If you're so holy as to know what God does and does not agree with, then you should know that you are in violation of his Word by judging others. See Matthew 7:1-2

Yeah guys don't to worked up over this we have been taking a few out each year he has owned the place and have yet to catch any bass over 2 lbs, we have a large population of sunfish and coppernose bream in there with them and I see a lot of fry in the water around the edge of the pond. But we keep catching these skinny bass so we keep taking a few out. We have dined on them and we have carried them over to the other ponds that need some bass. It seems to be helping the other ponds get better fish in them. One pond had only bream and catfish in it and now couple years later has had some of the better bass caught from there. Anyway Dad's in charge he's 81 yrs old and owned the whole place so what he says goes. Doesn't matter if it hairlips everyone in Texas! LOL!

AMEN

I'll tell ya'll a story as briefly as I can. I leased a 20 ac private lake in Mt. Pleasant many years ago. Hired Bob Lusk (Pond Boss) to do an electrofishing survey and make management recommendations.

Prior to this, we would catch 50-125 fish per day with 98% of them being 13" and less, and stunted. The remaining larger fish were usually 5-6 pounds and healthy.

Bob recommended we remove 1,000 bass 13" and less as fast as we could, which we did in a little over a month. Very soon thereafter (w/in 6mos) we would catch 30-50 fish/day but they were all footballs. Why? Becuase there was not enough forage of the size necessary to grow the smaller fish into mid-sized fish. There were plenty of bluegills in the lake of the size the intermediate and large fish could utilize as forage.

What we had was a "break in the food chain" caused by too many small fish predating heavily on the available small forage species. Once those bass were removed, there was plenty of forage of the necessary size for all remaining bass in the lake. The small fish were able to grow instead of being stunted and became good fish. All the fish in the lake at this time were native, northern strain fish but once the predator/prey realtionship was balanced, all of the fish lloked like Florida footballs.

We introduced adult and 6-8" pure Floridas the next spring and the rest took car of itself. We maintained a policy of removing all bass 13 inches and less unless we "thought" they were F1's or pure Floridas. I know, you can't tell a Florida from a native for certain without some very close visual inspection and/or tissue samples. However, the fish under 13" that were released had better body confirmation than natives of the smae age-class, had longer teeth and fought noticeably harder. So we did our best to continue removing natives and leaving Floridas, even if under 13".

The biggest bass caught out of this pond prior to the management program was 8 pounds. 2 years after embarking on this journey, I caught a 12.72 lber and several others between 10 and 11.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to share my experiences with some of you who are against keeping bass, especially in private waters. I seldom ever keep a bass at Fork, but I do enjoy keeping and eating some small LMB from ponds from time to time.

Unfortunately, I moved to Houston three years after beginning this program and had to let my lease go.

Now that's funny right their, and Al is correct whatever dad says goes.

Nice pics Al

I have tried 100% Florida Bass a guy was cooking one time and before I tried it he wouldn't tell me what kind of fish it was. One bite and I claimed it to be the best most amazing tasting fish I had ever had. When he told me what kind of fish it was I felt ill over the fact I had eaten something I swore I never would. Point of the story is they taste amazing never had regular large mouth but they can't be to different from their Florida kin. I am against throwing a 5 lber on the skillet but eating small bass will help any body of water. I feel Grapevine lake has become alot better in the last 5 yrs because hispanic bank netters and some of the old timers keep fish under 14". That is that mans pond and if he wants to eat the biggest bass in there more power to him as none of us will probably ever fish there.

If he shouldn't be reducing his population I guess we would need to stop culling deer also because that obviously wouldn't work...just food for thought.

I've been telling you that for at least 3 years now!!! Stop being so sentimental to them things!!! Lets EAT them dudes!!!

I agree, the man is 81 years old, it's his pond, what he says goes. I'll never eat a LMB, but I'm not bothered by people who do.

Let the man fish, eat, and be happy I say

nicely done

nuff said right there. sounds like good management to me

You guys are funny, I was kidding. I eat bass as I eat trout, reds, catfish...I was just jacking with the idiots that hink they can tell this man what to do with his property, step away from the keyboard

pond management ....well done

+1

I agree with Catfish_Hunter and Fouzman. A pond has to be managed just like a farmer manage his field. If it is not balance you need to do what it takes to get it in check. If your catching fish of just one size your water is out of balance. When you catch fish from 6" to 10-12#'s and everything in between your water is balanced. If it is balanced that doesn't mean that you can't take fish out occasionally, just don't go overboard. Nice fish and good eat'in. Your doing that pond a favor.