By Trey Montgomery

So, now you have a new fishing lake and you are wondering just what to do to raise those trophy bass and bream. Hopefully, at this point your lake reflects a well thought out and carefully planned environment that provides both cover for small fish and structure for bass.

Now let's start from the bottom up.
The single most-important ingredient in your lake is a fertile or productive environment. Fish ponds require fertilization to increase the amount of microscopic plant life called phytoplankton.
These are single-cell microscopic plants which, when abundant, cast off a green color over the surface of the pond. This is referred to as a "bloom."

Prior to fertilization, you should check the basic water chemistry of the pond to determine both the alkalinity and calcium carbonate hardness. A simple swimming pool test kit can be purchased to conduct this test.

Once this bloom is achieved, you will need to try and maintain it in order to provide the nutritional food source that the entire food chain depends on to thrive.

Info Accommodations: Leavellwood has two lodges which comfortably sleep eight. Food: Good food and good service is a given. How to reach them: Telephone number is (205) 372-2323 and the web address is www.leavellwood.com

Now you need to stock your pond. The standard practice is 1,000 bream to the acre and 100 bass to the acre. Bream are stocked in the fall as fingerlings, allowing time for growth to reproductive size by the following summer. At this time, bass fingerlings are stocked and these immediately begin feeding on bluegill reproduction.

One of the questions we get asked most often at Leavellwood is, "how many bass and bream can I take out after the first year?" My answer is, "you don't." Do not remove anything until the initial stocking of fish has matured, reproduced and become established.

If you had a good survival rate of your original bass, you can then start taking out some of those 12-to 14-inch frying-pan size offspring or reproduction of the original stocking of bass.
At Leavellwood, one of the ways we use to determine if things are going well is body condition. We want to see our bass fat and thick across the back with a lot of energy coming out of the water.
If we start to see our bass too skinny and lacking in energy, this is an indicator that our forage fish have become limited. This tells us it's time to boost the supply of forage fish or reduce the competition or both.

If you find yourself with an abundance of forage fish, then do what we do at Leavellwood, stock additional mature bass to lake advantage of the plentiful food supply.
To keep our bluegill multiplying and growing to trophy size, we supplement feed with automatic feeders filled with 36-percent protein catfish fingerling pellets set to go off three or four times a day.

We have been intensively managing our fishing lakes since 1989 and have made a lot of mistakes. But, don't be afraid to experiment. For example, at Leavellwood, we stock talapia and threadfin shad, both of which feed directly on the phytoplankton.

We do this in order to grow more trophy bass. More food for the bass yield larger fish.
If you are thinking of building a lake, there is a lot of help available out there in getting started in the right direction. Contact your local fisheries division with the Alabama Department of Conservation or hire a fisheries consultant specializing in lake development.
Here at Leavellwood, we do both. In l999, after years of working to produce exceptional bass lakes, we decided to open up to the public.

In the spring of 1999, Dutch Linthout came and fished one of our lakes and wrote a feature story in the summer addition to Mark's Outdoors titled "Hawg- Heaven, Literally." This story described his fishing experience with his son and got things kind of kicked off for us.

In addition to fishing, we also offer hunting on our privately owned family land which has been under a game management program for over 10 years.

Accommodations are offered in the way of two lodges that sleep eight comfortably with fireplaces and comfortable sitting areas standard in both.

This year, we completed our newest building with a commercial kitchen and dining hall where we specialize in good food and good service after a day of fishing or hunting.

If you would like to consider a fishing or hunting trip for doves, whitetail deer or eastern turkey in the upcoming season, give us a call at (205) 372-2323 or visit our web site at www.leavellwood.com.

(Strongly endorsed by "Dutch")