Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Old pond, only LMB in it?

First off, this website has been a great resource to me for the past few months of research (been browsing and reading for a while, just now registered to make this post). You guys got a great thing going here and happy to be a part of the community now.

I recently (January 09) purchased a house on a lot that owns a portion of a ~4.5 acre pond (shares with about 10 or so other property owners) here in Virginia Beach, Va. From the little information that I was able to get from the neighbors, the pond was created in the late 70's when property owners wanted to keep "the young people and their ski boats out of their backyard" so they dammed up the entrance to their finger to the Lynnhaven Inlet (as you can see in the linked google maps. I personally think this was insane due to property values and deep water access, not to mention I own a 20' SeaCraft that I would love to dock behind my house, but I guess I'm stuck with this. Trying to stay on positive, I have rekindled my love for freshwater fishing (was all about freshwater growing up living in South Ga, but moved to Va Beach and have since done nothing but salt). Noone could tell me when the pond was stocked or what it was stocked with, though on neighbor said he vaguely remembered the person he bought the house from mentioning BG and LMB but don't quote him on that.

Since the weather has started to warm up, I've been fishing it for about two months now and the only thing I can catch is LMB. Usually in the 1-2 lb range, although I have caught one around 3-4 and a few smaller ones. They aren't hard to catch, caught them on top water (although for top water I'm used to violent strikes from LMB and these fish dont do that, they have the most delicate strikes, you just see a twirl of water around your lure and then its gone) and plastic worms.

I'm trying to determine what else is in the pond as well but cant seem to catch anything else. The water is extremely dark (cant see the bottom in anything more than 2' of water) so I haven't seen any other fish (haven't even seen a LMB for that matter in it, if I hadn't caught them I'd have no idea they were there). I've fished a popper in the shallows around every piece of shore in that pond, I've drowned crickets and worms under a bobber, but I can't seem to find any forage fish.

I would just give up and say the LMB ate everything and its just them in there now but whenever I'm out there, I always heard and seen the ripples from what I've grown up to know is a bream "kissing" a bug off the surface. Can a LMB make that noise? I would suspect their mouth is too big to make the "kissing" noise. How else besides paying someone to electrocute the pond can I determine if their is a forage fish?

Thanks for your help and since you guys like pics here are two of some fish I've pulled out of the pond. Enjoy.

Howdy, Beach, and welcome.

Definitely sounds like the pond is bass heavy, forage poor. Those 2 LMB are even skinnier than mine.

Seining or trapping would be ways to see what besides LMB may be in there. I would also try fishing with small pieces of worm on small hook in shallow water as you have done. But I doubt there is much volume-wise in the pond except hungry bass.

I am still trying to differentiate all the signs and sounds LMB can make while surface feeding. Perhaps smaller bass can sound like big BG.

That second LMB sure does have a weird shape to it, almost like a snakehead.

Maybe his tail is just curled away from the camera.

If you like fishing plastics I would pick up a small tube kit, assorted colors and 1/8 or 1/16 ounce jigheads. Crappie love em and you catch a fair share of sunfish if they're there. You can also use curly tail grubs. A small/medium sized Chartreuse single tail w/ 1/4 or 1/8 ounce jig head will catch just about anything in any kind of water, really drive sunfish nuts.

N Beach I'm curious is the water your fishing brackish or fresh?

I would bet since your pond at one point connected with Lynnhaven Inlet, there is a high likelihood during high water events the all mighty white perch has made his way into the pond. I've fished a lot of ponds similar to yours and almost none don't have white perch in them... The pictures of your bass do seem like they are painfully thin. If I lived near the CBBT, I think I would be spending my time fishing that structure than a couple of tree tops in a pond! Freshwater fishing is fun no doubt, 50 pound red drum, 40 pound rockfish and 10 flounder is hard to find in a pond...

Thanks for all the reply's everyone. Yeah the bass do seem skinny compared to what I remember catching from ponds when I lived in Ga. Me and a friend fished it from 9am to 9pm yesterday and caught a total of 9 fish, all LMB. Their weights/lengths were:

16" 1.25lbs

17" 1.75lbs

16" 1.0 lbs

16.5" 1.50lbs

22" 3.0lbs

11" 0.50lbs

15" 1.50lbs

21.5" 3.0lbs

16" 1.0lbs

This definitely doesn't match up with the relative weight chart that I found linked elsewhere on this site. So my bass are definitely skinny.

CJBS2003, how would I go about determining if white perch is in my pond? Fish for them? Any tips? I spent a good part of yesterday fishing nightcrawlers under a cork up near the shallows all along my pond but the only interest I got was a hungry turtle.

Also my boat is currently nearing the end of a swap from a notched rotten plywood transom and a 200hp 1980 Johnson to an enclosed coosa composites transom with a bracket and a Suzuki 175, so I'm having to find ways to spend my time not on the bay and on my pond is decent replacement until I get it back (two weeks!). Plus the drum and flounder are just now starting to heat up out there.

I grew up on the Chesapeake (Annapolis area) fishing a lot of ponds like yours and also a lot of back rivers. For sure there are white perch in there, they are the tidal mid-atlantic's version of green sunfish. I would imagine that river is chock-full of them.

They are actually really fun to catch on light tackle. If your fishing bait I would try to get my hands on some grass shrimp or blood-worms. Bucktails work well and the aforementioned chartreuse grub...Try docks, sea walls, and any underwater structure...the rockier the better.

As CJB said the real fishing is just across the wall. Anyway I think you got the best of both worlds there. Enjoy the bass, could they be bigger? Of course, but I think they'll do fine supplementing the world class CBBT fishing.

Black bass hit the preferred live baits on the head for white perch. Grass shrimp and blood worms are hard to beat. Fish them on the bottom using a size 6 or 8 hook. I like using a typical tandem bottom rig you can buy at any sporting goods store. Use a 1/4 oz to 1/2 oz weight on the bottom and then pre snelled hooks for the arms of the rig. If there are white perch or any other small fish in there, they should tear that up... Even nightcrawlers will work, but not as well IME...

Those bass weights to lengths are bad... The bass definitely are not getting enough food. The lengths are longer than is typical with overcrowded ponds, which usually run 10"-14". Do you see any sunfish or any other smaller fish species in the shallows?

N Beach, interesting situation. You may have read this, but a 22" fish had to, at one point, weigh close to it's proper Wr (6lbish) to ever to go be 22" long. Without enough forage fish don't grow, they stay short. These fish grew. Which means they've had enough food and then shrank when their forage base ran dry.

Why this is interesting is because it seems as though you have a few decent size fish that must keep the bass recruitment low. So when the bass are 8-10" they're probably being eaten by the larger bass right now.

9 fish in 12 hours with 2 guys isn't exactly tearing it up - especially with hungry looking fish like those - there probably just aren't a lot of bass. I'm guessing from your comment + the skinny bass that there isn't a lot of forage.

Do you want to fix this? Or leave it as is? Is the HOA doing anything to manage the pond?

HOA doesn't get involved with the neighborhood ponds. Talking to many of the neighbors I'm the only person they've seen using the pond in many years and gave me a verbal go ahead to do what I wanted with it (as far as stocking and what not). I haven't seen anyone else in it in the 5 months I've been living there either.

I agree with what you said AaronM about there just not being a lot of fish in there. I wouldn't mind helping the bass out, and also developing a nice bluegill/bass fishery in my backyard. Like I said before I love saltwater fishing, and the bay is arguably one of the salt water fisheries in the world, but I do miss freshwater a lot and it would be great to have a place to get that fix that's right out my back door, and it would be a shame for a 4.5 acre pond to only have a few starving bass in it, but then again I don't have infinite funds to just throw at some fish.

One thing that I haven't talked about yet is the water quality. I have said that it is dark, extremely dark, anything over 2' deep and cant see the bottom at all. Plants are very thick in a lot of places too, and algae was very thick a couple weeks ago but has seemed to die down some now, though still quite a bit. The bottom in the shallows is pretty much decaying muck, leaves and all sorts of nastiness. Push an oar into the muck and foul smelling bubbles (sulfurous smell) comes up from the bottom. I have seen random parts where its sand bottom, but only very small (couple sq feet) sections are like that and are rare.

The pond overall isn't very deep either, I have put together a very rough bathygraphic chart based on my paddling around and checking to see roughly how far up my oar the water level is when its touching bottom.



As you can see the pond isn't very deep at all. The section where its 5+ plus (oar/my arm in water cant reach bottom) is only about 20' wide from shore to shore, very skinny/deep section of water in those fingers.

CJBS2003 - I'll try the bottom rig, I have tons of those for croaker fishing. Should I be doing this in the deeper sections or near the shallows? I have seen zero fish in this pond except for bass/bass fry. Fished nightcrawlers in the shallows and all around structure and got zero bites. Could the larger bass in the pond just completely depleted the forage population?

So if I wanted to repair this fishery, get my bass back to healthy size and a decent bream fishery what would be the course of action? Would the water issues that I talked about be a problem? I know bluegill bed on sand/gravel bottoms, would I need to clean out spaces in the muck and put down gravel or sand for them to bed on? Would I stock adult bluegill large enough for the bass to not eat so they can spawn? Do I catch all the bass out of the pond and start over? I of course would get written permission from all the other homeowners before starting anything, but from talking to them I doubt it would be a problem. Thanks for all the input guys.

If the LMB spawn on whatever substrate you have now BG shouldn't have any problems. They're very versatile.

N Beach, the pond sounds a lot like the ones near my dad's house which is also right on the Chesapeake Bay but a little farther north than you. The water is very dark, almost black and tannic. Unfortunately, the water chemistry of those ponds is not very good for bluegill growth, reproduction or anything bluegill for that matter... Largemouths and white perch along with yellow perch, chain pickerel, pumpkinseed sunfish, flier, bullhead catfish, American Eels, creek chubsuckers and golden shiners seem to be the only fish I have found living in them.

Great details. Aeration might help clean some of the stuff up, but that's going to cost $$ (well, everything will!).

Your bass look healthy, despite being thin. (yes?) I'd guess that if the LMB are living in the water BG should do okay as well. These fish aren't young at that size, so clearly they've found the pond habitable but it looks like forage is jumpy. If the LMB reproduce - and my guess is that's been the forage - as Theo said the BG will find a way as well.

I think you have 2 generic strategies - starting over (elimination of fish), or managing your way out of it. Sounds like option 2 is where you're headed.

Regarding removing the LMB - you could do this, and probably should. If you look at this as a long-term plan the more LMB you take out now the better shot you have at getting a forage base built. It doesn't sound like you've got a huge crowded situation, but I can't imaging trying to build a forage base without culling LMB - they'll just eat everything. Your 12" fish might be 4-5 years old - and you don't want forage going into them - you want it going into new young bass.

It would be hard for me to remove the 22" fish, so you could either leave some or take them all. But you have a problem - the 22" fish can eat a 5" bluegill. So the more big fish you leave the harder to get your BG to a size to be your forage foundation.

The key to long-term sustainability is getting your forage built (without getting eaten!). You can try multiple species, like BG, RES, and Golden Shiners - but the key base of the bass foundation is the BG. Stocking enough adults (5-6"+ fish) to make the difference is the challenge.

Here's the rub: You could put a few thousand adult BG into a pond that size no problem.

You can try stocking bluegill, but I don't think they will survive in your pond's water chemistry... Bluegill are hardy and adaptable, but waters near coastal areas with lots of tannins aren't what BG are adapted to. Similar to the ponds near my dad's house I mentioned, my girlfriend's parent's live in a golf course community in southern NC right along the coast. There are some ponds in the neighborhood. Some support bluegill and the bluegill do fine. Some of the ponds, particularly the larger ones do not support bluegill. The only fish in them are largemouth bass, golden shiners, pumpkinseed sunfish and spotted sunfish. Again, its that dark black tannin stained water. However, with just that fish community the largemouth do great and get to a nice size with good relative weights.

If BG have lower chance of survival than Pumpkinseed or Yellow Perch I'd rather look into that. I'm not 100% sold on BG just see that as the typical prey in a LMB pond scenario. I remember catch both PS and YP in a farm pond I grew up on in Ga and loving it, and remembering them to be quite tasty too. If the LMB will use either of those species, or OSS, etc as a forage base and will thrive and reproduce in my pond I'd be interested in using that species instead.

Though on the Virginia Department and Game and Inland Fisheries stocking guide, PS and YP "...should not be stocked because they tend to become overpopulated and stunted." Although I'm pretty sure I don't have to get their approval for a private pond (though not sure since the pond has multiple owners), otherwise there is a form to fill out and submit for any fish to be stocked.



I do have to submit an application to stock Grass Carp in the pond though if I desired.

So where would you guys suggest I go from here, do more catch research on the pond getting weights and fish numbers? Still try and catch white perch in it and see if they are in there? Would the bass be using them as forage? Research fish farms around here and see if I can get my hands on some PS, YP or OSS, or try out some BG?

Lusk is always mentioning how dark the tannins stains Richmond Mill Lake.

I am not saying BG won't do well in certain tannin ponds. I think it goes beyond tannin stained, it is other chemical characteristics that prevent BG from doing well. But I have fished a lot of ponds in the coastal areas of VA, I live in the state... BG don't do well in them. I am not against putting them in the pond. I hope they do survive, but I doubt they will.

The VDGIF website has lots of good info for people who know little about pond management and want to go down the simple LMB, BG, RES, CC pond without having to worry about putting in fish in which little research has been done on in ponds...

Yellow perch and pumpkinseeds will over populate and stunt in a pond just like bluegills will. OSS are not native to VA and sourcing them would be challenging at best. Pumpkinseeds are native as are yellow perch. So you would not need a permit to stock them.

This is not a private pond and most anyone has access to it. Spending money on hatchery bought fingerlings is expensive for a pond that isn't even really yours... If you wanna drop the cash go for it, I've done it before in ponds that are neighborhood owned and dealt with other people not following "my rules" when its not really my pond.

The best place to source your fish would be Delmarva Aquatics. http://www.delmarvaaquatics.com/ They have pumpkinseeds and yellow perch which are genetically adapted to the Delmarva region and would most likely excel in your pond.

Or you can fish several of the local lakes and collect wild caught fish and transplant them to your pond. Obviously, disease introduction would be a concern but this isn't your pond, its years old has been stocked by who knows before and will continue to probably have neighborhood kids, high water events and who knows what else putting fish in it. So I wouldn't be as concerned about introducing wild caught fish as in a more controlled private pond... Just my 2 cents.

how would shad and shiners do in there? If you aren't concerned about disease get a casting net and you can get a bunch really fast. Thats what I used to do when I lived in VA but that was in th eoccoquan reservoir so totally different waters. If you need price list for delmarva I have one that I can forward to you. Price may have changed but mine is from last july.

Matter of fact I should be in VA the next couple months and may be able to give you mine. I am not sure if we will be in the VA beach area or if we are staying up north, but if we make our way down there I'll give it to u.

Yes, tannins by themselves mean nothing good or bad. I have eucalyptus that drop heavily into my pond and emit quite the tannins. Before I stocked the pond I even 'cooked' eucalyptus tea and made some nasty tea that was so dark you could barely see through an aquarium with it. Did a couple A & B tests with fish to see if they had any issue (yes, I went overboard). Results, actually had better growth & survival in a few month trial in the 'tannin tea'... now I don't take that as tannins are 'better', but I don't think they're by themselves bad.. as CJ said, it's the other water issues that are of concern pH, hardness, O2, etc.

Normally bg are the 'preferred' forage for a bass pond as they reproduce more prolifically than YP, OSS or PS. OSS & PS also don't grow as big, so your 22" bass will crop your brooders. Go catch some OSS and throw into that pond, and they'll end up being a snack. PS get bigger, but fill a smaller niche like RES and aren't a base for LMB forage. YP get the size, but aren't going to be a great 'base' for forage for your LMB since they're a predator in their own right.

I think your biggest issue is that it's a pretty big pond to stock by catching forage fish and moving into it. 1) you've got a base of big predators, so they'll eat anything small (TS, GS, etc), and 2) it's big so you need a decent about of forage that will avoid predation.

I'd find a hatchery and stock 800-1000 adult BG, or as many as you can realistically afford. If you can't do that, catching & moving may work but I hope you have more than one friend to help!

Regarding the cost of stockers. If anyone wants to build a 4 acre lake in my backyard, not fish it for years, and allow me to manage it, well, I'll happily stock the darn thing with some BG! It sounds like you've feel into a great pond, just needs a bit of TLC.

p.s. - Pick up Lusk's book on raising trophy bass for a good read on how BG and bass are like ebony and ivory. Here's a quick primer: http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/forage_bass.html

Gizzard shad if they will survive the water conditions of your pond may actually be a good option... You have big big in there already to crop off the over sized adults and lots of hungry mouths to keep up with all the reproduction. It's so radical, it may just work!

GShad are IMO not a good option for a small pond. TShad or GShiners are much better. There are lots of threads here on that topic.

BG do fine in tannic water. There are many thousands of tannic ponds across the SE US that BG do fine in. We have several that have almost black water with oak and lowland tannic trees causing the soil and water problems. The normal alkalinity in those ponds is 4-5 which is very low (acid). The natural BG population has been good for the 30 years I have been around them. Tannic waters do have low productivity which makes plankton production (food chain) low and stunting more likely.

Tshad aren't an option in south eastern VA, winter kills at least every third year or so if not more often...

Try getting GSH established in a pond with several 22" and many 16"-18" hungry bass... Highly unlikely prospect IMO. You'd have to stock lots of LARGE adults, not easy to come by through a commercial hatchery source or catching them wild.

That about leaves gizzard shad... I honestly think gizzard shad aren't as bad in some situations as people make them out to be. This pond has good sized(yet thin) bass and they are hungry. If any small pond could fit well for gizzard shad, this would be it IMO. I think N Beach is looking to bass fish, he's not really interested in sunfishing... So if the gizzard shad negatively affect the sunfish population, so be it.

I'm more looking for a well balanced fishery, decent size bream and bass, not necessarily huge bass or huge bream, just healthy weight fish that I can enjoy catching and harvesting while maintaining a healthy pond.

BG seems like the most logical choice for my goals. Is there anything I can do to determine if they will be healthy in my pond (water tests?, etc). I mean is it a sink or swim kind of thing or would they live but just be sickly their entire lives and struggle to reproduce/survive? Is it a throw one in an aquarium of my pond water and see if he lives kinda thing? Haha.

If say, I started fishing other ponds and catching BG to put in mine, should they be as big as I can find so that the bass can't eat them? Would they spawn this year even with the shock of being in a new ecosystem? Is it basically just transplant as many as I can to increase my chances of a spawning population? Would I need to feed them?

What about the bass in the meantime, if there aren't a lot in there to begin with should I be taking any out or just leave them alone and hope they don't destroy the forage base I'm trying to build. Would it be best to try and remove them and start over?

N Beach,

Lots of questions, and it's a bit of a dynamic situation. Let me give a few thoughts:

LMB - the more you take out the less pressure on your newly stocked forage. You probably can't remove them all - and that's okay. What's left will spawn and be your target bass for years to come.

BG spawning - yes, they'll spawn this year - as long as they don't get eaten.

BG stocking - you want them to be big enough to not get eaten. If you transplant you're going to have to put in a lot. If you transplant 3" BG, you're just feeding the bass. Various recommendations is 200-500 adults (4-6"+) per acre if no BG present in a situation with LMB. The reason is if you have 10 BG they'll spawn, but the change that their fry will make it to adulthood is slim. Granted, 10 BG is better than zero, but 1000 is better than 100. In a balanced pond you'll have BG of all sizes and year classes from fry/1" to 9-10". You currently have none of that, so you've got to get as many big BG as possible to avoid predation.

Feeding - fed BG will do better, grow faster, spawn more, than non-fed BG - especially in non-fertile water. A problem that ewest stated above is these tanic ponds aren't fertile so the BG don't necessarily thrive. Feeding can help that (see the picture that Theo posted of the Lusk BG, it's fed) However, you don't need to feed to have a nice pond. You might just have less fish.

This will take time to correct. You've got to get a health base of multiple year classes of BG going, and all the while you've got hungry bass swimming around in the pond waiting to eat everything they can fit into their mouths.

While you're doing this, keep good records. You want to see your LMB Wr start creeping up - but again, it will take some time.