided to let others on about the same time i started fishing it three years ago. Prior to that no one fished this lake for 5 years! So when i got on there i was like a kid in a candy store. I have since put most master angler crappie back only keeping enough for dinner. This past fall i caught two 16 inch 2lb crappie, personal bests. i just hope the other people fishing it will have the same courtesy to put back trophies and just keep dinner.

Here are those two 16inchers


Here are some of the Bass



Here is a crappy pic of the lake sorry i was too far away


And my little one given it a try

[Chad]

Originally Posted by AJS

After talking with the owner she decided to let others on about the same time i started fishing it three years ago. Prior to that no one fished this lake for 5 years!

That's very nice of the land owner. Perhaps you should offer to manage the pond for her. Do your best to make sure it remains a quality fishery and that the land is respected/cared for.

Bass harvest would be my primary concern. The pan fish numbers and size structure aren't likely to be impacted by some angler harvest - in fact, it's more likely you'd need to keep an eye out for a crappie boom, regardless of harvest rate. But, if some of those other guys that have permission start taking the LMB home, the fishing could go down hill quickly (at least for the crappie and bluegill).

10 pounds of harvested LMB creates a need for 50 pounds of bluegill harvest - that's probably 100 BG in that pond. I don't think there's a cut and dry equation for LMB to crappie harvest since their erratic recruitment makes management a guessing game.

Hope to see some more pics from that pond SOON AJS...

[Aquaman]

[Chad]

Great pics, Aquaman!
Is that one of your ponds? Condition look good under the ice?

[Aquaman]

That's one of the ponds that I have managed for the last four years. The fish were very active towards dark. Not so much during the afternoon.

[Mako]

Aquaman, you and your dad look so much alike!

[Aquaman]

Just to brag a little. Tom Osborne called my Dad "The best jig fisherman ever", when we saw him at a swim meet last year.

My Dad can catch white bass or walleye on a 1/16 ounce doll fly when other people are getting skunked and scratching their heads. I grew up watching my Dad catch 25 white bass in Lemoyne Bay at Lake McConaughy while other people never felt a single bite.

[angler1724]

Originally Posted by Aquaman

Just to brag a little. Tom Osborne called my Dad "The best jig fisherman ever", when we saw him at a swim meet last year.

My Dad can catch white bass or walleye on a 1/16 ounce doll fly when other people are getting skunked and scratching their heads. I grew up watching my Dad catch 25 white bass in Lemoyne Bay at Lake McConaughy while other people never felt a single bite.

Yep,

I would second the notion of Aquaman's Dad as being a great jig fisherman. I have fished with Aquaman, his Dad and Cousin for years and they are all great jig fisherman. I have learned over the years to not discouraged when fishing with them because they do catch fish when no one else can. Some of their success is because of their knowledge of fish, intense concentration and I do think they are gifted in a way. I have seen a lot of people try to imitate their style, but most without success.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Chad

Bass harvest would be my primary concern. The pan fish numbers and size structure aren't likely to be impacted by some angler harvest - in fact, it's more likely you'd need to keep an eye out for a crappie boom, regardless of harvest rate. But, if some of those other guys that have permission start taking the LMB home, the fishing could go down hill quickly (at least for the crappie and bluegill).

10 pounds of harvested LMB creates a need for 50 pounds of bluegill harvest - that's probably 100 BG in that pond. I don't think there's a cut and dry equation for LMB to crappie harvest since their erratic recruitment makes management a guessing game.

Great response here from Daryl on the management of LMB populations in ponds with BG and Crappie.

With crappies AND bluegills, I would not harvest a single bass. Sure, you could try to thin some bass in order to produce bigger bass, but in my opinion you would be taking a big risk in harvesting too many bass and not staying on top of both the crappies and bluegills. In that situation, more than one species of panfish in a small pond, your best management option may be to release all bass and hope for some quality panfishing along with an occasional big bass.

Here is where I have a problem with the "50 pounds of panfish harvested for every 10 pounds of bass"--Crappies and bluegills both can reproduce when they are very young and very small; "control" of their numbers is best accomplished before they have a chance to multiply! So if you harvest 10 pounds of bass and you need to harvest 50 pounds of panfish, the bluegills and crappies you need to harvest are smaller than most anglers ever catch and way to small to take a fillet knife too. How many 2-4-inch bluegills and crappies do you need to harvest to add up to 50 pounds?

My $0.02-worth.

Daryl Bauer
Lakes and Reservoirs Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
daryl.bauer@ngpc.ne.gov

P.S. Feel free to share this message with others if you wish.

My question back to Daryl (or anyone else who cares to comment) is this: I have read a lot about crappie recruitment being highly variable - boom or bust. And that this variability makes managing a balanced pond with a crappie population exceeding difficult. Folks say that to maintain balance you need to regularly get a handle on crappie recruitment and overall population dynamics, adjusting LMB management accordingly. For example, say crappie recruitment drops way off one year, but you don't adjust the LMB population in response. All panfish numbers will decline and before you know it, your pond is out of balance with too many LMB.

[Scotty]

All of these were taken at the same farm pond last year:





Have not caught a crappie over 13", gill over 9" or bass over 18" in a couple years, so hopefully with the pond getting dug out this year and more structure this will improve.

[Chad]

What all do you have stocked in that pond, Scotty?

[Scotty]

gills, perch, crappie, LMB, Channel cats. I have caught 1 walleye, 1 bullhead, and 1 sucker out of there but have never seen another those species. I suspect the coplete lack of natural weeds in the winter and lots of bass 15" + are the reason we dont see many perch, small gills or small crappie. Hoping to help the perch population by adding more structure this winter.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Chad

My question back to Daryl (or anyone else who cares to comment) is this: I have read a lot about crappie recruitment being highly variable - boom or bust. And that this variability makes managing a balanced pond with a crappie population exceeding difficult. Folks say that to maintain balance you need to regularly get a handle on crappie recruitment and overall population dynamics, adjusting LMB management accordingly. For example, say crappie recruitment drops way off one year, but you don't adjust the LMB population in response. All panfish numbers will decline and before you know it, your pond is out of balance with too many LMB.

Daryl's response...

Crappie recruitment in those waters may be a factor of habitat conditions, water levels or perhaps even annual variations in weather. It could be darned difficult to try to adjust bass management strategies from year to year in response to that variability. And I would hate to make those quick management decisions without some pretty extensive ongoing sampling that would give you the best possible idea of what was really going on.

It is not unusual to see variable recruitment of crappies in pits. But in most cases consistent recruitment of crappies in ponds and small reservoirs is not an issue. That illustrates that the habitat conditions can be quite a bit different from a pit to a pond even! In pits I would expect that crappie recruitment may be variable from year to year no matter what you do. In that case you might be best to expect, manage for the largemouth bass and bluegill fishery that you desire and expect that occasionally there will be a big year class of crappies, those fish will provide some great fishing for a few years when they grow up and then they will fade away until the next big year class of crappies is produced.

Those are some more thoughts for you.

By the way, congratulations on the addition to your family!!!!! Glad to see so many of you are taking this recruitment of new anglers thing so seriously! Take 'em fishing every chance you get, you will never regret one minute you spent together on the water!

Daryl B.

P.S. Feel free to share this message with others if you wish.