Great links I’ve read and referred to all of them many times I’ve read this forum for almost a decade before I actually joined and started posting.

My pond water fertility for the most part stays pretty stable I do get a lot of flush on my pond so nutrient levels can get down temporarily during periods of high rain. but with feeding The highest quality fish foods every day it doesn’t take long for my fertility to get back up. My water stays an nice greenish blue most of the year blue from the aqua die and green from a pretty consistent algae bloom that does vary but is somewhat controllable thru feeding. If I could figure out how to add photos to this website(sorry I spend my time outside not good with computers) my fish are overweight and the vibrance and colors are outstanding unlike anything I’ve seen online. My aerators are rated for 4 acres and it’s only a 1 acre pond I can completely turn it over in 30-60 minutes. I drilled a well 200 feet deep into the Devonian Aquifer that runs thru eastern Indiana allowing me to add up to 20 gallons per minute of pure artisan spring water if I ever need to flush my pond or lower the temperature. Naturally the PH is a little high considering the water comes out of Limestone but this also stabilized the PH and the fish love the fresh cool water. I stock over a grand worth of forage every year and spare absolutely no expenses when it comes to managing the pond. I do believe the additional forage stocked on top of the already great forage in the pond on top of the feeding, aeration and extremely careful stocking management and culling program I couldn’t be happier with the results of my pond so far.

I was just wondering if anyone on here that has actual experience with cutting the fins off bluegill for additional forage. My bluegill aren’t stunted they are the primary forage fish in the pond and I have many bluegill over a pound in weight. These are all pure bred bluegill too not hybrids. What I’m most curious about is getting those fish in that 4-8 inch range turned into forage base.. not quite big enough to harvest yet starting to get to the size where only the largest preditors in the pond can eat them. And they are competing with my trophy bluegill for food plus the cuckholder males are stealing breeding rights from my parental males. And it seems if i take out a bunch of those medium fish it will allow the fry and fingerlings to take their place quickly bc they won’t have any competition. Some of these fry and fingerlings will naturally be a higher percentage of parental males since those are the only type of males that I’m allowing to reproduce. It seems like taking these fish out is a benefit every way you cut it.

Sorry not trying to be rude but it seems to me on all of the posts you have made on this thread you are just dismissing my question and just trying to tell me i need to do a better job at managing my pond. With all do respect if you think you have it all figured out and already know everything there is to know and that we can’t get any better and learn new things and tricks than i feel sorry for you bc your life and situation will never get any better even if it could bc you have already made that decision for yourself haha. If you don’t have any experience using this method and you don’t have any links to information on this topic, no problem than this post might just not be for you no hard feelings! You don’t have to take time out of your day to post just move along. If you already know everything why even get on these forums? Lol. Just to be a naysayer? Lolol. I’ve seen lots of ppl complaining about naysayers on here and I know what they are talking about now. Hahaha

Last edited by AquaticsFanatic; 05/08/18 09:59 PM.