Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Trout? or other.

I live in NEPA at elevation. We have a small pond. It's spring fed. It's inflow is very cold. The kind of spring where ankle deep is enough to cool your whole body on a hot July day. The pond itself is about 120 ft long about 10 feet wide at one end and about 40 at the other. The wide end is about 6' deep. The rest tapers to about 18" at the far end. I don't know how warm the water gets in the summer but it's never "warm". The flow from the spring from fall to spring is great 6-8" deep and several feet wide, even in summer is 3-4" deep and about 18" wide.
The dam is more of a slow sieve. Leaks about half the summer flow in the dead center. But it maintains it's depth. I have been working on the leaks. It has a ton of organics in the bottom around 2 feet deep in spots. But the water is clear even in mid summer. I have been clearing it and will continue to over this summer so as to get it down to just a few inches if possible. I have water grass and various pond weeds. But they aren't taking over. In winter I get thick ice on one end but little on the other because of the spring. So winter kill shouldn't be an issue. The pond is currently free of any fish. But has a huge frog and salamander population.

Now to the stocking question. Do you all think with the cold water I should avoid all "warm" water fish. I was thinking of getting some bluegills(warm water) local by fishing with the boy to get something in it. Will they grow well at such low temps? Then I would stock it with a hundred or so trout in fall. (I know I would need to feed them and thats not an issue.) But would the bluegill just compete with the trout and cause more harm than good. Even free it wouldn't pay to mess it up.

A few thoughts...

First, welcome to the forum!

The pond sounds as though it can support trout year round. With this means cool temps, temps so cool bluegill(BG) wouldn't grow well. The next dilemma is that trout are not able to control BG reproduction, meaning with no effective predators, if your BG were to spawn which even in a cooler pond such as yours is highly possible, you'd end up with a mass of stunted BG. I would stick with a trout only pond... You can stock different species and strains to add angling interest. (rainbow, golden, brook, brown, tiger) Fathead minnows can be added as forage, but if you feed pellets they nor any other forage species is really necessary IMO...

That's exactly what I was thinking. Could I get some golden shiners instead of the flat heads? They will eat some of the weeds/algae right? Plus give something for us to catch in fall.

When GSH control algae ( I assume FA) I would like to see proof of that. Now if a pond only had dense numbers of GSH and then in that case the FA might(?) be controlled???? It would be interesting to me to hear from some guys that raise or hold larger numbers of GSH to see if they have any FA problems when they seine their ponds.

Algae isn't really an issue for me. It's more pond weeds. I would love to get some grass carp but I doubt the state will let me as down stream of my pond is a wild trout stream. With native fish-able populations. My pond/spring is the "head" waters.

If you're pellet feeding, the need for any forage fish isn't there. Now if you aren't planning on feeding, then the addition of both FHM and GSH may be prudent. Keep in mind that GSH will compete directly for food sources with smaller trout and they will reach larger sizes that the trout may not be able to control. You may end up with a stock pile of larger 7"+ GSH and trout not large enough to feed on them. This would be particularly true in a pond with all or most brook and rainbow trout. If tiger trout or brown trout are stocked, they may be more capable to keeping the GSH in check.

Anything you can recommend that would like cold water 60's for a hi, but eat pond weeds?

Not that I can think of unfortunately...

Welcome to Pond boss Stan, sounds like you have the makings of a nice little trout pond.
You already got lots of good info so I'll just add that since your in PA. there are lots of places that carry Tigers and it's a hearty trout that is easily caught and would make a great addition to other trout varieties in your pond.
Since your pond is small you could add adult GSH and if the numbers got too high a couple fish traps would easily control them, and adding some larger trout would also help.
Investing in a small thermometer with a 10 ft. probe would be a good tool to keep track of your temps during the summer.

We also like photo's so if you can post some.

Here is a few pictures. You can see the grass I need to get rid of. The bushes in near the pond edge should die due to them being under water now. I just recently repaired the dam. It brought the water level up about 2 feet. I'm hoping it holds. Fingers are crossed.



This is looking south west.


This is looking south east.



This is a view of the spring.

Stan your pond is in a real nice setting, I can see the weed problem you mentioned, here is a link to info on grass carp in PA., maybe you can have them.
http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/pages/forms/pfbc_tgc002.pdf

Nice looking setting! I bet you got a bunch of woodcock and grouse around there...

As a matter of fact we do.

I thought so, it just screams upland bird hunter's delight...