Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New Member! Need help with my pond!!

I have a 1-1/2 to 2 acre pond in central michigan. As far as I can tell it's about 12 to 15' deep. Every spring I see fish all around the banks big and small and have no problem catching slab bluegills and crappie. This spring after the hard winter I'm not seeing any fish at all and only catching bullheads wich I didn't even know was in there up intil now. What happened to all my bluegills and bass? Did they kill off this winter? How do I know if they killed off I'm not seeing any dead fish?

Ok so i was a little off on the size just looked at it on google maps and it is closer to 3/4 of an acre. I was way off!!!

It is possible that the dead ones have been eaten by snapping turtles and other cleaner uppers, and for the most part they sunk. A lot of people lost fish this winter. I will let others advise what to do with the bullheads and restocking as I know very little about this. Welcome!

There could be many reasons for not seeing fish yet and like squid suggested, IF a winter kill happened, critters could clean it up pretty quickly if you are not looking at the pond often.

About all you can do is keep angling to see if the fish just aren't biting well for you right now, and are skittish when you are near. Fish get hook/people shy pretty fast when fished a lot.

Does this mean you haven't actually measured it? Just like you found out with the size of the pond, a lot of people "think" their pond is deeper than it is. Mainly because someone else told them a "number" and took their word for it. Get out there and measure different areas. You can do it with a bobber and weight. Just keep making adjustment to the set-up till you get it. Or by boat is easier.

When I was out there last winter ice fishing I did some depth testing and found multiple auger holes at 12-15' deep the one end is not as deep but is still around 6' deep. Looks like it might have been dug by excavator because it's deepest on the north end around the edge as far as they could reach and around the west side. I'm just really baffled because this pond had a lot of nice fish in it and has been established for over ten years!! As far as the bullhead I've been fishinging them all weekend and got about 30 of them from 6"-9" and still not a single BG or LMB.