Pond Boss
Posted By: DavidBailey Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 02:29 AM
Hello fellow pond lovers. New pond owner here. I live in Northern Wyoming and both of my ponds are packed full of thousands of little sunfish sized from 1 inch to about 6 inches. There are literally everywhere. So thick they bite a bare hook and even swimmer’s toes...ouch no joke. Needing help with control. Curious of what predatory fish might do a number on them. Some local ponds here do well with stocked trout. Bass ponds in the area do well too. My depth is 15’ in both. Some small areas of cattails. One pond is about the size of a football field. The other is smaller...maybe two basketball courts. I have a small inflow from irrigation rights and pump a little out for watering landscape and garden. Only other species of fish I’ve seen are some little black catfish... possibly bullhead???? Have a few cool turtles, frogs and a family of muskrats I plan to take care of when season opens. Please help with fish suggestions. I was swimming with my little boys today and the buggers kept biting me.
Posted By: DavidBailey Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 03:07 AM
Oh. Forgot to say I have a big windmill for water aeration.
Posted By: 4CornersPuddle Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 04:18 AM
Welcome to the forum David.
What part of northern Wild Wonderful Wyoming is home? I lived for quite a few years in the north end of Jackson Hole; I return to the Big Piney and the Buffalo areas each fall for fishing and hunting trips.
Our ponds may share some water temp characteristics. They're possibly both considered cool water ponds.
Our experts here on the forum may offer up some ideas for you soon. I've got trout and bass eating my sunfishes.
Posted By: 4CornersPuddle Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 04:27 AM
Welcome to the forum David. I lived in the north end of Jackson Hole for 13 years; I return to the Big Piney area and to Buffalo each fall for fishing and hunting.
What sunfish species do you have? If you're unsure, post some pics. It seems that your ponds would be called cool water ponds. Mine, as a cool water pond, is suitable for both bass LMB and rainbows
Posted By: 4CornersPuddle Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 04:29 AM
Excuse the nearly double posts. My computer tonight is hiding posts as I'm writing them, then popping them back up for posting later.
Bizarre.
Posted By: DavidBailey Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 12:17 PM
I live in Sheridan. Cool water pond sounds right. Frigid cold winters with ice on from late November-March. Summer air temps average high 80’s.
Posted By: Mike Whatley Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 01:28 PM
I've no experience with trout, other than catching and eating them, but if your water temps stay cool enough for them to thrive, they'd definitely put a dent in your smaller fish. Their mouth gape wouldn't do much for reducing the larger ones tho, so you might want to consider LMB as well. They'll eat anything up to about 1/3 of their length (12" LMB = 4" sunfish consumption). Then if you want to keep your largest sunfish, remove any LMB larger than say 15" that you catch. You could have a very nice mix of all of them if monitored and managed. With that many sunfish, your predators are gonna grow FAST!!
Posted By: Mike Whatley Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 08:32 PM
Another thought I failed to mention earlier....you can build a couple of cloverleaf traps for around $50 (plenty of info on YouTube on how to do it) and set them every time you're on the pond. Baiting with dog food, either canned with holes punched in it or dry in a stocking, I use a plastic jar and punch it full of holes. Sunfish will pretty readily go in them. You can keep what you want and feed the coons with the rest. It's a pretty quick way to reduce numbers. If you have the population you indicated, running them every 30 minutes or so would yield several hundred in a day easily.
Posted By: Shorty Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 09:25 PM
Now is the time to be monitoring temps to see if trout will survive in your pond during the summer. Water temps over 70 degrees won't work for trout.
Posted By: NEDOC Re: Sunfish explosion...Help - 07/15/18 10:04 PM
I’m partial to stocking a few tiger Muskie smile
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