Hello! I'm Zack, and I live in central Indiana (east of Indianapolis). I recently bought a home on a shared 2 acre pond. I'm a big fisherman, so I'm pretty excited about having the pond, and plan to try to take some steps to ensure it has good fishing opportunities. (Of course, my management actions on the pond will have to be coordinated with the other neighbors who have pond frontage).

Look forward to participating here and gathering a bunch of knowledge. Thanks!

Welcome ZTrain. Hopefully you will find your neighbors on board with the idea of improving the fishery. Is this BOW also used as a retention pond?

Welcome ZT. You have several great pond addicts near you. Ask lots of ?s and get lots of answers. Fill us in a bit with what ya know about the pond and some of your preferences.

Welcome Zackie to the forum. Jump in and let us know more about your pond. Lots of smart folks here

What I know about the pond so far:

Neighbors apparently chip in each year and treat it with copper sulfate, so it has virtually no weeds from what I can see. Water is sort of a brown color. Like tannin stained brown, not muddy brown.

Yes, it is a retention pond, and the water level comes up quite a bit after big rain events.

Doesn't appear to be much fish cover from what I can see. Don't see any logs or other cover that is visible from above water.

It's an older pond. Neighborhood has been around since at least 1991, so it's at least that old. Previous owners of the house have said the pond "turns over" every few years and there is a partial fish kill.

Only fish I have seen/caught so far are small bluegill (2-4") don't look horribly stunted, but don't look "chunky" by any means. But they don't have the oversized eyes I associate with stunted fish. I plan to talk to the neighbors and find out what their experience has been in terms of fishing to get an idea of where it is at.

Haven't been out on the water yet, so I have no idea of the Max depth, or how quickly it drops off from shore.

Would kind of like to plant some sort of emergent plants. Would like to have some water lilies, but want to make sure they don't run wild. Have been reading on the forum about that.

Thanks for the responses! Anything else I should be thinking about/looking into?

Hey Zach!

I grew up East of Indy in Rushville. Looking forward to hearing about your experiences! Always good to hear from folks down home!

Bill D.

ZT,
Welcome to Pond Boss. Lots of good info and helpful folks here. Post some pics of your project when you get time. Would really like to see pics of the place....jump right on in...the waters fine....Ha! Good luck!

I would definitely want to know about depth. You can use a slip bobber rig cast from shore to get a pretty good idea. Retention ponds by their very nature tend to collect runoff from everyone's yards, including pesticides and fertilizers. Maybe that explains the neighbors' use of copper sulfate, in order to combat an algae problem.
By the way, there are better chemical alternatives these days.

In some instances that I am familiar with, neighbors cared far more about aesthetics than fishing, where retention ponds were concerned. Hopefully you will find your new neighbors more open to managing with an eye towards fish, rather than just completely weed free.

I would begin fishing it to get a feel for what's down there, and to establish depth. Here in Indiana, you need to be 8-10' in order to offer protection against winterkill, although aeration will allow you some leeway, provided the neighbors are on board with the idea....might be a tough sell. The fact that the pond has killed in the past needs to be explored, and hopefully remedied. No sense stocking fish if they will perish in a year or two.

To add to sprkplugs comments, copper sulfate shouldn't have any effect on the plants when used by itself. Algae, yes, but not plants.

Bill, I fish the streams out around Rushville sometimes. Some beautiful water out there!

Sparkplug, thanks for the info about the copper sulfate. I was told by previous owner that they used that, but he wasn't the one that organized that, so I need to talk to the other homeowner who handled it. Maybe they are using something else.

Anybody have thoughts about if it is bad to introduce some hardy water lilies in containers?

Pic of the pond:


Pic of my first fish from the pond (largest so far too, which is concerning)

I'm not very educated regarding lilies, but I believe there are some dwarf and/or hybrid varieties that spread slowly and might be suitable.

The bluegill appears skinny, but not as bad as some I have seen. Beautiful pond by the way. I would still try and check/verify the depth, first.

As long as the lilies are in pots, you should not have to worry about spreading. Mine are in the pond bottom because I like them spreading. I have plenty of deep water that stays clear.

Update: the kids fished a little more from the dock Sunday. Caught a couple more small bluegill, and a couple small bullheads. Not getting many warm/fuzzies about the quality of fishing in this pond. I guess I'll have to start reading up about how to handle a pond that seems to have lots of small Bluegill and bullhead and very few (if any) bass. Not sure if just introducing bass would do the trick, or if they wouldn't be large enough to prey on the bluegill/bullheads.

Did you ever use an online planimeter tool or google area mapping tool to map out the current size of your pond in the picture? Knowing current surface area and current depth accurately (using plumb line, roap with foot markings on it, etc and a boat) will help decide how to meet your management goals whether it be amount of chemicals to purchase, which stocking program to use based on average depth, likelihood of winter kill, need for aeration etc.

You might also find when determining depth that the bottom is heavily silted or mucky and you then may want to move your plans over to a plan to drain pond, remove muck, remove all fish or unwanted fish at the time of drawdown of the pond, then start with a fresh bottom, and ability to control the fishery as well.

I did use one of the online tools to calculate the acreage of the pond. It was right about 2 acres.

Haven't had a chance to get out on the water yet to assess depth, bottom makeup, etc. yet. I'm guessing the bottom is pretty much muck. Not sure I will be able to do anything about that though. Since it is a community pond with shared ownership by about 6 homes, organizing something like that would be tough.

You're in a tough spot with a community pond. I would imagine that draining and starting over is probably off the table, and I'm guessing you are probably limited to working with what you currently have. If that be the case, you could try adding some LMB to work on the small gills and bullheads. If it were me, I wouldn't get too carried away with adding fish until I was more confident of their long-term survival, however. Be a shame to lose what you've added due to low O2, and/or poor water quality.

What is your budget or the budget of those who would want to improve the BOW? Would they at least spring for the cost of some aerators? If it is heavily silted/mucked in you want to tackle that first or you will deal with winter kill, I agree with sprkplug on that.

Thanks for the info, guys.

I really don't have much info about budget of the others in terms of pond care taking. I need to speak with the neighbors. Haven't had time to do that yet. Still painting and trying to get stuff moved into the new house from our old/current house down the street.

Of course, the thing I WANT to spend my time on is messing with the pond, but the wife has other priorities.

I have been wondering about the chemical makeup of the water (dissolved oxygen, nitrates, etc.). Is there a water quality testing kit you can buy somewhere to test your water for those types of things? I have done some stream water quality monitoring in the past, so I could do it if I had a kit.

You can get some pretty nice water test kits for aquariums.

My friend's son with one of the bullheads we caught. Looks bigger in the pic than it actually was (obviously).

It looks big enough to him.

The bullhead looks stunted (not enough food). I say that because of it's large head and small body.

A hoop or fyke net that is baited will remove a lot of bullheads in a short amount of time.

If you like to eat fish, one way to add some size to them is to feed them at your place. They will soon learn to come to your place for free food.

The BG that was caught looks like a normal BG from a natural lake that doesn't see supplemental feeding.

Question for Indiana guys, seems like in the past I have seen where they will have a local "stocker fish day" at a co-op or something where you could get fish for stocking. Do you know how to find out when something like that is available? Or is that a bad idea anyway? Looks like I'd have to drive down to Martinsville to get fish from a hatchery otherwise.

Also, anyone familiar with a pond weed control company in Indiana called "Oak Aquatics"?

Be very leery and cautious of traveling stocker fish trucks. You have no recourse if fish die after stocking.

I am in Evansville in Southwest IN. We have "fish days" at local tractor supply or Rural King stores about once a month. Ours is from Andry's fish farm and their schedule is on their website.

A lot of times the store will have fliers out or behind the counter for the next planned date. The schedule varies though - just because they are there the first weekend in May, they may be the third weekend in June.

Check the stores to find out the name of the hatchery, then go to their websites or call them. Fish days are fun, long lines quite often, but the stories and camaraderie in the lines is pretty great.

I've got fish off the Andry's truck, as well as picked them up at Clear Creek Fisheries in Martinsville. Have had good luck with both.

Ok. Thanks for the info, guys!

Update about my pond: Still haven't caught any decent bass. A couple of 6" or under is all that I've caught (or rather the kids have caught while Bluegill fishing.) Haven't fished it a ton, but enough that I would expect to have gotten a few.

My daughter was catching some decent bluegill on a fly rod a couple days ago, so that was encouraging. Before that it was almost all really dinky bluegill.

Pond was getting pretty weedy (I was told it was curly pond weed) but has now been treated and weeds are quickly disappearing and water looks good.

I was told by a neighbor that the pond is only about 6' deep, so that may limit how well the fish can do long term I guess. Did see a nice sized catfish cruise up through the shallows at one point. Probably around 4lbs or so.

Jones from Ohio delivers to our Premier Ag a couple times a year in Greensburg IN. We are about an hour south of Indy.