Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Old pond need advice

Hey guys. Long time reader, first time poster looking for a little advice.

I live in Central Virginia and work for a boarding school. The school has four ponds on the property. The largest is a three to four acre pond which is about 45 years old. The pond is about 30 feet deep in the middle. The pond is fed by a creek that runs down the mountain. The large pond drains into a smaller one on the other side of the dam. The small pond then drains into a creek when it gets full.

The large pond has been stocked in the past, but I don’t know how long ago. There is very little structure or cover in the pond and some students and I will be working to correct that this spring. I’ve sunk a couple Christmas trees over the past several years, but would like to do more this spring.

Our goal is a more balanced pond. The boys and I would like to catch more bass in the 2-5 pound range. I think the pond is bass crowded. Here are my observations:

About 10 years ago I believe the pond was overcrowded with bluegill. There were tons of them everywhere and they were small. Well about 4 years ago there was a leak in the drainage system during the winter, so the pond was drawn down to about ¼ of the original size. The drain was repaired and the pond filled back up during the spring. Naturally, I believe the bass ate up most of the small bluegill.

This past two years, I have caught large bluegill, many small bass (10-12 inch range) and a couple large bass – one that I estimate to be around 12 pounds and two or three that were around 5 to 7 pounds. We also have crappie (I have no idea how they got in there). I have kept about 20 crappie each of the past three summers. Maybe not enough, but that’s about all I have caught. I keep some bluegill because they’re tasty and some small bass. I imagine that I have not been able to keep enough fish by myself to make any type of impact on the population.

Types of fish – we have largemouth bass, bluegill, shellcrackers, crappie (unfortunately, but I do like the way they taste!) and I have also caught a couple warmouth. One of maintenance guys put two white catfish in the pond that he caught last summer. I haven’t seen them, but I assume they are still there. We also have a healthy number of frogs.

I think the best approach from reading pb is to continue to pull out the smaller bass, keep all the crappie and provide the fish with more cover. Would it be advisable to add a different type of forage species too? Is the pond too small to have threadfin shad or golden shiners? Could we add more bluegill and shell crackers? I don’t imagine adding fathead minnows would do any good until they have places to hide and reproduce. Any advice? Thanks guys.

Hello likestofish and welcome to Pond Boss. What a cool set up (4 ponds on school property). Hang on for an expert opinion, thanks for joining in and posting.

Welcome! Threadfin won't survive the winter water temps, but the golden shiners will. How big are the BG that are you catching? Like Bill reminded me, not only will LMB eat the small BG, the Crappie will as well.

If you can take a small fishing scale that reads in ounces, and a ruler to the pond when fishing, measure and weigh some of the fish. Look in the archives, here for the appropriate chart. Let us know if the fish are above or below those weights.

Are all the ponds stocked with the same fish? What size are the different ponds?

Welcome to the forum likestofish... Where are you in central VA? I suspect your probably getting some snow with the rest of us here in VA right now? Come spring I'd do a fishing survey and use the chart esshup provided to get an idea how healthy the bass are.

Regardless, keeping every crappie caught regardless of size is a smart move... I'd also keep every single warmouth caught as well. They're not quite the problem crappies are, but they sure don't help anything. Take some photos of the warmouth, BG and other sunfish when you catch them and post them on here. There are a few of us on here who really enjoy the variations in sunfish coloration and we'd like to see what yours look like.

Are the other two ponds besides the big one and the smaller one the big one flows into connected as well? Or are they seperate? Do those ponds have fish in them? What size are they?

With the size of the big pond, wanting to catch a food number of bass in the 2-5 pound range is a very reasonable goal. The addition of golden shiners could help. However, I would first focus on adding more structure which it sounds like is in your plans. I would survey your current fish population this spring. Then you'll know where you need to head. It does sound like your initial assesment is correct and your big pond is bass heavy.

Welcome to PB. How many lbs of fish do you think you have kept by year and type ( example - 09 , 10 lbs LMB , 15 lbs BG , 3 lbs crappie) ? A drawdown in winter 4 yrs ago may have little effect on the current populations. May be that the LMB and crappie have caught up with the BG and are now overcrowded. What do the crappie look like (size and condition)? You have lots of options with several ponds.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm just outside of Charlottesville, so we do have a little snow this morning.

Once I figure out how to post pictures I'll put a couple up of the fish and the ponds. We have the two I mentioned that are on the main campus, then two additional ponds back on the mountain, which are about 1/4 - 1/2 acre each. I haven't even started to think about a plan for the ones on the mountain.

Ewest - I must admit that I've been bad at keeping any type of records. Just been lazy in that department. I'm really the only person on campus with an interest in managing the pond. Many of the students want to catch "big bass" so I'm trying to get them on board with helping to manage the ponds.


I would like to have a wildlife biologist come out to school to shock the ponds this spring to help us evaluate the populations. I think it would be a great learning experience for all of us and something we could tie into a biology class.

I've got to go take the kids sledding. I'll be back soon. Thanks again to everyone for the advice.

Sounds like a nice pond. It's almost sitting at a if's its not broke why fix it state. You can always add forage cover. I think your intent is to get more medium bass. Sounds like the drawdown may have had an effect as that can be a management tool to knock down the forage fish population. I manage one large pond that has that exact type of fishing conditions now. The summer drawdowns thin out excessive forage, and I have just about the best balance I could hope for. I had some bigger fish but the residents took most of them out. You could relocate the too big for you bass to other ponds? Make a student pond for raising lunkers.

Out with the crappie, the warmouth and any unhealthy or too big of fish. I feed in a few batches of different sized local bg every season. I doubt many survive the drawdown. Maybe 500 a season total, sometimes less depending on what I catch and see. With all of those available ponds your options are close to limitless. What a sweet situtation.

Thanks for all the advice and comments guys. From everything I've read I'm hopeful that we'll have lots of good fishing for years to come. I haven't been able to post any pictures b/c our internets been spoty with all the snow. I'll try to get some up this weekend. Hopefully spring is around the corner.

Wow, sounds like a great place/project. Great thread, sorry I missed the first two weeks of it.

You've probably got good pond resources in your area, but if not, Dr. Jeff Slipke from the Jackson office of Southeastern Pond Management makes a couple of trips a year to Virginia; they've got at least one good client up there. Jeff would do a great job, would be interested in your project, and likely be a very enlightening source for the boys. I don't know if Greg Grimes ever gets that for north, but all of the above would apply to Greg as well. Your idea of getting some really knowledgable help and formal data on the front end is a good one. Got to make sure there are no northern pike in the pond!