Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Pond/ Bluegill Problem

Hey, guys. I just joined this site because it looks very good and the people seemed to know that they were talking about. My problem is, I have a pond under an acre long. It's been there awhile, maybe 5 years MAX. The pond is never fished and its around 5-7ft deep. I fished there the other day and i found there is a overwhelming amount of Bluegill.(Bluegill) Now im guessing these fish were very hungry because they were attacking my 3/8oz spoon that I was fishing with (for Bass). The spoon was even bigger than some of the bluegill attacking it, some Bluegill were even caught multiple times (2-3). Every time I would throw a cast, I would have SEVERAL hits on my spoon. I never seen or caught Bass or Catfish. I wanted to stock it with some Largemouth Bass and maybe some Catfish. I also want to decrease the amount of Bluegill. There is a lot of tall grass around the pond but It's not in the pond. On one side there is some vegetation in the water. I was wondering what I would have to do to stock the pond with Catfish and Bass. I'm going to artificially stock it, meaning I catch them elsewhere and then throw them in my pond. Could someone please help me out and tell me what I should do.

Welcome to the forum! How big were the BG (Bluegills)? LMB (Largemouth Bass) like to eat prey that is 1/3 to 1/4 their body length, so that should be a guide to what size LMB to stock.

Check the Body of Water (BOW) that you get the fish from. Make sure there aren't any invasive species of plants or animals in it, or you could transfer them to the pond. Trust me, that's NOT something you want to do!

Now comes the question of whether you can catch enough LMB the correct size to transfer. If teh BG population is out of control, you'll need to transfer between 50 adn 100 LMB of teh correct size.

The other question is why is the population skewed to small BG? Has the pond had a winterkill and all the LMB died off? Have the LMB been fished out? If any of those are a possibility, what's to prevent that from happening again?

Thanks buddy. I'm new to all this pond stuff. I didn't dig it or anything. The BG were relatively VERY small. There were a couple of decent size BG. I have no clue where the LMB are, they might be in there but I'm pretty sure their not. Also, the pond is in the woods of my house so for awhile I never knew it was there. So I do not know much about this pond. Sorry.

Bucket or stringer stocking, assuming that you don't introduce diseases, can create a decent one acre fishery for a couple of years. Then the LMB spawn and overspawn and you have a bunch of stunted bass after they clean out the BG.

Bass that are hatchery raised and stocked as 6 inch juveniles seem to do best and larger fish from other sources don't seem to do very well. I don't know why.

Are you pretty sure of the size? One acre is just a little larger than a football field and hard to overlook.

To make an outstanding one acre fishery I would consider Hybrid Stripers. They will knock back the BG, grow large and quickly, plus provide some tackle busting fishing.

However, no matter what you do, it will be an improvement over what you have now. If funds are limited go for the bucket stocking but understand the trade offs.

I suspect that the BG are really green sunfish GSF. Whatever you do don't use fingerling LMB. They will not survive the competition very well - a waste of money. Stock LMB that are a least 2.5-3 times longer then the smaller sunfish.

Good point Bill.

I plan on just catching them and throwing them in my pond. I have a private lake about 1 minute from my house, so will I need a aerator? Or how should I transport them? The bass I usually catch there are around 8-13in. So I wouldn't think they would have a problem. I really don't want to stock it with anything, because the pond is like 1 mile back in the woods, you must endure a rough terrain to even get to it. I take a Polaris Ranger to get back there. Also I misjudged the size, It's maybe 1/3-1/4 acre. There is also no aeration, It's all natural. What would I need to do to establish a proper food chain and keep the LMG and BG raratively big.

You want to be careful if they are really GSF. They will compete with the LMB for food as they are another predator. GSF have a much larger mouth than BG.

catch a few and post a pic. They will clarrify the fish type.

You could rotanal the pond and start over. With it being so far back, you would not have many tresspassors and a great possiblility for a good dam.

Is this in any sort of a flood plane or have drainages above or below it??