Whew! Guess I did not realize the amount of work this new pond was going to require to get it established like I want it before the nasties can take over. Only 11 months old now, my 1.75 acre pond is already infected with cattails, coontail, water primrose, green sunfish, bullheads, and beavers! Life has a way I guess.

The fish probably came from the two little ponds above mine on the neighbors. I offered to kill out their ponds last summer but they graciously declined. I have built two cloverleaf traps from 1/4” mesh so I could monitor the fish hatches (stocked with BG, RES, and FHM). Numerous pulls of the traps off the dock show the GSF. Not too worried about them. The BH were only found in one single trap pull, BUT there were probably 200 2” BH YOY in the trap. Ugh. The neighbors also claim they have white crappie so I may have them too. Two more cloverleafs for small fish are in the works, and will build a couple for larger fish.

I will probably stock my LMB and a few HSB the first of September a bit heavier than planned. The water is alive with 1" FHM now.

you're LMB and HSB will annihilate those bh yoy this fall. I bet they were still balled up when they entered the trap - that's awesome!

Are you going to keep the GSF in the pond? Have you thought about feed training them?

Interestingly, I could hold ~6 BH in my palm and immediately those needle sharp spines would start burning into me as they flopped about. Perhaps a 4" bass would rather eat FHM. Hope I can catch more balled up schools if there are any.

I prefer old school native BG so I won't be promoting GSF. As of now I don't plan to feed fish, nor aerate.

You've had a lot better luck at catching BH in your cloverleaf than I have. I can't catch any. I know they're there, I see two or three 6 inchers when I feed, but as of yet, havent seen any YOY. I guess my 3 LMB, GSF, and WMS are keeping them in check. I wish you luck trying to get the GSF out. I gave up. But I've got some niceuns swimming around. They feed trained easier than the BG.