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Hi to all. My name is Fred Warren and I live in NW Ohio (Ottawa). This has been my go-to-site to gain knowledge on my new pond that was built 18 months ago. Great site and people. The pond is one acre with an average depth of 8' and I stocked it a year ago with 500 redear and 100 LMB. I will have many questions about algae, maintenance, fish etc and will ask away when time permits.

Welcome to the forum!

What are your goals for the pond?

My dreams for the pond are swimming, boating and fishing in absolutely pristine water with my grandchildren. Fish of record size within a year. Refreshingly cool but comfortable swimming water temperature year-round. Small amounts of string algae to appear for just those moments that you want to explain the wonders of life to the young ones, and for it to then disappear without raking or chemicals or bacteria additives. The leaves from my one large tree to shed it's leaves swiftly in the fall with a strong east wind so that not a single leaf enters the pond. I'd also like to have a unicorn/pegasus fly me a cold beer out to my boat when the cooler is empty.

My actual goals are slightly less than described above. Thanks for the welcome, esshup, and any advice to achieve any of this would be greatly appreciated!

Now them thar' are first-rate goals!!

I'd say that beer-serving unicorn/pegasus is a pretty realistic goal. The rest I'm not so sure about.

I'm curious why just redear and largemouth. You will probably need to add some additional forage fish, like bluegill, to keep the bass growing and to keep the redear from being completely wiped out by the bass.

One of very best and smartest pond people anywhere, is less than a 30 minute drive north of you. It is Bill Cody, in Malinta, OH. If it were up to me, I'd twist Bill's arm and make him be your lunch or dinner guest one day. Go to a place where the service is really slow, and you'll learn more from him than you ever thought possible. He is truly a walking encyclopedia of ponds and water, plus he is just a plain great guy.

Please feel free to ask all the questions you can think of here on the site. Not only will it help you, it always benefits many others also.

Welcome to Pond Boss,
Ken

Hi Ken and thanks. The reason for the redear and no bluegill was a compromise with family members who envisioned swimming with bluegills attached to every protrusion on their body. I was told that redear are not nearly as aggressive. I am open to suggestions on timing, size and quantity of bluegill to introduce into the pond. I'll work on my "how in the heck did THEY get in here"! reaction when said attachment occurs.

I would really like to meet Bill if and when he would have the time.

Fred,

It is mostly green sunfish and hybrid bluegill that will attack swimmers.

We swim in our main pond regularly. It has largemouth, bluegill, redear, channel cats, and a few crappie (crappie were in the pond when we bought it eight years ago -- and are not recommended). The grandkids and I have never been attacked by the things living in our pond.

Regards,
Ken

I'd rather get bit by a BG than RES, RES jaws are made for crushing shells, not good when attached to a nipple lol.. Anyways BG will nip but It doesn't seem to bother my kids who swim constantly only complaint I got from them was one of them decided to jump into a boil of BG feeding on pellets to "catch" one they caught one alright bloody fin holes teach kids lessons real quick..

It's not the RES jaws, it's their pharyngeal teeth at the back of their throat that crush the snail shells.

Welcome FredW !

At your location and at 1 yr now is the time to add BG if you want them. If not you need more forage than just RES for LMB. Are the LMB feed trained ?

esshup we have a pic of a RES that bit off part of Bruce's finger with those jaws !

Are the mechanics in the jaws?

Bolt cutters work really well if you can choke em up good.

Don't know what BGK is doing with the nipple biters tho.

I do not feed the fishes. The owner at Fin Farm in Ridgeville Corners, where I purchased the stock, commented that it would not be necessary since we filled the pond with water from a nearby ditch when the water was high and flowing rapidly. We placed a fine screen over the discharge pipe to help filter out or destroy unwanted eggs and such but he said that this water would contain enough nutrients to establish the stocked fish. Frogs and tadpoles are very abundant and I have come across turtles and crayfish on occasion. Since the original stocking has been 15 months ago, what numbers and size of BG would be appropriate? Should I consider supplementing feed for the LMB? The LMB have grown to 5"-6" as is.

I searched, and the particular thread that had that picture is missing the pic. I believe it was on page 3 of that thread.

It's amazing how many pictures pop up when you google search "Redear PondBoss" .

Do you mean this photo that was not in any way photoshopped or retouched by JHAP?

That's the one!

I keep a top secret archive of pond boss related photos that are either amusing or have a potential to be used in an illicit black mail scheme.

That explains the BCNCP

Well, that's ONE explanation for it.

With only redear as stocked forage I would guess that any redear that reached a decent size is one that avoided predation early on. Changes are that all newly hatched redear will be fast food for LMB.