I have several ponds on my property. I catch a lot of bass, nothing big, on average 1 or 2 pounds. Any ideas on how to make them bigger. I've heard that most ponds have too many fish and that doesn't allow them to get big, could it be i just need to relocate some of them? Help me out.

Relocate the 2 pounders to the dinner table.

That's what I was thinking.

This. Trying to convince a family friend of ours with a 6 acre pond that he needs some serious removal of all the small fish.

I manage some private waters and there are a few things you need. Fewer mouths to feed and more food for the mouths that are left. Generally we have no learning curve if they get caught before three pounds they are filleted. Fewer bass will probably fix the food ratio for you. Also good gean pool will do wonders. Take a trip to fork and take some of the unders that need to go anyway tho will help hopefully to get good Florida genetics in there. Feed the bluegill dry dog food fat bluegill will bring fat bass. Removing smaller bass would be priority number one if it is a small pond it will not support a large number of big preditors. I have seen a pond less than eight acres produce several fish over 12 pounds hope this helps.

Thanks. Just today I caught several bass smaller than 2 pounds out of a 5 acre pond. I wish i could keep the 2 pounders for dinner, but moved the smaller bass to the little 1/2 acre pond.

A good food source is a must, with 3 different kinds.
One of the Bluegill spec., one stays fairly small.
Crappie is good.
One of the shad spec.,
Call the fishery they will have the exact ratio and species.
Keep the water aerated starting now and through the summer.
Put you in a flooating feeder on a timer.
Also as mentioned bring in the new genetics as often as possible.
Something simple that helps our ponds is; fix you an aerated ice chest to keep them healthy/ice, and fish 3 different ponds, one each weekend and bring them to your pond. It only takes 6 good Bass from 3 different locations to help your gene pool grow. Then do the same thing for bluegill. The bluegill are getting ready to start bedding in ponds. You should be able to catch 100 in one morning when it gets right. This is the fun way to do it.

Will do. Thanks for the info.

Pond Boss is a great magazine. They are one of our Advertized Sponsors on the left side of the page. You will see it pop up if you keep looking as you move from page to page.

Pretend your pond is a box. It might hold 100 small bass or 20 big bass. You can only fit a certain amount in there. If you want bigguns in there then have you some fish fry with the small ones.

you can a bunch of big fish in there but you have to keep putting in bait fish. Get a protein fish feeder also. This will help increase the size of your bait fish. Bigger bait fish equals a better meal for bass. You also may want to have your pond surveyed to see what bait fish you need. This is also an easy way to cull stunted/ smaller fisher. Get your buddies over after the survey and have a fish fry. We use Lochow Ranch to manage ours and they are great to work with.

sounds like you should have to have a little tournament on your pond to catch all the small ones ......count me in ...lol

Darn it all. We would love to catch 2-3# bass in New Mexico.

These guys are good to talk to, and if you need shad or whatever they can fix you up.

Dunn's

well couple suggestions... maybe try to catch some shad at the lake.. you should be able to catch a lot and put them in your pond....

when they have a delivery of bass locally to you contact them about buying a lot of live crawfish to throw in there...

I'd set a minimum at 14 inches... everything under that eat or throw in the other pond... a bass at 16 inches is healthy and should weigh around 3 lbs... I wouldn't recommend taking them out for any reason....

One thing I learned from a guy with a private lake was that he fertilized his lake... the water looked nice and green.. the moss was generous in the lake... that creates the entire food chain into action....

For super sized bass see if you can find some Tilipia to put in... Bass get fat quick on tilipia and big crawfish...the more the bass have to eat.. the better...

It's essential obviously to practice catch and release on bass 3 lbs. and bigger...

lET US KNOW HOW IT GOES...

There is a pond mgmt guide available for free on TPWD website....I would take a look at that. There are some basics that most have mentioned above but there are numerous factors to consider and one thing I will tell you right now is do NOT put any crappie in there...they are incredible bait eaters and will hurt what you are trying to do....various types of blue gill and minnows is what you want.