Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations blue moss and a lucky bass

this site is great!! but some of you guys are kind of kooky. iv been watching here a while and never thought i'd fit in, but i'll try with this posting becuase i really want to share some things that recently happened.

in one pond there was some big bass. i dont see them any more. a couple days ago this blue moss stuff was floating around. is it bad and did it kill the fish? when you poke it it breaks up into little pieces real easy. we havent had much water and everything is real low. here are some pictures i got of it...












i used to catch like 30 to 40 fish an hour, now almost nothing. i saw flocks of little baby bass maybe 2 to 3" long swimming around the regular weeds and after about an hour and downsizing my baits i managed one real healthy looking bass at about 10" is it a woman bass? i hope so. i think shes been eating the baby bass. i put her in another pond thats full of frogs and blugill so she can have alot of good stuff to eat.





i also got weird frogs w. tails.....what does this mean?


thanks for your help.

WELCOME

Just some are kooky?.........stick around the count will climb!

Anyway it looks like a case of platypus moss in pic #2...

The only thing I will venture a guess on is the tailed frog .... it appears to be just a young tadpole becoming a frog ....... tail will be gone shortly.

Howdy and welcome, Mortimer.

If that is all the thicker the algae gets, I personally douibt it has caused a problem.

Do you have any fish in the pond besides LMB? I don't know if anyone can sex a small LMB without a good picture of the uro-genital area. Myself, I know it's a female if it's full of eggs prespawn.

Thanks a heap for taking the easy one and getting it right, BarO.

Kooky?? Us?? We all fit pretty well under our own bell curve, and you are more than welcome to join us under the bell.

Although you and I are on opposite coasts, my guess is that your fish are a lot like mine. My bass and bluegill take a vacation for most of the month of August and early September. I don't know where they go, but especially the big ones completely disappear. My catfish aren't a whole lot better, except that they come up to feed, so I know they are still in the pond.

I certainly agree with Theo about your algae. I seriously doubt it is causing any problems. Unless you get large dense mats of that stuff, I wouldn't worry about it. From the photos, your water quality looks pretty darn good.

As for the frogs/toads -- yes, that is just a tadpole (polliwog) that hasn't yet made the full transformation into a frog/toad. Certain toads and frogs can take up to three years to make the full transformation. I don't recognize the critter in the picture -- probably a West Coast variety. Looking at its skin, and because it is out of the water, I'm assuming it is some kind of toad. In any case, the tail is nothing to be concerned about.

Keep us posted, and keep coming back.

Ken

Welcome aboard.
I cant believe you called some of us kooky in you first post.I was going to idetify the frog as a westcoast mutant bullfrog that has mutaed due to high chemical exposure and and and exhaust fumes from the GSA deathstar global spaceship but now Im not going to.

thanks for the feedback, but no apologies offered for the kooky remark.......some of you guys are just plain goofy and the ones i'm thinkin about havent shown up here yet

i put this thread here because of missing fish and needing to evaluate what happened to them. i believe this a serious problem because that kind of moss has never been in the pond before. there was alot more at one point and now thats all thats left, it breaks up easily. it looks like stuff you'd see in a sewage pond.

you could always see large fish from shore, they didnt take a vacation like our legislature, no matter the month they were hard working obliging fish that are no longer there.

Hi Mort, welcome to Pond Boss. We're glad you found us.



There is absolutely no evidence that the GSA had anything to do with an unfortunate event involving the release of radiation and the spilling of toxic chemicals as far as you know.

Welcome to PB. Here is a link to the algae. I don't think that is a problem that would cause the LMB to disappear. It reflects a nutrient rich pond.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92633#Post92633 archives on Filamentous Algae (FA) identification and control

If you have seen yoy LMB then you have adult LMB. The pic you posted looks like a healthy LMB. Can you give us some info on the situation - like a time line and description of events from stocking to now ?

Food for thought,is it possible you have a poacher problem,the ones on 2 legs with a pole maybe?
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And by the way,I,for one, dont need an apology,Ive known I was goofy/kooky for a long time,just ask my wife

this site has some of the smartest people i've ever seen.

thank you for the replies everybody. i'm a moron when it comes to humor but i sure enjoy watchin you brilliant kooks......does the GSA stand for "goofy society of america"

its a old pond left on its own. the last time i fished it hard was early spring and the fishing was off the hook good. except for an occassional lunker, the original bass were skinny w/ big heads and the 10 incher shown above is a fat healthy fish that i guess is feeding on the baby bass. every winter the creek runs and replaces the pond water, but this winter and spring was so dry i dont think the water got replaced, and the water level is so low i think it turned septic.

the link you posted only shows what i call normal weeds. i know that FA stuff, and the stuff pictured above is different. there's at least 3 different kinds of weeds that were always in the pond, this new stuff is going away but it has a definite blue green color and breaks apart into small pieces very easily.

i'm thinking there was some kind of oxygen crash event which also released this stuff from growing on the bottom. there is way too much of a coincidence with missing fish and this new type of moss. the biggest fish are the most susceptible to an oxygen crash correct? if they spawned this spring, there could be thousands of babies but no adults left except the very few 10 inchers that survived the crash. there were fish to 11 pounds in this pond before, and so many numerous fish 10 to 14 inches you could barely pull the bait in without getting hit. the pond is a friend of mines who wants to remain anonymous and i dont visit it but only every couple months. my friend complained they dont see fish anymore so i went down to check it out and the pics above are what i found. i've been visiting this pond for over 10 years and during every part of the seasons and never seen this stuff before.

edit..forgot to answer toms question....no, no poachers possible, too many guns around here.

We have the same algae that is in your pic . It is a type of FA just different from that in your pic with the LMB. It did not kill your LMB. It is possible that you had a DO crash but not because of small amounts of live FA. The blob type algae is indicative of nutrient rich water and shows up about this time in our ponds.

FA floats up on O2 that it expels through respiration. That is how it gets from the bottom to the surface.

First things first -- GSA - the dreaded Green Sunfish Association -- don't mess with them! Maybe JHAP can explain.

If your bass had big heads and were very skinny, it indicates one of two things. They either didn't have enough forage, or there were too many bass -- or, more than likely, both. You haven't mentioned what else is the pond to feed the bass. Are there some type of sunfish for forage? Culling bass and making sure the forage fish are reproducing and growing is the common cure.

If someone checks on the pond fairly regularly, it is doubtful you had a big fish kill. Large numbers of large bass would have floated to the top. If the pond is continually going down in level, at a minimum, you sould have seen skeletons on the shoreline.

Ken

Sounds pretty similar to what I have experienced which is a population cycle. We have been through a cycle several times (well documented in earlier threads) where we go from catching large #'s of fish to fighting to catch anything. It seems that the best fishing comes the year before the worst (makes sense if you think about it, they are lowest on food the year before the crash, and therefore feed on anything you throw in front of them).

We also get that same algae / moss growth every summer, with no effect on the fish.

a population cycle? that sounds like an interesting spin i havent really thought about before.

i hear what you guys ewest sandman and theo are are saying about that blue green moss, some of you have it and it doesnt seem to hurt the fish.....but something in me is still skeptical. this pond always had great water, with a healthy amount of regular weeds. this blue green moss is not regular here. something that wasnt normal for that pond recently happened to allow that blue green muck to grow and detach, and now the fish population is radically different than in any of the last 10 years. maybe its a 10 year pond cycle of aging......nutrients or whatever building up, low water year, septic moss, and dissappearance of senior citizens which i can only construe as a fish kill..

as far as the dead bodies go, this place is riddled with yotes coons fox skunks possum fish eating birds and vulters. a fish body on shore wouldnt even make it through the night. plus i reckon most would sink anyway.

ok catmandoo, i'll tread lightly around that gsa and i'll try and be real courteous especially around JHAP. oh and be careful TOM G, i read somewhere that JHAP has a blackbelt in accounting...thats a mean combination right there.

there used to be huge green perch in that pond. i didnt see ANY of those either and you could always hook into some of them. all that i saw is left are baitfished size bass, and a very few 8-10" fish. it is very sad, but it might also be a great new beginning because nature always finds a way

I have that exact same type of algae as well. I agree with the previous statements that this algae probably didn't kill your fish (since you haven't seen bunches of dead fish), but in each of my previous fish kills I had this type of algae growing all around the edges of my ponds and it popped to the surface at the same time as the fish die-off. I'd like it if Bill Cody would eventually comment if there can be any connection between specific types of dense algae mats dying and fish stress. Your water looks pretty clear, which indicates to me that if your bottom mats of algae are dying, and you don't have many single-celled alae, that you might have areas of your pond that are deficient in oxygen. Has it been calm and/or cloudy lately in your area? I wouldn't be surprised if you are currently undergoing an oxygen sag, which could make areas of your pond uninhabitable for fish. This could absolutely result in you not having any fishing success. Just because one area (or depth) of your pond is short on oxygen doesn't mean that there aren't other habitable areas, which could account for the fact that you've established there are some smaller fish available.

Welcome to the site.

Bruce

thanks bruce, and thanks again to everybody else who welcomed me.

well after reading the responses again and thinking about it, i'm not saying the moss killed the fish, but i'm standing behind whatever caused the blue green moss to occur (which has never been seen in this pond before) must be directly related to the drop in the fish population that had been so steady for so many years.

we had a really bad rain season followed by alot of wind early this summer followed by the worst smokey skies you've ever seen that lasted for weeks due to fires...mostly through june. there's no doubt theres places in that pond with no oxygen. theres no kind of aeration, i'm sure it stays cold on the bottom and warm up top all summer like it always has until the rains come, which really didnt happen much this last winter. the pond is big enough that the fish always had shallow places to cruise in summer, which is why you could always see them, but they are not there anymore. its about 5 acres full and 3 acres by the end of summer, every year the same as its always been except for the lack of fish this year and that nasty dang blue green stuff.

on the other subject of lucky bass......how much damage you reckon that healthy little bass will do to a small pond full of bluegills.....1 fish a day, 10 fish a day, 20 fish a day? there's lots and lots of fish of all sizes from babies to at least 8"

I've been out brush hogging for the last 3 hours, so my mind had lots of time to wander and wonder.

Has anyone at your pond kept a "creel survey" of size and quantity of catches -- those caught and released, and those that were kept? This goes for bass and bluegill.

Of the bass you released, how many were deeply hooked, and did you only handle the released fish by their lips? Catching 35-50 fish per hour, if mishandled, could result in pretty high mortality.

As for bass doing damage to the bluegill population, over 50 years of fishing experience in impoundments from about a half-acre to about 80 acres, makes me think that is not possible. Big fat bluegill are generally the biggest consequence of the bass eating too many bluegill. But, not culling the right size bass, or over-fishing the bass, can quickly unbalance a pond population.

Ken

P.S. Those of us who were around in 1959 know about "kookie." We even had our own Top 50 hit about Kookie! Songs like this just don't come around anymore.
Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb!

You could easily have water quality problems from several sources you mentioned. Low water resulting from no rain and evaporation causes nutrients and natural elements (metals , nitrates , K , P , carbonates etc ) to concentrate in the pond bottom and remaining water. Soot and smoke can cause the pond to acidify and plankton to die (acid rain). Also low water concentrates 5 acres of fish into 3 acres with the resulting high BOD.

I don't think that the pictured FA is a problem. It may well be a symptom of bigger problems.

In addition LMB natural morts are a fact and they can be high if the fish are under stress. Low reproductive rates due to stress along with low forage numbers can increase those morts. Several years of low recruitment due to high stress and high foraging rates can lead to many older LMB to starve or succumb to stressors because of poor condition.

Your blue green algea clumps that have floated off the bottom look identical to the clumps I see in years when we had very good weed kills using chemicals. Basicaly when the aquatic vegetation is decomposing on the bottom of the pond that type of algea grows on the surface of the dead & matted decaying vegetation. When the water warms and clears enough this type of algea seems to produces enough oxygen/gas and starts to float up in chunks late afternoon this time of year. Usually there are some visible remnents of the old decaying clumps of aquatic vegetation on the underside of it. Did you have a big rain event that muddied the water up and then suddenly killed off a significant amount of aquatic vegetation ealier this year? You could have had a significant fish kill at that time, a good portion of dead fish never float and those that do only float for several days before sinking again.

That's exactly what I've seen.

I think you probably did have a fish kill. At least, all of the causes were there.

No sunlight penetration for weeks can easily do it and that could be where the adult bass went.

Like others, I expect the Algae is a symptom, not a problem.

A wise choice for a new member. Don't play with fire. Don't stick your tongue to a frozen flag pole. And don't mess with the GSA. These are rules your Momma should have taught you.

Mick Jagger put it better than I can....

So if you meet us
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or we'll lay your soul to waste,
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed our name,
But whats puzzling you
Is the nature of our game






That is true. All though normally passive by nature if forced into a confrontation I will not hesitate to kick you square in the exemptions.

Ken, no creel surveys, its just a farm pond. It gets little to no fishin pressure. My friends family only fish it at most once a month, plus my 4 or 5 trips a year down there.

Fish caught are all lipped, I actually cant even recall one deep hooking. I culled maybe 30 10 to 14” fish a year ago, but it hardly dented the population.

Ken you might have misunderstood my damage question…..i want that fat little bass to do as much damage as possible, and he/she is the only bass in the pond. I was just curious how many fish you guys might guess he’d eat every day during the warm season.

Ewest, that’s a really nice summary I can sink my teeth in. you are wise and smart and thank you for the input. Are you really a lawyer? if so, you might be the first one I like  and yes, I agree that blue green moss is a BIG symptom of something that hasn’t happened in that pond for over 10 yrs. I should have called this thread “mort reports on morts”

Shorty, moss wise, I think you hit the nail on the head. What you describe looks exactly like what I saw (and hopefully the camera captured). It explains why it breaks apart so easily. So maybe in all the previous years the pond had enough natural power to break down dead regular weeds without forming that blue green crap, but this year because of low water and blocked sunlight the pond couldn’t take care of its own waste and everything suffered. Basically it turned septic and now its in recovery mode.

Hi DD, thanks for the reply, and thanks again everybody

edit post.....JHAP you posted while i was making this post....wow....i'm making sure to keep my loopholes to myself....

Welcom to the forum. Creel surveys can be very simple. I keep a notebook with me when I fish. I write down the weight and length of every fish I catch and whether I keep it or throw it back. I then compare the weights and lengths to a standard scale for the type of fish caught. Creel surveys or fishing logs are great indicators of how your fish are doing. My fish are about 83% of standard weight which is up from only 79% earlier this year. I would not know that without a creel survey. Below is a link to the standard weight scale I use.

http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1193/

I found that keeping records of all the fish caught in my pond has been a great way to evaluate the population. It's also a lot of fun to watch how different management strategies impact the weight of the fish.

thanks for the detailed input brett. i doubt i'll get that rigorous on my little pond, and my friend's pond has no fish left to catch except the very few survivors as shown above that took 2 hours to catch. maybe in a year or two as the populations rebound creel survey will be in order.

in the past ive kinda just used my gut .....are the fish skinny or fat. great link, i'll hang on to that.