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Florida Ponds infested with 1 pounders.

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Anthony Sparacio

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Is it just me or when I was little( middle school elementary) and visit Florida and on a hard day or week of fishing the local small ponds I would catch a bunch of fish that All ranged different sizes, some 1 pounders . 2-3lbs. And an occasionally 4-6lb pig. But there was a diversity in the weight of the fish. Now(college)  the past years I feel as if the ponds are literally infested with dinks. So many I feel as if they are stunting eachothers growth because there is so much competition between the small ones. Yes, there’s definitely some hogs in there but few and far between. I don’t know if anyone else is seeing this or something like it.

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There is only so much forage in any given body of water. If there are no predators nor human harvest, the gamefish will proliferate as much as the available forage will allow. A friend had a lake in CT with the same issue, a lake full of skinny 1-pound bass. After talking to some folks, we started to harvest every second or third "dink" and that eventually led to those dinks getting a bit heavier. I have not fished there in years but he did email a photo a couple years back of he and a 4+ fish with the subject line "Finally". 

 

Catch and release is a good practice, but not when it is to the detriment to the overall population in s small, isolated body of water. 

“No nation in history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.”

- Victor Davis Hanson 

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  • 2 weeks later...

In my youth (1970s) I stumbled on a pond of about 2.5 acres on piece of fairly forested state land behind my house. It was full of very small fish. Mostly bluegills, sunfish and large mouth bass. One spring day on a nearby lake, we were catching a lot of nice 2-3 ld chain pickerel. We decided to transport some to this pond. Within 3 years we were starting to catch LMB in excess of 3 lbs and some nice sized pan fish. We never caught any of the pickerel again, but I have to think they did the job. Without the full food chain, any body of water will become influenced by overpopulation. The area around this pond was once open fields and neighbors said there was good fishing. But once the land was no longer maintained and trees grew enough that the birds could no longer properly fish it, it became unbalanced.

"The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent in fishing"
Assyrian proverb

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after"
Henry David Thoreau

Fishing is only an addiction if you're trying to quit

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  • 5 weeks later...

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