Eat Skillet-Sized Bass from Your Pond

EDITOR'S NOTE: To have a fishing hole that consistently will produce 8- pound bass or bigger, you'll have to do your homework. To pinpoint and fish these types of ponds, have a friend who's already intensively managing his pond. Or, manage your own farm pond carefully. But to have a big-bass fishing pond to fish, rent, lease, borrow or obtain permission from the landowner for you to help pay for the maintenance needed to build your dream pond.

You also can increase the size of bass your lake produces by introducing the lake's small bass to a skillet full of hot grease. If you'll eat the little bass and put the big bass back, you'll have more big bass than little bass in the lake.

I talked with Don Keller, one of the owners of American Sportfish -- a fish hatchery, based in Montgomery, Alabama. Keller, a fisheries' scientist who specializes in working yearly with over 700 to 1,000 small-pond owners nationwide, reports that throwing little bass back into a pond probably will mean the pond won't have enough food for all the fish. The small bass you've thrown back will eat the young bass as soon as they hatch.

To learn more about growing big bass, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to American Sportfish, % Don Keller, PO Drawer 20050, Montgomery, AL 36120 to get a special free report, "Secrets to Small-Pond Management."

Tomorrow: Make A Small-Bass Pond A Big-Bass Pond