Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Seriously considering full do over.

Fished the pond. I'm infested with HBG spawn. Thousands of them. New recruits from last year and this one. $50 to rent a trash pump for a day. Really hate to loose my YP and HSB though. I'm going to give it a month till it cools off for cleaning purposes. Maybe start fresh in spring. Really disappointed. I do have first year HBG around 14 oz though. One thing I know is no more fish trucks!

While I'm at it install full aeration.

HBG can serve as a good companion panfish species for SMB, YP, HSB...in fact, it would probably be my second choice of panfish along side RES for a fishery featuring these species.

Your HSB, YP, and SMB should begin managing the HBG population through predation - mine have successfully controlled the BG following several years of management practices including trapping and angling. HBG are 97% male, so recruitment shouldn't serve as nearly the issue as my BG population. I personally feel you are jumping the gun here - allow your YP, SMB and HSB time to grow, gape will increase, and once those fish get over the proverbially hump in gape allowance you'll see significant impacts on your HBG population and growth/health of your apex predators - they should be pigs.

If those apex predators can control my BG population, they certainly should be able to handle your HBG population. My advice is to give it time, ladder stock those HSB, and if you are pellet feeding maybe hold off a while to add pressure to the HBG population through predation. That method has worked for Shawn Banks and myself.

JW feel free to call me to discuss my failures/successes the last 7 years of managing BG population in cool water limited gape fishery which is similar to yours. I'm happy to help and it's much easier for me to chat than type. 402.730.4897

Think lemons and beer.

Wait....never mind.

Give it some time and think about what all can be done.

Perhaps consider some catfish, or pike?? All just for fun.

I'm thinking it through TJ. Thanks for the encouragement. It's disgusting watching all the recruitment. Maybe add full stocking of LMB and regular bluegill? This is why I check in here before making poor decisions. How long for regular bluegill to breed out HBG with LMB population. I think I got a bunch of poor genetics and mixed fish off the truck.

Catfish are in there Sunil. 100 CC and 25 albino. No pike.

Agreed, give it some more time. You can always start over at a later date if you need to.

What did you catch? Any photos?

I got some pics. I'll upload when I'm in wifi.

Agreed. Even with SMB alone [well, almost alone-rare WE], I've been really surprised at how effectively a good population multiple year class SMB can control BG-seeing much less BG recruitment here this year. But it takes a while, years, to get some of those SMB into the 3-4lb range required to take larger BG/HBG.
Remember, too, that your SMB [and HSB to a lesser extent]are going to be working those yoy lepomids all fall and again in the early spring-you'll see a big reduction before next spawning season. If your smallies spawned this year, and do so again next, you'll have a lot more hungry mouths working for you.
I'd be patient, and skip the green carp, unless you really want them. If you can get Rex to come through here, I can send you some bluegill trained smallies to augment your population.........

Yolk and Tony are right on, we share similar fisheries and have adopted each other's successful management techniques to help manage sunfish populations.

Your YOY HBG will be hammered all fall and winter - there will likely be a small percentage left in the Spring, where they'll be hammered yet again.

I still don't understand why you are so concerned with the HBG in the pond...they are serving as forage for your apex predators, and those HBG that manage to make it will grow fast, large, and provide very aggressive angling opportunities. Have you seen Tony and Bruce trophy HBG? They have both helped enlighten me over the years on the positive return on HBG in a fishery.

If you stock BG and LMB you can pretty much kiss your dream of a cool water species fishery of SMB/YP goodbye and you'll have a fishery like every other one in Missouri. Why go to that extent and give up your dream? Maybe I'm missing something here? I think you're on the right track - HBG are a great companion Lepomis species for your fishery goals of YP, HSB and SMB.

John, my first thought is that's not such a bad problem to have, depending on your goals I guess.

I was under the impression that the larger predators, HSB and LMB (say 14"-18"+) are not so much hungry for the YOY as they are when those YOY reach the 2"-4"+ range?

I have a ratio of 10% HBG to 90% BG and am always hoping for a boom spawn out of them for the sake of more forage for the HSB and LMB growth.

And thinking that the problem arises when I have too many BG in the 8"-10" range, too big for predation, as far as having a goal of big LMB and HSB.

Am I completely off base in that?

(edit - I was typing while TJ responded, which addressed my question/post)

John, I actually have to go about an hour north of Yolk soon, and I won't charge you much more than a month or two of salary....lol

John, for what it's worth...A couple of years ago, I was totally overwhelmed with the numbers of green sunfish, and the mongrelized sunfish. I think the largest amount of my greensunfish, were actually the result of many generations of what was originally HBG. Just a guess though. Anyway the reason for my blather.... I had so many, I thought it would be impossible for any apex predator/ predators to thin the numbers down. I was wrong. To help with my goals, I would sit at the pond catching hundreds of small GSF and mongrels. I have been doing something recently I never thought I would do. I have actually started throwing all GSF back in. Harvesting only those I use for bait.


In my opinion, those fish are excellent forage. Maybe not text book perfect, but you may find they will become the backbone of your fishery. WE, SMB, and your YP will thrive on them.

JW: Patience!!! Let the Predators do thire thing. Don't stock too many predators, they can overeat thier forage and then you have too many predators. Changes on ponds don't happen over night.

I'm going to listen and wait but with all, the little ones and last years recruitment it ain't easy. Average last year recruitment unless I'm missing something.

This years are like the jar fish last year
http://youtu.be/Kv6V_bs8w4A

That's a good fish there, John....be a shame to chuck it all now.

I still recommend waiting. As others have stated, give your predators time to grow into the forage. To me, adding LMB and BG at this junction has more negative aspects going for it than positive. True, the LMB will hammer the recruitment, but BG will provide a LOT more forage than what you have now, so I see very little gained. Plus, your SMB, YP, and HSB goal will never realize it's ultimate potential.

If you really feel the need to make a change, what about adding a few single sex LMB this spring? Since you don't need trophy LMB I wouldn't worry about sourcing females, but instead would try the easier route and catch a handful of males off the nest. A few male LMB should allow you to maintain your original goals, while adding pressure on the HBG recruitment.

Agreed--those guys will be hulks next year, you'll have as much fun with them on ultralight tackle as you would the SMB.


I've thought long and hard about adding single sex LMB for lepomid control, every time I start to get more serious about it something whispers in my ear, "Coyote waits....Coyote waits" and I chicken out.

I guess a person could safely introduce one single sex LMB and be safe..................maybe.

John, should you decide to manage around the hybrid recruits instead of start over, a person can make a significant dent in the population with a few minnow traps with some fish food in them. I trap a lot of GSF and bullhead out of my old pond and along with some fishing have made a significant dent in their populations. A big enough dent they got hard to come by for a while so I quit, but now have started back up as some of the very small ones have got up to 3-4" where I can trap and catch them again. I've just used a single minnow trap on the one acre pond but if a person had five or even ten of them, a person could take out a lot of fish in a short time. The GSF really seem to go for the food in the traps and I would assume the small hybrids would also. In my big pond have also used a minnow trap to catch 2" BG.

The trap a person uses makes a big difference. I have a white plastic one that does not work at all for the GSF and bullheads. It will catch adult FHM, but not the sunfish of any quantity. I think the opening is too small. The trap that works for me is the black expanded metal minnow trap.

I kind of actually enjoy walking around the bank with a #10 cricket hook and catch the 3-4" GSF. Caught about 100 one day within a couple hours.

Remember that HBG are not recommended for the forage base for LMB ponds because they don't produce enough offspring. So while it may look like you have a lot, it may not be as many as you imagine. I would think the trick would be to find a way to remove the ones that get too big for your target predators to eat. The small ones might make ok forage. Just my ideas. I'm certainly no expert and thus not making recommendations.

With Wann's luck, he'll get that one hemaphrodite LMB.

Lol! That is my luck. I've lowered the water level and stopped the AquaMax. Things are looking better.

I have all week free if I don't get picked for jury duty tomorrow. Going to take inventory of first stocking. Should have some pics up soon. I wanna get you guys take on the HBG F2 and 3 fingerlings. Maybe I'm mistaking them for baby RES. I caught a dork fish again. It had a big head with no nose. It got off before I could get pic. I'm certain there is more than one unless I've caught the same dork fish twice. Curious how the YP and HSB are growing. Can't wait!

Be looking forward to see what you come up with.

If you get a mess of those 7.5" hybrids like the one pictured above and you don't want them back in your pond, they are very good eating. I put my hybrids back in to grow up some more when we catch them, but gut hooked one one day so we ate him. Great tasting fish, so don't throw them away.

I'm curious as well. Be interesting to see what you come up with.