Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello and help....

Hello everyone, I've just discovered this site and the wealth of information here. It really seems to be an amazing resource. I just purchased 65 acres with an established 20+ year old pond that's about 3 acres. The average depth is probably 6' with a nice shallow spawning cove and some 15' water near the spillway. It's in northeast Arkansas in the foothills of the Ozarks. Right now it has BG that are stunted and appear to be hybrids reverting back. It also has some black crappie and some LMB but most are stunted. I think my only choice is renovate the pond but time and money are both of concern since there's lots of other work needed on the acreage (dozer work, stands, food plots etc.). So my question is can apply hydrated lime to it without pumping it all the way down and if so would it cost a fortune? My concern with pumping it down is being able to apply the hydrated lime to the bottom since this seems more difficult than than applying it to the water. And also the amount of time it will have to stay down before it dries enough for me to access it and then the amount of time it will take to refill. My goal is to stock coppernose bream and shell crackers and LMB and try to raise big blue gill. I have 7 & 8 year old boys and they love to fish as does my wife. So I'm looking for suggestions on the fastest way to renovate as cost effectively as possible. I know that's a lot to ask and most of the info is here but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to weed through it all Thanks in advance for any help you can offer and thanks for having be aboard!

Welcome to the PB Forum. I am no expert and I am sure some of those guys will show up for some advice. But I would give some consideration on finding a shock boat along with a guy who has some experience with the boat and ponds in your area. If you can find that, they might be able to reduce numbers through shocking and then help with finding some new genetics to boost up the pond. I would think draining a 3 acre pond would be a rather big job and costly when killing off and cleaning up and restocking.

I think the only thing that would make me kill off the pond is the crappie. I think the other species could be controlled through intensive fishing and removal. I say that because a winter fish kill a few years back removed a bunch of BG and LMB from my 1 acre pond, and selective fishing has both species coming back fine with nice size (along with RES). Maybe someone with black crappie can lend some advice on this species in a 3 acre pond. Would a non-breeding apex predator (pike family or HSB) perhaps work to lower the number of intermediate size fish?

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your decision. Starting over gives you a clean slate towards your goals and is a nice way to start.

But if you decide for whatever reason that is not in the cards, where you have "both" BG and LMB stunted it sounds like just too many fish for the food available to support. If you decide to keep what you got, if it were mine, I would go to culling fish and only returning the best of the best condition fish back to the water. Remove a lot of fish biomass so the remaining fish have resources to grow. But I'm no expert. Just what I would do.

Maybe start a feeding program but be careful with that unless you add aeration also so the pond carrying capacity increases.