I have a pond that has a ton of perch, but seems to have only a few small bass. There is one 2-3lb bass in it but the rest are 6-8 inches. Been fishing it for over two years now and just has no size it, or alot of bass at all. Never really do better than 3-4 cought each trip and only cought the 2-3lb bass once. I want to move some bass from a lake about a hour away from the pond. Not sure if they would survive, or how to go about doing this so that they will survive. The last thing I want is to kill some Bass. I strickly catch and release but would love to get some bigger bass in the back yard. My boat has two live wells and I also have an arerator that I could put in a big ice chest. Afraid of to much heat in the live wells on the trip. How could I do this or should I not even try? Would it be possible to do this on a cooler overcast day?

You could probably pull it off this time of year. 1) Don't get greedy and try to move too many- No more than say 1lb per gallon of water.
2)Take some five gallon buckets filled with lake water to do a partial change at the half way point.
3) Keep it dark to lower stress on the fish.
4) Run the aerator or pump to circulate water.
5) At the petsmart, you could pick up some "stress coat" and/or "amquel". Stress coat helps the slim coat of the fish while amquel will neutralize the ammonia buildup.

Good luck.

Sounds like you need to remove some of the perch. They must be eating the food and keeping the LMB from growing. You can put all of the LMB in there you want but, unless they are big enough to eat the perch, the LMB will not grow. A few big catfish might be what you need.

Time for a fish fry!!!!

Kevin

I dont think that you would have much problem on them living this time of the year but no way in the summer just to hot, I think im going to try to get rid of some of the perch from a friends pond, they have some nice badd in it but I think the perch are way to big and eating to much.

i would agree with the catfish also to eat the larger pearch,if you put any bass over five lbs in there they will eat both the pearch and the small bass.

Probably the better thing to do is remove some of the smaller bass, they are stunted so harvesting some of the bass will allow the others to eat their food and grow. Harvesting the GAME fish in ponds is very important.

Careful transfering fish from one place to the next. I think it may be against the law. Read up in your TPWD handbook, I know there is something about transfering fish...but it may be 'ok' to transfer to a private pond.

SQ

Shawn, you can transfer fish from public water to private water. You just can't transfer from public to public or private to public.

If you catch it and it is of leagal size, you can dispose of it in your freezer or private pond, aquarium or whatever.

You could do your driving at night.

Bass will grow to whatever size their habitat will support, up to their genetic potential. Other words, insufficient forage = stunted growth. Those sunfishes really do hog the available resources, not to mention eating the bass eggs. They just overwhelm 'em with numbers. A few big catfish is not a bad idea. Or invite a few scout troops to camp out there & harvest 'em. Or get some fish traps.
Use 'em for striper bait maybe?

Couple sticks of dynamite?
Anybody know anything about high voltage?

Interesting project - let us know how it turns out.

a couple of big ol' flathead yellow cats and several scouts will do the trick but it won't hurt to add bigger bass as well.. add a little ice to the live wells just before transport and the bass will be more likely to survive. Be sure to flush the live wells with water from the pond to even the tempature before dropping he bass into the pond.

Thanks forf the insite. I will be headed out tommorrow to try this and see what happens. I have to catch them first though and some days that is a challenge. I should have brought these hogs back from last week, but let them go to catch another day. They would have terrorised those lttle bluegill.

I have done this before with my livewells in my boat. Just left them on recirc the whole way home. But i only had a 20 minute drive. We also did this to keep some of the hyb bluegill and perch numbers down. I only put 3 in, 2 @14" inches and a 1 @18 1/2". I would highly suggest doing this as soon as possible and with as much water as possible. When it warms up those fish won't last long.

Well, went out and cought some hogs. 1 @ 6lbs and 2 @ 4lbs. Put both wells on recycle and added a little ice to keep them cool. 1 hour later a new home for 3 nice bass. They had so much life in them it was a job just getting them out of wells and into pond. Thanks for all the advise. We will see how this effects the pond. Let them be for a couple of months, if no changes than those gill are gonna have to be fished out of there.

Bluegills are a blast on ultralite tackle and a great way to get kids hooked on fishing. Not to mention tasty! If you were closer I'd offer to bring some young 'uns out to help with the harvest.

good luck with the bass.

Here is some good reading on managing your own pond:

http://www.pondboss.com/

They have a forum on that site that is worth looking at. I met the guy who owns this company at the Mesquite Tackle show a few years ago and he seems to be very knowledgeable.