How screwed is my little pond?

Rip them lips baw

If you persistently fish for them and kill everyone you keep, you'll be fine. If you're lackadaisical about it and go months without thinning the heard, you're gonna have a pond full of 10" sacaulait, a couple giant bass and not much else.

Never say never but I haven’t found that they spawn very well in small ponds, unless there is a ton of brushy shallow cover. Had some get bucket stocked into a 3ac pond and they got big but never took over, now can’t catch one. Sounds like they are in the mood though, hammer them now and you should be able to keep them under control.

If you're trying to get it to be a great bass pond, you've got some work to do. If they're that aggressive in this cooler weather then there's already a big lack of food for them, those sacalait will dry a bait supply quickly in a pond. Like others said, just fish it hard for them a few times a week. Give the fish you catch away if you have to, but they're gonna stunt a bass population if they go unchecked

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If they're that aggressive in this cooler weather then there's already a big lack of food for them, those sacalait will dry a bait supply quickly in a pond.

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This is spawning temperature for them, those are likely males up shallow, all the more reason to hammer them now while they’re aggressive.

Is the 5yo just fishing with worms? Crappie won't bite on worms, generally.

Unless you really like crappie, they are horrible to have in a pond that size, they'll eventually choke everything else out. Fun fact: because crappie can filter feed, they will be the last fish standing in the pond when the forage is all depleted. Then they cannibalize their own to maintain a balance. Keep all you catch. If you get tired of eating them, find someone else who wants them.

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I hear that, that pond with sacalait would be a young kid's dream

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When I was a kid I grew up next to a pond my very rich neighbors had for them and bass. They coexisted and I was mostly interested in the bass but one day I was wading out under the cypress trying to get a cast out from under them into open water. Something got between me and shore and was making ripples on the water. I slid up next to it and it was a humongous fish that I assumed was a bass since I'd caught bass this big in there before. It was almost spent though. Fins were all feathered and he was having a hard time of it so I just eased my hands under him and threw him up on land. HUGE white perch. Big enough that when I took him home my dad loaded us up and we went to the store that had a scale to get it weighed. 4Lbs. 3oz This was in the seventies and that was probably a record. I don't recall what happened to it though. We probably ate it.

Anyway, the pond was I would estimate to be about 7 acres and it had deep parts and a pump in the bayou next to it to keep it topped off. The owner wanted white perch, but he had a really healthy bass population in there as well. I was in heaven as a kid having access to that place. I'd load up stringers with bass that could barely carry home. Good ones.

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I would rather those than bass in a pond

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as would i, but the so called experts all say they will overpopulate and kill most life in the pond before dying off from no food left.

i used to think they were no different than any other fish, but apparently, they lay so many eggs they over run their living spaces

Why would bream (bluegill) affect bass spawning?