Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Green Sunfish Eradication....

My family's 200 acre place has recently been placed in my care. We have a 3 or 4 acre pond that has historically been a decent bass pond. I can remember us catching 3lbs - 6lbs LMBs all the time about 6 or 7 years ago. The biggest I've caught this year, was 2lbs 5oz. But I catch a large mouth perch about every other cast when using smaller lures. I say, "Large-Mouth" perch because I don't have a clue what they are. I can handle them by their mouth just like a bass. And all our bass are skinny. It seems to me these ferocious little perch type fish have taken over completely. I know what a blue gill looks like, they have tiny little mouths, but these I'm catching have huge mouths by comparison. They are green with bright yellow fins. They are fairly pretty fish, but I'm tired of catching nothing but them. The bigger ones are about the size of my hand. Most are smaller. Help! What has taken over???

Thanks,

Jason

My guess would be green sunfish. Their fins are light colored around the edges. I consider them an undesirable species b/c they only get about a 1/4 lb. You may be faced with draining the pond if they are positievely identified as green sunfish. Sorry to deliver the bad news.

I would agree with Greg, it certainly sounds like Green Sunfish to me. If you want some info, do a Google search for Green Sunfish, there are several sites that have pictures posted. However, your description of a "Bluegill" with a big mouth probably seals it. A pond that size would be difficult if not impossible to fish out, so draining is likely to be the best answer. Since the LMB population has been wrecked, I think you can be philosophical about killing everything in the pond and starting over. Great results are possible in 2 years if you follow the advice of the many talented people on this site.
Good Luck
Jim

just out of curosity, why not poison them out instead of draining the pond?

Draining before poison reduces the volume of water in the pond so the rotenone cost is not so expensive.

Whoa!!! Drain the pond????? A. How could I possibly do that. B. I've seen large bass still in the pond. Perhaps I was too low on my surface estimate. The dam is 1/10th of a mile wide, and we have pictures of its construction in 1982, probably 20 or 30ft deep when its full. The dozers and earth-movers looked pretty small at its base.

I can concieve of no way to drain this body of water, short of dynamite, thereby destroying the whole thing. I finally decided it was green perch in the tank, I verified some pictures online. I think I'll have a couple of green perch tournements at the tank and try my luck at thinning them out that way. Man, you guys are scaring me!

Jason

Jason,

ever siphon gas out of a tank? build a siphon out of 8-12 inch pvc and stand back. build a couple out of 4 inch pvc and give it a week. Your 3-4 acre pond will be drained.

it is absolutly necessary to drain the pond before treating with rotentone. A) cuts the cost of rotenone down B)fish will find places to hide from the poison if the pond is not drained.

I have never seen a pond sucessfuly eradicaed of competing species without draining.

If you dont drain the pond and start over you will always have problems with green sunfish. You can improve your situation by harvesting them, you will never get rid of them. So get ready to have your green sunfish tourny every year, from now on.

If it were mine I would not hesitate to start over. with the right pond management techniques you will have more than just a few big bass, much faster than you think.

keep reading

Yep, You can siphon that water out pretty quickly. However, rain in West Texas around Strawn is pretty rare. I believe, unless you have one heckuva watershed, that I would try the green sunfish tournament. However, Greg and Shan are professionals and I wouldn't doubt anything they say about what you are facing. On the other hand, they are from Georgia where it rains. You have a Catch 22 situation.

Dave good point about rainfall. If you do not want to drain, I have luck fighting off green sunfish in ponds where hybrid bream were stocked. The ponds basically had some pure green sunfish in the ponds and we stocked coppernose bluegill in them (maybe some can help with the explantation) but I feel the reproductive success of the bluegill helped the situation and did see any greens after about a year. So consider stocking bluegill and pulling out every green sunfish you catch and release all bluegill back into the pond. This along with prayer may get you out of the situation but it will not be easy.

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and ideas. I didn't mention it, but rainfall was my biggest concern. We've been a little on the dry side for a couple of years now, actually since the warmer weather has started, this is the lowest its been in some time. I could siphon the tank down, then poison it, but then I'd probably have a tad-pole tank for 5 years waiting on rain...

Bluegill stocking sounds like a better alternative to draining, but I don't understand how bluegills will deplete the Green Sunfish population. It seems I'd just be introducting 'another' thing for the greenies to eat! It would give my bass more to munch on, but the greens would get the benefit too, at least on smaller bluegill.

Anyone know where I could buy some 14lb Bass that have been trained to eat green sunfish??

Keep the ideas coming guys, I'm all ears.

Jason

I had an idea the other day about how to control green sunfish and not hurt the other fish (my dad thought it was a bad idea but I thought I could ask anyways).

In the reading I have done it says that green sunfish can survive in water quality too poor for ohther fish BUT they are very sensitive to even slightly brackish watter. So my idea is, would it work to drain the pond half-way and then add enugh salt that wouldn't hurt the bass or bluegills but would kill the greenies or stress them enough to make them an easy meal for the bass?

Like I said it was just a thought but, has anyone had experence with this kind of greenie control or even know if it is possible?

thanks in avance for any feedback
-Scott

What would it do to the pond plants?

In a pond like this with little or no throughput, adding salt will wind up being a "permanent" increase in the salt level. It would be very difficult to clear that up lacking large runoff and overflow.
Jim

I did not consider your rainfall situation either. removing all the green sunfish you catch is a good idea. I assume that since the green sunfish population is high that each fish is relativly small. you may consider crowding the pond with adult largemouth bass. As long as the bass you stock are large enough to eat the sunfish. Let the bass do your work for you, then when sunfish numbers are down, catch some of the bass out and consider stocking large bluegill. As long as your pond is a true 4 acres you should not have much trouble catching out enough bass and it would be more fun than catching small sunfish

I have had good sucess correcting overcrowded crappie populations with this menthod. of course its easy for me to come across a hundred or so bass 14-16 inches in length (shocking boat). Even if you cant get you hands on that many bass, it wont take many adult bass to start the ball rolling. 5 fish per acre will make a significant difference over the course of 2 years.

you may also consider hiring someone with a shocking boat. green sunfish are pretty easy to shock up, you could just keep out all the sunfish caught during the shocking survey.

just some thoughts

An old, long time in the business, fish hatchery owner always tells me that LMB in his experience will eat green sunfish before they will eat bluegill. He says it is a forage fish shape thing where the greens are more slender and easier for the bass to swallow than bgill of similar length. He has often strongly reduced green populations by stocking heavy with larger bass that can eat the most common size of green sunfish.

This old timer deals with green sinfish all the time since he raises green sunfish and sells a lot of them for University Optic research.

PS. TexasHart, will you please go back to your first post above and click on the paper&pencil button on the top left of your question? This will allow you to edit/change the message and the topic's title. Go up to the title and change perch to greensunfish. Perch is too confusing during word or topic searches when the topic here is about gsunfish. Thanks. BC

Bill,

Sorry about that, I grew up calling all types of sunfish "perch".

Jason

Very interesting thread. One of the fish I've read that should be off limits for most ponds due to overpopulating.

Didn't catch how big your pond is....but here is one more idea to kick around. What if you used a feeder or just hand fed the fish in a specific spot at a specific time every day. After a month or so of this when the green sunfish become used to it place a large net on the bottom under the spot you are feeding them from. As they group up to feed net what you can and then sort through the catch, throwing back everything but the greens. Then take a week's break of not netting them but still feeding them to fool more into the next netting.

That, combined with some extensive "catch and pitch" rod fishing (maggots below a bobber would be a good choice) might be enough to put some serious hurt on them. Combine that with the above advice of stocking more gills and/or adding more large bass might help greatly.

Oh, and if you don't care to net them go pick up some H1000 firecrackers and just pitch one into the feeding school every so often. :')

You could also throw in some flathead catfish but then that brings up a bigger problem. :') Reminds me of the one Simpson's episode where they planned to let snakes go in the city to eat some invasive lizzards. "Then how do we get rid of the snakes?" "We release some snake eating apes." "Then what do you do about the apes?" "That's the beauty of it, when winter comes they'll all freeze to death."

Critterhunter good idea this type net is called an umbrella net. We did the samething you are talking about and the pondowner took out over 400 common carp in about a year. This along with shooting them near the spillway and electofishing pretty much got rid of them in his pond. Maybe all the methods mentioned will help you rid of the greens without draining after all.

TexasHart -- Good title change. Thanks

This is an old post but to me is an important topic. Why wouldn't channel catfish correct stunted populations of green sunfish, crappie or bluegills? Cecil, I think you said that channel cats have to be about 2 lbs to really hit these species hard. It seems that 1-2 lb. channel cats are easy and cheap to buy. This sounds easier, cheaper and more fun than draining and killing all of the fish. The big question is, would it work?

Norm - I think LMbass would do a better job of thinning greenies than catfish. Here is why and it ultimately goes back to your old topic of niche behavior & habitat selection (diversity).

Greenies tend to frequent shallow shoreline areas with some type of cover. LMbass also hang out in these areas, thus the two interact and predation will be high on the greenies. Whereas the cafish are deeper water fish and as far as I know do not move into real shallow structure dense areas at night to feed. The greenies at night will probably be resting in cover and protected somewhat from the feeding cats. Cats will be getting fish & critters that are resting more along the edges and periphery and not deeper back in shallow cover. I'm not saying cats won't eat greenies but I think bass will eat more greenies per predator than cats. Also the amount of shore line cover will definately affect cat predation efficiency on greenies.

Thanks Bill. In a lot of places green sunfish are one of the favorite baits for catfish. Large catfish are a whole lot cheaper than large LMB which is why I considered this a option.

Norm and those interested. One would not have to buy real large sized LMbass. You could stock 6" to 8" LMB and they would soon if not right away start eating smaller greenies (1.5-2"). Note the green sunfish is noticably more slender bodied than bgill. Thus bass can and often choose to eat them in preference to bgill because greenies are easier to swallow and provide more "meat". I am sure this is why the "Old Timer" in my Apr 22 post says that bass will thin out greenies before they "work over" the bgill.

Catfish would also thin out greenies just maybe not as quickly and as effectively as LMB.

Grass carp would increase bass predation by thining cover, and would probably be a safer and more effective addition than catfish.

Here's my two-cents.
Had a similar dilemma several years ago. Came across a 3 acre lake directly downstream from a recently closed turkey farm.
Water was rich, deep green bloom. Visibility was 6 inches. Landowner reported massive fish kill two years prior, and since the turkey farm closed, he was interested in revitalizing the lake.
Electrofishing turned up thousands of green sunfish, several size classes.
Best I could tell, 250-300 pounds per acre in that fertile water.
80% of the creatures were smaller than 4 inches.
We decided to stock 10-12" bass, 60 head, and add 500 adult bluegill.
Here's our reasoning. Green sunfish spawn once, yearly. We decided not to kill them, but to stock bass which could eat them.
Next, we managed the bloom with bacteria and algaecide (not at the same time), to try to keep visibility near 24 inches.
The theory was for bass to utilize big numbers of green sunfish, then over time, bluegill would out-reproduce, and eventually outcompete green sunfish.
Then, bass spawn, baby sunfish are eaten, and within a year or two, bluegill become established, green sunfish numbers drop, and bass grow like little green hotcakes.
Subsequent electrofishing surveys proved the theory.
18 months later, bass relative weights were 115%, green sunfish comprised 60% of the forage fish. Bluegill and baby bass were 40%. But, 30 months later, large bass relative weights were 90-110%, intermediate bass Wr was 85-90%, bluegill made up 80% of the food chain, and green sunfish were going the way of the buffalo, so to speak. And, green sunfish left were adults. No babies.
We shifted from catch and release to a slot limit for intermediate bass, and continued.
Landowner sold out, I lost track after that.