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.
Publications
News
BILOXI, Miss. -- The Southeast has some of the most commercially and recreationally valuable fisheries in the United States. However, anglers’ observations of fish populations don’t always match the results of official stock assessments for important reef fishes.
Fisheries experts at Mississippi State University and other research institutions are conducting an $11.7 million study of the greater amberjack, an important recreational and commercial species in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico that is threatened by overfishing.
Grandpa cast the jig and cork to the center of the pond and handed it to Lucy. “Now, start reeling in slowly,” he said.
She did as Grandpa instructed. On the third crank of the reel, the float disappeared several inches below the water surface, and Grandpa shouted, “She’s got it; reel it in!”
That day, Lucy perfected her casting technique and caught nearly a dozen small bass and several large bluegill.
BILOXI, Miss. -- The results of the Great Red Snapper Count are in!
In 2017, a team of fisheries experts began a two-year task of estimating the population size of red snapper in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico through this unprecedented, federally funded $12 million project. Scientists from several Southeastern universities and institutes, including Mississippi State University, used a variety of methods across the Gulf to accomplish this ambitious goal.
