Fish management is one of the most essential parts of sports fishing. If you want to catch healthy fish, you want to have the right habitat type in your pond. In this case, we’ll go over what you can do to keep your bass healthy and thriving. The last thing you want is to catch a bass fish that is small and skinny. Bass are described as a slim yet muscular fish that likes to hunt forage fish. Therefore, it’s important to have an environment suited for their hunting grounds and overall habits.
Should You Have Large Areas of Cover?
The first thing you shouldn’t have for bass is a large area of cover that completely dominates your pond. Although areas of cover in an area of water would be good for other types of fish, such as sculpin or rockfish, bass are much different. Bass fish tend to move quickly and in short dashes when chasing their prey, including forage fish. However, you need to have enough some cover to protect your forage fish so that they can grow in size and don’t get eaten when they are only ¼” or less in size. In the end, make sure that you use areas of cover carefully in your pond or lake so that your bass fish have room to feed while protecting the small fry they eat. If you need more cover in your pond, you should add one of our many fish structures.
How do Bass Hunt?
Bass tend to linger on the outskirts of a large area of cover. This is because they have more freedom or room to move when they strike. On the other hand, lingering in a wide area of cover will limit their movement. What are the results? Studies have shown that bass that stayed well inside big areas of cover had a more challenging time catching forage fish, which resulted in a slow growth rate.
Have Plenty of Forage Fish
One of the most important things you can do is have a balanced amount of forage fish. . How do you find the right balance? Bass require a large amount of forage fish in order to grow. Stocking the pond with fathead minnows or golden shiners helps but having a healthy population of bluegill, sunfish and other forage fish is probably more important. All of these fish spawn and provide small forage fish for the bass to consume. Good habitat and balanced cover allows these small fry to get some size so their more than just a snack when they get eaten.
Final Takeaway
Providing adequate habitat and cover along with plenty of forage fish is critical to growing big bass. They won’t get big if there’s no food in the pond.
At Outdoor Water Solutions, we offer a variety of pond aerators providing you with the options needed to pick the perfect pond aerator for your pond. We always enjoy working with clients on ways to improve the quality of their ponds’ health so, if you have any questions or would like more information on our pond aerators, contact us at 866.471.1614 today!
