I have a 5 acre pond in N. E. Fl. Jax area. It was finished in July of last yr. It is approx. 20 ft. deep. It is spring fed by numerous springs. Last Sept we put in 1500 Fl. bream and 500 channel cats. I have not seen the cat fish since. I did see the bream up until it turned cold. The had grown from the size of my thumb nail to approx. 3 inches in length. Now I see no sign of any fish. Nothing will hit fish food or bread thrown in. The pond has plenty of tad poles, bull frogs and little black water bugs. I have put in approx. 4000 minnows. Now I don't see any minnows. I have not seen any dead fish floating or otherwise. I did have some cormorants, until I ran them out. Do you think the birds ate all of the fish? Does anyone have any suggestions. The fishery where I am buying fish tested the water and said it tested good as far as ph and such.
Cormorants can but a dent in freshly stocked forage base, even more so if structure is limted.
Do you know what kind of "minnows" you stocked?
have you stocked any other forage fish such as golden shiners , thredfin shad etc?
5 acres is pretty large and even good numbers of fish can dispearse and seem far and few between. once they start reproducing you should see more numbers of them.
how large were or are the cats, they could be eating or have eaten some of the Copper Nose BlueGill (CNBG) on you too
do you pellet feed? if so are you not seeing them at feeding time?
The cats were fingerlings. They were about the length of my index finger, or 3 inches. Nothing hits the cat fish pellets, or the floating fingerling food, or bread. I know the cats probably went to the deepest parts. I have very little structure in the pond, when I was seeing the bream, they would be under my dock.
one of the experts might chim in but 15OO small CNBG seems a little light for 5 acres. However if you stocked last year around this time you should get a spawn this year. Have you seen any beds?
the cats are probabby big enough to eat this years hatch, perhaps some cedar trees might help out to give them some hading palces.
they do reproduce prettty fast so you should start seeming some small ones in the shallows soon. I know mine have been spawning already.
I am very near you I would be glad to help out if would like any assistance...
I sent you a PM regarding that..
We sank two Christmas trees in there after this past Christmas. There is also a large oak stump that I had the people digging the pond to drop in for me. I have dropped in some concrete blocks and old pvc pipe. I am new to this, just found it yesterday, (site). How do I find the pm you sent?