Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations What should I do next?

Sounds good... Looks like things are better off than initially thought.

Alright this weekend two of my nieces and my future brother-in-law fished the pond pretty heavily and I am learning a lot about the pond. Although it seems that more information only leads to more questions not answers.

Here's a pic of one of the pumpkinseeds we caught. The cell phone does not do the bright orange/red fins justice.



Anyway the majority of the fish caught were sunfish (mix of PS, BG and a few HBG) in the 3-5" range. Only a few were bigger then 5" and a few were a little smaller then 3". We have been fishing with a variety of lures targeting all species and sizes. Here's my estimation per 100 fish caught:

60 PS (2"-5")
15 BG/HBG (3-6")
10 Crappie (6")
5 CC (10-14" 2 pounds)
5 GSF (4-7")
4 LMB (6-9")
1 LMB (14"+)

I am beginning to think that the sunfish are becoming overpopulated. They are not stunted as I feed 5-6 days a week. There are fish everywhere and the bass are growing extremely well this summer as are the CC. The sunfish are multiplying and I feel they are putting a strain on resources and will make recruitment/spawning hell for my LMB next year.

With that said my overall goal for the pond is a productive LMB fishery (Northern Style) with a few trophy here and there. So I have a few questions:

What kind of size distibution and population percentages do I want for my forage fish?

Also what ratio of predators to prey is ideal for my particular management strategy?

I know there are no definitive answers, but I would like some guesstimates from the wise experienced pondmeisters out there. Then we can figure out how to get it to where it needs to be.

Recruitment/spawning hell is not a bad thing for LMB in a 3/4 acre pond. If you want larger and healthier bass, I think you had better encourage it. They do a great job of eating themselves out of house and home. Add crappie to the mix and your forage base could wind up in trouble.

That's doesn't look like a PS to me... Looks like a hybrid, perhaps a PSxGSF... Definitely not a pure PS though.

CJ I've decided to call the fish picture above in my pond PS.


PS occur naturally in our area and I've added over 100 to my pond. The ones I've put in there myself are PS I'm positive of that. They were added as fingerlings and I have a positive ID based off the pic in the last issue of Pond Boss.

I did not do the initial stocking on my pond, but the same BOW that holds the PS can and will join the pond during the early spring when the weeds are gone and the water is high.

My guess is that the original BG/HBG/GSF mix was inundated with a population of PS sometime ago. Keep in mind this BOW's top predators were crappie. Most likely stocked as fingerlings the same time as everything else. So a lot of mingling occurred so to speak. There are a lot of variations on each of the species.


Here are some examples of PS I found on the net, so they may too be hybrids:

Now I believe this is the classic "full color" PS, probably raised in a crystal clear aquarium.



This is what several of my PS look like. Which I would expect for a eutrophic NE Ohio Pond:



Here's another




So CJ I may be wrong but morphologically speaking these fish resemble PS more so then any other species. I guess you'll just need to come up to OH and catch fish with me to see for yourself.

Wait I have a better idea. I can create my own species called Altmann's Hybrid Pumpkinseed...or AHPS for short.

The first fish above almost certainly has some GSF in it; the mouth is too big for a PS, and the fins are colored more like a GSF. The bottom fish looks to be mostly redear to me. Just my $.02.

I'll throw my $.02 in the ring. (Where did the cent figure go on the keyboard?)

In the bottom 3 pic sequence, top one is a PSK, middle one is GSF/PSK cross (dorsal, anal and tail edge coloring, unbroken orange on cheek plate, larger mouth, anal fin different shape than PSK in top pic) and the bottom one is a RES/PSK cross.

I'm obviously not a good identifier (sp?) of the species, except to say they look like real healthy jfish - which I know to be a sign of good water. As these guys say, manage your water and the fish will take car of them selves. Looks like that is what you have goin on there. I'd say "Nice job" in that regrd.

Well I have waited patiently to see my grass carp and bass roaming the shores after the long hard winter.

Today I have come to the conclusion that a massive fish kill occurred.

Exhibit A: The pond was completely frozen over for 6-8 weeks except for one area. This was a small area where a stream enters the mainly spring fed pond. During this time I saw several of my hybrid sunfish congregating in this area presumably for air

Exhibit B: After ice out the pond reached full pool eclipsing the dam and merged with the wetlands stream that the outflow normally feeds (Which later becomes a river supplying a large local reservoir) that runs behind the dam.

Exhibit C: Pondweed has returned in all its glory with 50-60% coveragewhereas three months after the introduction of the grass carp coverage was 10-15%.

Exhibit D: Small fish are abound in the pond and the only larger fish I have seen are a small group of 20 SMB and some 4-5" BG presumably the fish I had seen congregating by stream inlet. At no other time have some many small fish been available and visible in the pond. It looks like their stalkers are gone.


The problem is I only saw one dead fish and it was an intermediate size BG in April which I thought could of been a GBH casualty.

The fact that the pond reached flood stage after ice out leads me to believe that any floaters were sent over the dam and into the stream.

It pains me that two years of work have been undone, but at the same time I am very optimistic as I stocked the pond before joining Pond Boss.

My LMB did not have an adequate forage base and there was really no way those fish were going to thrive. Tomorrow Rainman will arrive with 10lbs of FHM and GSH which will be split between my two forage ponds. I am now thinking I need to pick up some Northern strain BG as well this fall.

Most importantly I need to add aeration to prevent winter fish kill. How can I do this in an affordable manner for a .66-.75 acre pond? The deepest section of the pond is 8-10 feet.

I'm now thinking that perhaps I should setup a SMB and YP pond instead which the FHM and GSH should help. I have access to three excellent LMB/BG ponds within 10 minutes of my house perhaps I should embrace the fish kill and creat a SMB fishery. CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES...

Yesterday I bought a bag of Game Fish Chow for the pond. I figured in order to determine the current population density I needed to see what was feeding.

After about two or three minutes the water starting "boiling". At first I thought it was oil coming off the food kind of like what you see with Aquamax. Once I looked closer I realized it was small fish surrounding all the pellets. Fish size varied from 0.5"-3" although the distribution was heavily favoring the 0.5" fish.

After fifteen minutes I heard some splashing and saw some larger HBG/BG hitting the feed, but for every large BG there were 500 tiny ones. I waited patiently for the CC to surface if any still remained. After half an hour I decided to take off. I did not spot a single CC or Bullhead which normally hog most if not all of the feed.

My GSH and FHM fell through so sometime this week I will need to call my local bait shop and get three to four lbs of FHM. I am sure of the fish kill now so it's time to start filling the pond with food.

If I do decide to go with YP/SMB what size fish should I purchase to stock and when should they be added?

My guess is adult SMB and YP and FH.

I say guess because in order to know what to stock you need to know what is really there. Have you fished for BG , LMB or SMB? Seine survey would be good. The more info the better.

Have you tried Jones for the fish? They are in Ohio and deliver.

I have fished and have been walking the shores everyday. Last year the LMB would follow me around this year nothing anywhere.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they are not there, but agreed if they are there period they will hammer the new fish. I have fished a little bit, but I think after last summer the only way I can take a couple will be with live bait. They know everything in the tackle box.

I have the nieces and nephews in town this week so I think I'll increase my odds and have them help.

I guess I am going to have to start over and find out what's in the pond, again...

Yes I will most likely use Jones in the future. They have been good in the past.

Thanks guys...