Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations First Electroshocking

Greg Grimes and his associate, Matt, electroshocked my 3 ponds yesterday and it was an informative experience. First of all, let me say Greg is very personable, patient, professional, knowledgeable and overall fun to be around. He inspired confidence in me which is something I was looking for.

Quick background on the main pond: in November of 2009, we drained, dredged, rotenoned (twice for good measure), limed and stocked forage into a 50+ year old, 8-9 acre pond. We created peninsulas, an island, ridges and Ray-Scott-style pickle bucket hardwood clusters in 5' of water. The forage base was selected largely by the great ideas and contributions of the Pond Boss community - 10K+ CNBG/RES, 10K+ FHM, 4K GS. In June of 2010 we stocked 275 "Tiger Bass" at 2" apiece. I tried to get threadfins in 2010 and again in 2011 but nobody could produce them for me. I'm getting a load delivered on Tuesday, though.

Fast forward: Yesterday Greg confirmed what I already knew, my original load of CNBG/RES also included a very large percentage of HBG, a species I DID NOT want. Also, along the rip rap on my levee we even found several 3-5" pure GSF. I had never had GSF in my ponds prior to draining/rotenone. I can't tell you how devastating it is after methodically following a prescription for success, spending 6-figures renovating a lake and patiently waiting for good results only to find out you have a huge chink in your armor due to factors outside your control. Lesson learned - TRUST should not be ascribed lightly to people in the fish hatchery business. To be clear, Greg Grimes had NOTHING to do with my fish order, and regular poster here Rex (Rainman) had nothing to do with it either.

I had expected to find some bass pushing 3-4 pounds but nearly all my stocker bass were cookie cutter 1.5 - 2 pounders 13.5" - 14" in length @ 90% optimal weight. How could this be? Two main factors - one, the HBG are mowing down the bluegill spawn before the fish achieve meaningful size for the bass. Another cause is I need more "dense cover" to protect small fish until they can put some weight on. I have had 4 Texas Hunter feeders slinging nothing but generous amounts of AquaMax since day one.

We also discovered the lake is already starting to tilt bass-heavy. We removed quite a few fish, primarily the most underweight bass (85%-90% optimal weight) and any smaller ones resulting from successful spawns since stocking.

Greg will be providing me with a detailed report of his findings soon. I am happy to have someone I trust help me develop a plan to correct course and get back on track to produce trophy bass.

Bodock,

Sorry to hear your LMB weren't where you wanted them. If you wouldn't mind I would like to hear more about the findings when you get them as I have lots of HBG. Maybe I need to change my plan also.? I think your lake offers us yet another thing to learn about growing LMB.

Greg does a great job, and also knows how to get LMB up to size quickly.

I am surprised the HBG didn't help control some of the LMB fry from becoming larger stunted bass. Hopefully you can get things turned out. I am sure Greg will lead you down the right path...

I'm committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve my goals, however, preferably not a reapplication of rotenone and starting over. For every 7"-9" CNBG we caught there was a 7"-9" HBG caught, too. I suppose we will start removing HBG with extreme prejudice and by adding brood cover we hope the CNBG get a jump. If those 14" bass can get to 16"+ this summer then they ought to be able to handle those HBG.

Bodock...REALLY sorry to hear you got unwanted fish delivered. Avoiding such a devastating thing as this is the exact reason I source all fish I deliver except my tilapia the way I do.

Any pictures from the survey?

There should be a change in the fishery in a couple more years when those HBG begin to die of old age.

Brian do you have hybrid stipers in your lake?

Zep. I PMes you so as to not hijack the thread

The more and more I read posts here, and from one observation of my own, I'm poistive the green sunfish are coming in with the fatheads. I may have to put a few pounds of fatheads into my smallmouth brood pond if they don't go back on the pellets. I can assure you I will be sorting through them for green sunfish.

I never considered th GSF being in the fatheads! I didn't look at them that close, but makes sense.

In FHM I have bought I have found the following species: FHM, GSH, BG, GSF, brown bullhead, black bullhead, CC, LMB, black crappie, white crappie, goldfish, common carp, 9 spine stickleback, 3 spine stickleback, mosquiitofish(gambusia), central mudminnow and black stripe topminnow. And people think herons and ducks are transferring fish to their ponds... Nope, your fathead purchase did!

I've bought fatheads from 4 different places, all had contamination, some worse than others.

Sorry about not including any photo or video! Here's a few:

Cull Cooler


Greg measuring fish
[img]http://i1006.photobucket.com/albums/af183/Bodock1/iPhone/2aabb839.mp4[/img]

Greg and caretaker netting
[img]http://i1006.photobucket.com/albums/af183/Bodock1/iPhone/2c82b3ec.mp4[/img]

I can't believe the lack of integrity in my fish order. It's one thing to have some GSF with your fathead order, but thousands of HBG competing with your bass is tough to deal with.

I wonder if they all ultimately came from the same places down south that supply much of the baitfish industry in the north?

Ironically I've been told by some reliable sources the big southern bait producers pushed for the VHS testing so they could corner the market from the wild caught bait fish that come from the Great Lakes states. It worked as the wild caught baitfish industry has all but collapsed due to the expense of the VHS testing. I'm ashamed to say the National Aquaculture Association suckered right into it by passing on that "something had to be done." Oh yeah it sure did! You can say this is all speculation but a spokesman for NAA has told me they regret it now.

Wow I'd be pi$$3d too.. 6 figures on a renovation.. I'm sure Greg can get you lined out..

Not totally sure where the original source of the FHM was. Based on the species mixed in I would guess some had to come from up north and some came from down south. Thinking back I've probably hand sorted around 30 pounds of FHM all together. It's not just FHM that have been contaminated either. When my father's friend got CC, they were contaminated with brown bullheads. Fortunately I was there when the stocking was done and was able to immediately pick them out. When I bought them myself I have found them contaminated with bullheads. I know of several others who have had contaminated fish. Especially here in the Mid Atlantic, it's really hard to find a quality fish source. FedEx overnight is a great option but it's awful expensive and impossible for larger fish.

Most of these cases are what I believe are accidental contamination. How ever some are definitely intentional like Bodock's case...

Thanks Jay for compliments. While maybe not as much fun I think we earned our money more than if we just showed up and said yes you got bass to 3-4 lbs in less than two years. I hated to see look on Jays face however. Only bad thing in our line of work; for new clients it is giving them bad news 9 out of 10 times. Think about it if desired fish are growing well we are probably not getting a phone for help.
Good news it is only two years in on the bass. Most ponds are in worse shape as well as having 12-14 inch bass that are 3-6 years old, so it can be fixed. Jay’s passion for doing it right will have it corrected in no time. Heck shad coming tomorrow and already lined up the lime truck and began adding more dense cover.
The other cool thing he has two more ponds and one will be a great HSB fishery soon. He is constructing a retention basin and that will also allow him to grow some of his own forage one technique I love for clients that have the land to do it.
We shock a lot of lakes and see a lot of different stocking, management etc. I have never seen this effort result in such poor bass growth. Just this spring already shocked 58 lakes and we see poor bass growth all the time. In this case it showcases the magnitude of the problem with HBG and greenies. He has as slight turbidity issue but we see that much worse with better growth. He had a slight lack of dense cover but better than 80% of our clients. The stocking plan was solid high forage and low bass. In my opinion green sunfish competition for food lack of reproduction has to be the problem. Fish stocker used is a reputable company. If 100% not 90% confident it was them we would publish the name. It seems all fingers point to them.
Nate has another post about shady fish folks. We haul all our own fish for this reason. Only on a few occasions have we seen other fish mixed in and we don’t use those hatcheries anymore. NEVER have I seen anything beside FHM when we buy FHM. To me this all means you have to trust your fish stocker with the utmost confidence. Who knows if they are giving you what you wanted and the numbers you paid for??? In this case Jay used a good company so what’s a guy to do. Problem is too many folks still don’t know about pondboss and buy from those who may continue to hurt reputation of the industry.
I’m sure Jay will keep you updated on progress. We will submit a big PPT report but we are about 30 behind since on the road so much this time of the year.

I've tortured myself trying to come up with any explanation other than the hatchery I used being at fault. Could two heavy doses of rotenone not have killed all the fish? It's possible, however I didn't see one single fish after the second application. The first application was very effective, with buzzards so full they couldn't fly without puking first. Additionally, I didn't have GSF or HBG prior to the renovation. In fact, when Greg came last week and shocked the other two ponds we didn't find a single GSF or HBG in them, either. The HBG were stockers because I've been watching them grow right along side the CNBG and RES. Also, I contacted the hatchery within a few months after the stocking after I noticed what appeared to be problem fish (of course abject denial is all I got). Let the buyer beware - Caveat Emptor.

Only other source big flood brought them in form source you normally would not have?? Only other thing I could think of Jay.

I've studied topo maps of my property and the property around it, and I am 100% certain I own the entire watershed feeding my ponds and there are no bodies of water upstream that hold fish.

Bodock,

Good news is GSF and HBG can be caught pretty easy. They are very aggressive and will bite when you toss a bare hook in. In my pond I can fish for a good hour before I catch a BG, and by that time I have 60 GSF/HBG in the Cull cooler.

Bodock, your videos are very nice. Your renovation looks great! After you get the fish in line, your place will be Heaven on a stick! or pole, or rod!

Thanks, Brian. I guess it's time to stop treating the pond like an aquarium. We need to get to work fishing and removing fish. The thought of having to fillet and eat HBG and GSF does not make me overly excited, though. Maybe I can turn them into fish meal and formulate some sort of fish feed!