Assessing Size Potential in Body of Water, and Bass Cannibalism Story

[fishratt]

How do you guys assess the potential for a body of water to produce big bass? 

This might seem like a stupid question. Obviously, the best way to find out how big the bass are in a particular body of water is to fish it... then see how big the bass are. But I've witnessed this theory fall apart on multiple occasions.

Recently a buddy of mine caught a close to double digit fish out of an hoa pond with an absolutely huge number of 1 lbers. I'd always believed that since there were so many small fish, it would have ruled out the possibility for a bigger fish to gain enough food, nutrients and escape the competition. Never even attempted to throw the big baits there because it seemed like a waste of time (until the aforementioned incident). The 8+ lb fish that are living in this hoa pond must be feeding off the smaller 1 lb bass, because I can't think of anything else that would help grow them that big (no shad, small bluegill population, very little cover). It's a lake that literally holds about a thousand 1 lbers and 2-3 8+ lbers, but nothing in between. 

Another spot that I fish the big baits at on a regular basis is very urban, it doesn't look like the kind of place to hold big bass. I only ever started throwing swimbaits there after I caught a 9 lber on a crankbait (blind luck). But if that stroke of luck hadn't happened then I would have continued to throw my little baits and missed out on the dozens of 8+ lbers on the swimbait. It's kind of a catch 22. Either throw the conventional at your more unassuming spots and have fun with the 2-3 lbers (saving the swimbaits for bigger resivoirs), or just throw the big baits everywhere because you never know where that next double digit could be lurking. 

I've always used the standard methods to at least guess the size potential of lakes. Things like the size of the population of bass versus the size of the bass themselves (more bass equals smaller bass), and looking at the size of the panfish. But the fact that I was so wrong about this one body of water (the last place in the world where I thought a 9 lber would have come out of) is really making me second guess things. What other spots have I wrongly assumed only held dinks? 

Edited August 17, 2021 by fishratt

[fishratt]

For the record, there are also a ton of spots that I've assumed held giants but I have yet to catch a fish greater than 2 lbs out of. 

[chefchris]

The last two years I’ve been using a scale/measurement tool by Shan O’Gorman aka the aquatic_biologist on IG.

dude runs pond management and design for a living and has built some impressive fish and data thru the years 

his “relative weight” chart is a great tool, based off years of data collection in the field 

essentially if the fish you’re catching are meeting or exceeding the length & weights on the chart that pond of water has potential to be produce trophy sized fish. 

if all the fish you’re catching are under weight for the length you’re probably not gonna find many if any trophy fish. 

obviously there’s exceptions to this as it’s not a life by rule but I will say it has helped me in the past two seasons pretty quickly establish if a pond is worth the effort to learn and fish. 

case in point the two bodies of water ive decided to fish a lot this year both have an average of 65-75% trophy sized fish swimming around based on my catches. Hence why I’ve put some more time into learning them this year. 

he makes a decal to go on your measuring board and has made some full size ones as well. 

[Loudsplashbassn_]

14 hours ago, fishratt said:

How do you guys assess the potential for a body of water to produce big bass? 

This might seem like a stupid question. Obviously, the best way to find out how big the bass are in a particular body of water is to fish it... then see how big the bass are. But I've witnessed this theory fall apart on multiple occasions.

Recently a buddy of mine caught a close to double digit fish out of an hoa pond with an absolutely huge number of 1 lbers. I'd always believed that since there were so many small fish, it would have ruled out the possibility for a bigger fish to gain enough food, nutrients and escape the competition. Never even attempted to throw the big baits there because it seemed like a waste of time (until the aforementioned incident). The 8+ lb fish that are living in this hoa pond must be feeding off the smaller 1 lb bass, because I can't think of anything else that would help grow them that big (no shad, small bluegill population, very little cover). It's a lake that literally holds about a thousand 1 lbers and 2-3 8+ lbers, but nothing in between. 

Another spot that I fish the big baits at on a regular basis is very urban, it doesn't look like the kind of place to hold big bass. I only ever started throwing swimbaits there after I caught a 9 lber on a crankbait (blind luck). But if that stroke of luck hadn't happened then I would have continued to throw my little baits and missed out on the dozens of 8+ lbers on the swimbait. It's kind of a catch 22. Either throw the conventional at your more unassuming spots and have fun with the 2-3 lbers (saving the swimbaits for bigger resivoirs), or just throw the big baits everywhere because you never know where that next double digit could be lurking. 

I've always used the standard methods to at least guess the size potential of lakes. Things like the size of the population of bass versus the size of the bass themselves (more bass equals smaller bass), and looking at the size of the panfish. But the fact that I was so wrong about this one body of water (the last place in the world where I thought a 9 lber would have come out of) is really making me second guess things. What other spots have I wrongly assumed only held dinks? 

Most urban ponds have a stocking program which would grow trout eaters in the urban waters producing big fish in return . For the HOA pond could of planted by a local angler?  I've seen a couple videos of people planting some giants in the hoa ponds hoping for a kid to catch lol either way I'd throw the big bait doesn't hurt to give it a chance might just be surprised in your findings lol

[Jim137a]

as @chefchris said look up the Aquatic Biologist on IG  - loads of good info. 
 

I have limited time to fish so I’m usually force to fish my local,waters and what’s convenient at the moment and try and hit high percentage areas and look for the best ambush points. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Jim137a

[fishratt]

10 hours ago, chefchris said:

The last two years I’ve been using a scale/measurement tool by Shan O’Gorman aka the aquatic_biologist on IG.

dude runs pond management and design for a living and has built some impressive fish and data thru the years 

his “relative weight” chart is a great tool, based off years of data collection in the field 

essentially if the fish you’re catching are meeting or exceeding the length & weights on the chart that pond of water has potential to be produce trophy sized fish. 

if all the fish you’re catching are under weight for the length you’re probably not gonna find many if any trophy fish. 

obviously there’s exceptions to this as it’s not a life by rule but I will say it has helped me in the past two seasons pretty quickly establish if a pond is worth the effort to learn and fish. 

case in point the two bodies of water ive decided to fish a lot this year both have an average of 65-75% trophy sized fish swimming around based on my catches. Hence why I’ve put some more time into learning them this year. 

he makes a decal to go on your measuring board and has made some full size ones as well. 

So cool! 

[Jon P]

On 8/17/2021 at 6:06 AM, chefchris said:

Shan O’Gorman

Ditto on O'Gorman! I picked his brain on analyzing some of the water bodies near me for bigger bass and he was incredibly helpful. Generally I use bigger glides to see how big fish can get in a body of water and use the relative weight board to see how healthy the fish are. There's always flukes though. There's a high land pond near me that used to have big fish but has, in recent years, been overfished to the degree in which it holds the largest population of stunted fish I have ever seen anywhere. Thousands of cookie cutter 8" bass packed head to tail. Yet in spite of that, we saw a high five to low six fish spawning this spring. There's a lot of spots that don't have a good food "ladder". lot of food for little fish and nothing but cannibalism for big fish. Or a lot of big baitfish that the little fish can't grow big enough to capitalize on. There's one lake that I love fishing that could produce limits of double digit fish with a better food supply, but has nothing but bass and bullheads. you get plenty of big fish, but they tend to starve to death as they cross the 20" mark.

[azsouth]

Basically Genetics then available food, without those 2 ingredients.... good luck.  

[rwp]

I think it's less about "are there big fish?" and more about "how many big fish are there?".

A lot of people assume that they aren't any big fish because no one catches them, when in reality the quantity of big fish is probably just really low. Also, lots of people don't share their big catches to keep the areas from getting over run.

If there are lots of little bass there are also going to be big bass. The little bass don't eat all the food. The little bass ARE the food.

Bass are resilient and eat pretty much anything. As long as the body of water has been around (and has been clean enough) for enough time for a bass to grow, there's at least a few monsters in there.

Edit: and by big fish I don't necessarily mean double digit record fish, but above average.

Edited August 18, 2021 by rwp

[basssavage24/7]

I think it comes down to food for the most part I've 6 to 8lbs Northerns out 1 acre ponds. Tho these ponds get like 900 trout about 10 to 14inches 9 months out of the year. Some the ponds the trout are able to survive the heat of the summer.   

    

[basssavage24/7]

This one rock quarry i fish produce alot of big fish it has only bluegill  and crawdads its only about maybe an 1acre. Got a 8.2lbs and 6.5lbs and seen alot of other big fish in it. Its pretty clear water and about 30 feet deep.   This pond has the crazy amount of big bass i have no idea why either it doesn't have trout.

    Since it is a private pond I wonder if their f1 because it also has Louisiana red crayfish so who ever owned it stocked it  Because signal crayfish are the native species here and this is the only body of water I've inconter Louisiana reds.