Hello Pond Boss World,

I've been on this forum for many years and I FINALLY purchased a property with a 2/3 acre pond on it. I've been here about a month in North Central Iowa, fishing it most days and walk it multiple times a day to see what's hanging out on the shoreline. So here's the situation...

I have caught (and thrown into the garden) about 20, 10-12 inch long blue catfish that weigh less than a 1 LB, super skinny but really nice coloring. I have caught 1 2 LBer that I tossed back in that had good round shape to it and was maybe 2 inches longer than the skinny ones. There are 4 giant grass carp, I caught 1 and tossed it into the garden as well and it was about 7LBs. There are probably 100+ Green Sunfish making beds along the shore, I've caught a dozen or so of them with beautiful coloring very healthy looking good body width for their length, but they are all 5inches and under. There are huge schools of 1 inch fingerlings, looking like maybe 200 or so in the ball, so it seems like stuff is spawning and reproducing relatively well. Unfortunately... I think that's it for the ecosystem, I haven't seen any bass moving along the shoreline nor have I caught any of them. It may be early in the season for them but water temps are starting to climb so I would assume I'd have started to see something moving in there by now or snagged one, I fish 30 minutes to an hour a day in there with a wide variety of baits and usually hit most of the pond in doing so.

My primary concern is it seems like we are experiencing stunting, both in the Catfish and the GSF which is why I've started culling the tiny catfish out of there. I am leaving the GSF in there for now as I'd like to keep them around and do a WE, SMB, YP stocking this year and the fusiform GSF would fit in well with those other 3. We have 3 aerators and a well if I need to pump cooler water in in the summer time. It's mostly a sand/clay bottom with about half the shore lined with bigger boulders and gets to 25 feet deep in the center.

My questions for you all are, does this seem like stunting to you as well? Does my culling the smaller catfish out and adding in the SMB/WE as the primary predators seem like a reasonable approach? Should I take out all the Catfish and the Grass Carp? Should I start feeding them maybe to help boost size?

Thanks for the help! It's awesome to finally have my own pond to talk about on here.

~k