Hi everyone. I have just built a 1.5 acre pond in my back yard. I only have 30" of water so far and it's been dry here for weeks. Patients is a virtue.
LCH

We built a pond Labor Day weekend 2010 and it just recently filled up. It will fill up with time.

Welcome to the forum Elsie. What are your plans for the pond? What species of fish are you thinking of stocking?

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I'm undecided on what kind of fish to stock. Being a typical midwest farmboy I tend to think of BG, LMB, Crapie, and Catfish for a little "fishin hole". And of course minnows. But after reading many, many, many posts here and reading some books at the library I may be changing my mind. The local birds may provide some species of aquatic life that I cannot immediately control - so, who knows?

My goal is to have a place for the grandkids to fish and swim when they come to visit. Also, since I'm an outdoors type of guy and I love nature, it will be nice to have a place on our own property to sit and observe wildlife of all sorts.

There are thousands of farm ponds here in our neck of Indiana and I don't think people around here NEED another little fishing spot. So I have been considering the purchase of several cane poles for the kids to use and not allowing any type of rods-n-reels, lures, or live bait (other than worms) near my pond. My compost piles are teeming with earthworms so bait may not be an issue.

At the rate that my pond if filling I have time to learn more about pond maintenance and what kind of fish to have here. I'm curious to see if anybody here has bluegill-only ponds. Or if species diversity is important.

I got lots to learn,
LCH

Elsie:

Welcome. There's a LOT of reading to do here!

Search the archives, especially for the commonly used acronyms. We use a lot of them here instead of the whole fish name. Bluegill (BG) need a predator to keep their numbers in check or they will overpopulate and stunt. Largemouth Bass (LMB) are good for that. But, you are the ultimate predator, and need to remove some LMB every year or they will eat themselves out of house and home, eventually stunting also.

Or, you could go with a put-n-take fishery with Hybrid Striped Bass (HSB) Hybrid Bluegills (HBG) and if you want, Channel Catfish (CC). The HBG will reproduce, but not to the extent of regular BG, and the HSB should be able to keep up with the offspring. It would be better to feed in that pond if you want to maximize the fish growth. I would also stock Fathead Minnows (FHM) as soon as there is water in the pond. They will be the primiary food source for the fish that you stock. If you go the hybrid route, I'd also look at the pros and cons of stocking Golden Shiners (GSH) too. Keep track of what fish were removed from the pond, and restock those fish on a yearly or bi-yearly basis.

Birds stocking the pond (I believe) is an old wives tale. I'll bet there are many, many more cases of flood waters (even a large rain event that lets water flow over the ground) and people dumping fish into a pond with a bucket than by any other "natural" means.