Fish Management

Basic Management for Bass-Bream Ponds

Fishing and harvest are critical to good pond management. To ensure fast growth of bass and bream, you must remove fish to free up food for remaining fish. Ponds that are entirely catch-and-release tend to have poor fishing after several years. The biggest mistake most pond owners make in managing their ponds is not harvesting enough bass. This leads to crowding and slow growth of their bass.

You need to know when to start removing fish, what size to remove, and how many. If you harvest fish incorrectly, you can upset the predator-prey balance. However, if you strategically harvest fish, you can actually manipulate the balance to make the fish populations match your management objective. Read on for guidance on proper fish harvest and manipulating and checking pond balance.

Corrective actions for pond balance problems vary, depending on the cause of the problem. Recommendations for common balance problems are provided in the links above. While these recommendations can lead to improvements in fish size, they may need to be modified as conditions change within the pond. In some cases, ponds may be so far out of balance that the only solution is to renovate the pond and restock.