Bought a house last spring that has two ponds equaling about 3/4 of an acre. All we were able to catch out of it was tiny tin brim and tiny catfish. Didn't catch anything larger than my hand. Caught no bass. I'd like to turn one into a bass pond and the other a catfish or Crappie pond. Can I stock bass fingerlings with our them being eaten by the other fish or do I need to do a chemical kill off? Any info you have would be helpful. I'm pretty clueless.

Hi Arktiger,

Wecome to PBF!

Can you post some pictures of the fish you have now? I am sure the pros will be able to identify the specie(s) and be better able to offer suggestions.

Bill D.

Man, I wish I had thought of getting some pictures. The only pictures I have is of my kids holding them up and they are so tiny you can't see anything about them.

Ok, so how acquainted are you with different fish species? For example, are you sure your tiny catfish are not bullheads? One easy identifier is the tails are squared off on a bullhead where on say a channel cat, the tail is deeply V shape. The bullheads also often have a light brown or yellow belly.

If I remember correctly they looked more like the bullheads you describe. Do I have any options this time of year to look at the fish population before I decide what to do in stocking season. Are fish traps an option?

Here is the only picture I could find of brim. Believe it or not, this is actually one of the large ones.

Do you have any ice on the pond? I assume no, but weather is weird everywhere now so thought I would ask.

Kind of hard to see, but from the mouth gap, I am guessing green sunfish. Hopefully, a pro will weigh in with an opinion.

No. It froze over a couple of weeks ago but that is very rare.

Then the answer to your question is NO. There is no safe way for you to try to assess what is in your pond as long as it has a thin ice cover.

How large are the ponds? The bluegill does look pretty stunted in the picture, I don't see the GSF colors, but the picture is kinda fuzzy. The smile on your daughter is awesome regardless of fish species and size!

If the catfish ARE bullheads, personally, I would pump the ponds as low as I could and add however much Hydrated lime it takes to raise the pH over 11 to kill everything and stock according to new species goals wanted.

What part of Arkansas are you in?

It do look like a GSF to me. And in the absence of appropriate numbers of predators, that may well indeed be a large one.

look at the size of the jig in its mouth...aggressive buggers!

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It froze over one morning but is not currently froze over. That is rare.

Then get some worms and go fishing and post some clear pics for the pros.

I see two pros have already risen to the bait of this discussion so I will drop into the background. These guys won't steer you wrong.


Good Luck and good fishing!

Bill D.

Rex is the pro, I'm just a lurking poser.....a lu-ser in other words.

My ID vote goes to Green Sunfish!

[/quote] Then get some worms and go fishing and post some clear pics for the pros. [/quote]

I didn't think they bite well this time of year?

I was afraid of that. What kind of cost is the lime? I think my dad has a pump. I live in south Arkansas in El Dorado.

I didn't think they bite well this time of year?
[/quote]

They will bite man. Just slow your fishing techniques way down. You only need a photo of one sunfish and one catfish.

Bill D. and Arktiger. The sunfish is a green sunfish.

Rex is getting old, his eyes are going and he has a small screen on his phone.

If you want to turn that pond into a LMB pond, you don't have to kill or remove them. Just stock advanced sized LMB at least 8"-10" or larger fish at 50 - 75 per surface acre. The GSF will eat fingerling LMB, so there's no point in stocking small ones. Wait until the LMB have chowed down on the GSF for a while before stocking BG, but then if you do you have to stock advanced sized BG to prevent the stockers from getting eaten by the LMB.

You could drain both ponds, either with a large trash pump or via the overflow if you have a valve on it. Then kill the remaining water and any wet spots in the pond bottom with either hydrated lime or rotenone.

Unless you want to do a lot of management (i.e. removing fish yearly) don't stock crappie. If you want to turn that other pond into a Channel Catfish pond, you might not have to drain and kill it, but the bullheads in there will be competing with the Channel Cats for food. Bullheads have rounded tails, Channels have deeply forked tails. BH are black or brown on top turning to white or yellow on the bottom. CC are silvery/blue on top usuallywith spots on the smaller ones turning to white on the bottom.

I agree, my eyes suck, and I felt it was a greenie...If both Bullheads and GSF are in the pond, are they subject to being flooded out? If not flooded, the ponds were probably bucket stocked from a local creek.

Arktiger, don't feel to heartbroken if needing to kill and restart, if the ponds are smaller (under an acre), they will be fairly easy and inexpensive to start over on.....

I drained and nuked a half acre pond this past summer in a single day. next day was spent netting out dead fish. The client had a nearby creek and by the next morning, we'd re-stocked it. It IS smelly and muddy work, but not overly difficult.

Yep. GSF

Here are a couple of threads concerning GSF. Some good discussion on the subject.

100% GSF

GSF

Fish n chips discovery and management of GSF

Good luck whatever you decide to do and welcome to the forum

Here are my two ponds. I am leaning towards draining them and liming what is left. The two ponds equal .8 acre. A few questions.

1. My dad has a high pressure water pump. What kind of time are we talking for draining it down?

2. How much lime will I need and how much will that cost?

4. Judging by the look of these ponds how would you stock them. I would like to have them each stocked kind of differently. I am mainly interested in bass, brim and Catfish. I would like crappie but hear they get out of control. The wide pond is 9 to 10 feet. Lots of trees laying on bottom and I have heard a rumor there is even a car. The skinny one is probably 7 feet at its deepest. How would you distribute the fish?

Since I don't have enough information about the pump I will give you information on how to figure out the time to pump.

You gotta figure it on gallons per minute or gallons per hour.

A 1 ac area covered with water is 325,851 gallons (one acre foot). A really rough rule of thumb is take the maximum depth, ÷ that by 2 and multiply that by the surface area to give you acre feet. Multiply that by gallons and you'll get the volume. Find the GPM or GPH of the pump and do the math.

To lime it, you need enough hydrated lime to get a pH of 11+. A cheap pH test kit that allows you to test for high pH will help immensely. Get all the damp spots too, as bullheads will burrow into the mud to survive.

If there's a lot of muck on the bottom of the pond, now would be a good time to get an excavator in there to clean it out. Doing that will save you $$$$ in the future battling weeds and/or filamentous algae.

Then while it's drained, put cover in there for the fish to make it easier to fish the pond, and to help the fish population.

Different areas of the country has different prices for lime, etc. You want hydrated lime or quick lime.

Do you want large bluegill and 2#-3# bass? Do you want a catfish only pond? What about Hybrid striped bass and hybrid bluegills/maybe some redear sunfish in one pond, Hybrid Bluegills and channel cats in the other?

Will you be feeding the fish on a regular basis? (i.e. daily)

Looking at the aerial view, you could build a couple of siphon drains for less money than pump fuel would cost, and once started, no fuel tank refilling or work till they are near empty. I'd probably drain the upper pond into the lower...

How would I drain one pond into the other. Since they are both at the same level wouldn't both ends of the siphon be under water therefore rendering it useless?

Man, I wish I had your ponds and Codys money.

You could rent a pump and pump it over. I did basically that except I pumped it 50' uphill.

If you're serious about developing these ponds into an enjoyable recreational fishing paradise perhaps consider really digging into them before putting any new fish in.

What is the water clarity? You can use a GoPro camera to shoot video underwater if clarity is a couple of feet. This will allow you to see everything that is in your pond, therein you can decide if you want to drain them, remove anything you don't want in your ponds (such as the vehicle, trees, etc.), set fish habitats, fill them, and stock them.

Got the siphon going. Worked like a charm! Thanks for the help. Even had a fish get sucked through. Can you help me identify?

Looks like a stunted BG to me.

So how can you identify a stunted fish vs. a young fish. Sorry, I am pretty clueless on all this.

Artiger,

The fish looks stunted to me mainly due to the eye size appearing over large compared to the size of the body. There may be other clues, in a larger fish, the belly will often appear sunken as well.

CMM

Two things that stand out to me in this photo are the eye, and the dorsal fin. Both are overly large when compared to the general dimension of the fish, which could mean this BG is older than a fish this size might otherwise be assumed.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the eye size. The eyes grow at a constant rate irregardless of the body size. If it matters, it also looks like a female BG to me.

My son finally caught one of the catfish. I'm assuming bullhead? Also, is Mudcat and bullhead the same thing?

Looks like a black bullhead. Lots of folks around here call them mudcats.

Siphons been doing work and has really brought it down. I think I might get it shrunk as low as 1 or 2 feet in a 1/10 acre area. How much Hydrated lime do I need to purchase for fish killing? How should I dispense it? While I've got it drained should I lime the bottom? Do I ise the same hydrated lime?

Broadcast spread the lime well over all wet areas of mud. For the remaining standing water, 400-800 pounds of Hydrated Lime should do the job. You can use a 55 gallon barrel to pour a couple bags of lime in and use a trash pump to both fill, recirculate/mix, and spray back into the pond.

If the H-lime concentration is high enough, your water will turn crystal clear a few hours after applying. Add H-Lime in 200# increments if it doesn't clear after the first try...you can't over apply when trying to sterilize, only under apply.

STRONG CAUTION!!! Use, at minimum a good quality dust mask and goggles. Keep a couple gallons of clean water to rinse your eyes if need. Hydrated Lime is VERY caustic and WILL cause severe chemical burns when on clothing that stays wet and contacts skin.....as the picture below shows after a couple hours spraying...The burns came from where the sleeves of my water proof coat were under my waterproof gloves...Took about a month to heal.

True, but on the plus side, chics dig Hydrated lime burns.

So do I need a different lime to fertile the bottom or will hydrated lime work?

Alright men. Thanks for your help. I got the first pond drained and killed with lime today. Seemed to work great. After seeing the dead fish I did not regret it. Among the dead were small mud cats and brim and a few fat bass that I bucket stocked this summer. I was surprised to find a lot of carp as well. Then there we tons of the ones pictured. They were about 3 or 4 inches long. What are these?

Kind a looks like some kind of Gambusia to me but I am not a pro. I am sure one of them can identify it for ya.

Looks like a shiner to me


Pat

Gams look a little like a guppy

Golden Shiner Notemigonus crysoleucas

I have a question. So I limed the little water that was left and killed the fish this past Saturday. We got a good bit of rain yesterday. I am going to start siphoning water into it from another pond today. How long before a can safely restock. The stocking truck makes it's first visit next Wednesday but I don't want to jump the gun.

here is a good cheap way to do it.
Not sure if someone posted this yet but seems like it would come in handy.

Draining a Pond Manually and Cheaply