Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Management of pond

My parents bought property that had a 30 year old pond in the fall of 2013. We pumped it empty and removed a ton of 4 to 5 " bluegills a few 8 to 10" crappie and little bullheads. We let it refill over winter, and added aeration then in the spring of 2014 we stocked the following.

75 Largemouth Bass 3-4”
25 Hybrid Striped Bass 3-4”
175 Bluegill Sunfish 2-4”
75 Hybrid Bluegill 2-4”
75 Redear Sunfish 2-4”
4 Triploid White Amur 8-11"

The bass and bluegill both spawned that spring after stocking. Last fall the HSB were 11 to 12", the LMB 10"' bluegill 5 to 6".
Edit to add photo


My question is.
How should we manage the fish?

How big is the pond, size and depth, and what do you want to get from it? What are the goals?

The way it looks now, you have a high ratio of bass to lepomids. Chances are, neither the HBG or the RES will reproduce enough to fill those hungry bass bellies, so that leaves the bulk of your forage to come from the BG. In my opinion, you may be on the way to having a pond with smaller bass and a few larger bluegills.

Did you let this pond go completely dry for a time before re-stocking?

Yak
Welcome to the forum
The pros will be along shortly, they will want to know some details about your pond such as: what size is it, how deep, do you feed , and what are your plans/ goals for the pond.
Good luck



Pat W

Pond use is just recreational fishing mainly for my nieces and nephews. Pond is a little over a 1/2 acre 10 ft max average depth is 5 to 6 ft. We didn't allow the pond to go dry but did apply hydrated lime to kill off the stragglers.

We do plan on adding fhm and gsh this spring for forage, along with some blue tilapia to help with the FA.

I think you're definitely short on forage if you want any larger bass, but adding forage after the fact doesn't usually provide the results hoped for.

It's like throwing the parachute out of the plane, and hoping it catches up with the absentminded skydiver in time for he or she to put it on and deploy.....problematic.

Ponds, especially smaller ponds, can be a handful when trying to achieve "balance" in the traditional sense. Not much neutral room, as it typically favors one gear or the other. I think supplemental feeding would help, but it's easy to suffer water quality and/or vegetation issues when you do.

For a small pond to provide sustained excitement for the family, I might consider a put and take operation (put, grow, and take?)

Your stocking plan appears to be from fish farm suggestions. I would remove about one half of the LMbass (20-30) if they are not pellet trained. If you are not feeding pellets then remove some of the HSB maybe 10-12. As sprkplug mentioned you are predator heavy IMO for a 0.5 ac pond. Your LMB evidently spawned thus they will repopulate their numbers of those removed. Removal of some of the predators will allow the BG to build up some density to adequately feed the bass to allow them to grow more normally (1"/yr in OH when they get to 15"). If the panfish ever become what appears too numerous then just add a few bass (6"-8").

Keep us updated.

Thanks, the stocking is what the local fish farm suggested. We did feed some last year and the HSB would feed, but it was only a couple times a week, when we were at the pond.

Your stocking plan sounds like some fish farm stocking plans. Overabundant predators so you will likely come back often to buy more forage fish. Note that high numbers of predators can be beneficial for producing large bluegill which is what some prefer. Decide on a goal and then we can help you manage toward that goal. My suggestion of removing some predators was to achieve general fishing with mixed sizes and a few larger bass of 2-3 lbs. Pellet feeding twice a week is helpful to provide the fish a slight growth bump.

Yak, if you agree with the experts and figure you are bass heavy then one management option would be to keep every LMB you catch and release every BG caught.

Yak, I'm far from being any kind of expert, but if you feel you are bass heavy it is very important to take out even the dinky LMB! It's hard to keep the little guys, I know, but they eat like crazy and quickly get to the point where they spawn like crazy, too, which you really don't want.

Just my two cents. I lived many years near Dayton and have good memories of Ohio, except for winter!

If it's a pond geared towards kids fishing, an overpopulation of largemouth isn't the worst thing to happen.

I agree with Omaha, really depends on what your doing. If it's mainly for the kids 12 inch bass are a blast with the right equipment! If you wanted some bigger stuff then time to try and fix a few things.

I think you stocking would have been fine if you would have waited on the LMB and HSB till the next spring or that coming fall?

I have a 1 acre pond only and here is what I stocked.

June of 2009
250 CNBG 4 to 5 inch.
75 RES 4 to 5 inch.
7 grass carp 10 inch.

I had a few stunted bass in pond.. Got rid of them best I could.
Then only put in 14 LMB about 10 to 12 inches following spring. 2010.
Then the next spring I messed up kinda and put in 22 HSB.

I say I messed up cause I think some of those got ate by my LMB as they were a bit small! I catch a few not and again but I think I lost about half of them.

Here are my results so far. I now have 9 to 11 inch CNBG. I have LMB from 13 inches to 18 inches so far. I think I may have a few bigger than that. I had one follow by BG to shore and tried to hammer is on the end of my line and it was BIG!! He just missed it! My RES if I catch 1 are anywhere from 4 inch to 10 inch. And my HSB if I can get one on the line are pushing 18 inches.

So not bad but not great either! I am happy with the results and that's what counts!!

Good Luck man and nice looking place!!

RC

Yes the members are right - fish management depends on your goals. Figure out want you want to do them manage in that direction.

Yak, depending on your eventual goals, I would suggest adding about 300-500 adult BG in the 6" size range. I would suggest adding 25-50 pounds of Fathead minnows, ONLY to distract young bass from munching on as many BG offspring to help build your main forage base. 10-25 pounds of Golden Shiners would be a good forage fish for your HSB and LMB, if there is enough vegetation to let them establish. You may want to try removing some of the Grass Carp also...are the stripping nearly all vegetation except FA? Since the pond was drained and sterilized, was there anything even there for the Grass Carp to eat???

I would like to get some bigger bass in there. So I will plan on removing 10 or 12 of the HSB, and 25 or 30 of the LMB.
For the GC there is a good bit of American pond weed and some sort of grass that came up last summer. The FA is thick but the pond has not had anything done in the past, muck in the bottom is about 2 ft thick. Was thinking of adding about 20 lbs of blue tilapia to help control the FA.

Tilapia will help a lot to reduce the FA plus they will provide bass good food especially when the water gets cold and all small tilapia are swimming erratically and struggling to stay alive. Bass can get fat in the late fall.