I did a "survey" of the pond with my underwater camera today.
In about 1.5 hours I saw plenty of small perch around the dock, even hanging out on the bottom. Also tons of minnows all around the top of the water near the dock. Also some sunfish scattered around. This is where the aeration is now. I went back and fished it for a while later last night as well, and caught a couple decent perch.
Towards the northern dam I found some perch near the top of the water, and some bullhead near the top. Nothing hanging out on the bottom.
Towards the southern dam, I didn't find much. I looked at a lot of the bottom down there, but there was nothing. I'm assuming there is no oxygen due to the thermocline. If I had a thermometer I could drop down to the bottom I could see the temp. I've thought about dropping my dive computer down there since it records temp.
So my completely unscientific result?
-Most of the fish I saw were near the dock. I think they like the aerators. They're hanging out on the bottom, and they couldn't do that if there wasn't air down there.
No bass anywhere I'm seeing. I don't know where they're all hiding. 2 years ago I was catching a bunch of perfect pond bass, not too big, and not too small. Last summer and this summer, haven't caught any. The odd thing is though, I haven't seen any evidence of a fish kill. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but I just haven't seen it.
I'm seeing a lot of minnows all over the place, and small sunfish so I believe there is a good base of forage fish. Next spring I'm planing on building a cage in the pond and attempting to cage stock some bass.
