Yesterday I went over to check on my pond. We have had about 6 inches of rain in the last week and I wanted to see where the water level was and to get my feet muddy. It's been a few weeks since I had any time to enjoy the land.

The water level was about a foot above normal as expected but when I looked into the water just below the dock my heart stopped! There was a large school of Bream/Sunfish in the sandy shallows. Immediately I was afraid that all of the rainwater had caused an oxygenation problem and that my poor fish were suffocating and had moved to shallower water to breathe. After observing them for a few minutes I realized that they were spawning! It was like watching a ballet. The fish moved one by one into a sandy depression and gently floated to the bottom. Once there they swished and swayed slowly until their undersides made contact with the sand and then they used their fins to softly stir up the sand beneath them and to maintain their position. After a few moments they moved on and the next fish came in to repeat the exact same movements. All of the fish waited patiently a few feet away as if they were just as awed by the power of nature that I was experiencing watching them. It was mesmerizing and I could have watched them all day.

A few of the fish had some sort of white masses on the ends of their noses. Could these be eggs? Or a disease? I took some photos. Hopefully someone can figure it out. Also, the fish were brilliantly colored. I have never seen a Bream with this coloring in all my years in Alabama. Can you please also supply an ID on the fish. While there I also saw half a dozen 8-10 inch LMB and some smaller fish of the same species that were spawning. The spawning fish were about 7-9 inches each, roughly about the size of my hand. There were also tons of tiny minnows darting everywhere.

Thanks and here come the pics.

First the Head Cheese...







Now for a Fish ID Please!











Thanks everyone for the help.

Anna

Those are regular-strain bluegill, as far as I can tell with them being in the water. I only saw the fungus on one fish; I'm guessing it was a fungus. Is the pond fished somewhat regularly? The fungus looked like it was close to his upper lip, which if it is, it could have been caused by a fishhook wound. Just my two cents.

All the fish look like boys that I can tell. Let's see what some of the real fish squeezers say.
When is the dam going to be broken?

Really nice pics. The ones closest to the camera all appear to be Male, definitely BG (I don't see any coppernoses).

Probably all males staking out the nests, waiting for the ladies to arrive. Once the females are ready the ballet gets more, shall we say, intimate.

Hopefully in the next week or so. I can't believe those are all boys! They were so pretty. What do the girls look like? Do you think I will lose them all when we breach the dam? There is a deep channel on the dam side of the pond that we had hoped to leave without draining since we will be working on the opposite side of the pond. Anything I can do to help their chances of making it?

They look healthy to me and properly sized. Do you see any obvious problems? With the LMB and the smaller ones, it seems like I have a healthy ecosystem working.

I'm going to trim trees all day tomorrow. If they start stirring up some "action" I'll get some more pics!

Look a little on the thin side to me. Do you feed your fish?

We just bought this land and pond a few months ago. We are planning a full renovation of the pond so we have not been feeding the fish. Unfortunately I am afraid we will lose most of them during the reno.

I can't stand the thought of them being hungry. Should I feed them?

Now that is one dedicated pondmeister!