Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Help getting started

I am new to pond ownership having just acquired a small property in central Texas with a ~1/3 acre pond. I was told it was "stocked" and the realtor said it has never been dry, even with the bad drought a few years ago. I have no idea what kind of fish would have been in teh initial "stock". It is about a 2 hour drive to visit so I don't get there often to check on it. I fished it a few weeks ago and get a pretty consistent catch of 3"-5" GSF and I see a lot of 2"-3" GSF chasing the lure or just schooling in the shallows. My question is what would be the most sustainable mix for a pond this size, I will be fishing it but not often and mostly for sport, not harvest.

I would say that if you will not be frequenting the pond very often OR culling fish from it...just let it be what it will be. I say this because small ponds require some real hobby time to managing them with respect to fish populations and overcrowding. IMO, mostly unattended small ponds are best suited for channel cats. You really need to determine what state the pond's populations are currently. It sounds like you may have too many GSF, but that really needs to be thoroughly investigated. If that is the case, CC could be added and the GSF would make good forage. Be careful, if there are larger fish in there and you decide to stock more...make sure you stock big enough fish that they don't get eaten right out of the gate and/or adjust the stocking numbers accordingly!

You can go many different ways. HBG and HSB are nice in small ponds too. You could nuke the pond and start completely over too.

My realtor told me lots of things that turned out to be total BS! Use Google Earth Pro to look at the history of your pond to see water levels and dates photos were taken. With luck maybe some will be during summer. Throw a weighted lure and count how long it takes to sink. Many sink at 1ft/second. Lots of ways to check the depth! Maybe do a seine survey.

Browsing here is seemed to me CC would have been a good first choice for stocking which is why I was a bit surprised to see the number of GSF I am seeing. I don't know if these were introduced on purpose or washed in during a heavy rain from somewhere upstream. I had planned to throw some lines with stink bait to see if I could find any type of catfish. The GSF are fun to catch, they are aggressive and hit on just about any ultralight gear I throw at them. My first catch was a tiny Lucky 13 that hit as soon as the lure hit the water and almost swallowed the lure. That said, I am interested in introducing HBG and/or HBC.

Jack, welcome to Pond Boss and pond ownership. Step 1 is to observe and do nothing but take notes. Depth, water source, water quality, types of fish, etc.

Right now, the water is too hot to add any fish without a lot of acclimation. Due to water temps, any fish you take and return to the pond will most likely die due to stress. Generally we make adjustments in the Spring.