Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How did these fish arrive ?

Morning All !

In 2002 I completly drained my pond...DRY !...the pond refilled over the course of a month or so and was not stocked due to my Iraqi deployment...November of 2003 I stocked with 800 Coppernose and 400 Shellcrackers...this spring I started feeding 32% floating food...noticed Bullheads feeding and balls of Bullhead fry, lots of them ! Yesterday I flyfished trying to catch one or two of the Coppernose to see how they were faring...caught a &*%$ Green sunfish about 7 inches long ! My pond is apprx 1 acre right now and is not fed by any flowing water...ie, these fish could not have come from an outside water source...so, how did this happen, drained dry, no fish or any other life for at least two weeks and not stocked with these species...but have two species (Bullhead and "Greenie") that I don't desire ! BTW, not picking on these species, I just don't want them in my pond...any thoughts or suggestions out there on this ?

Torchy

Forgot to add...I caught 3 Bullheads on the fly rod...they were all 8 to 10 inches long and fat as a butterball !

Sounds like you had help stocking while you were out of town for awhile. It is possible that a hatchery could mix some bad fish with the good but they wouldn't grow to 8 or 10 inches in that short amount of time. Keep your mouth shut and most likely someone will tell you about the favor they did while you were gone.

torchy,i have the same problem with my 4 1/2 acre pond in south louisiana.no creek,no ditchs just rain water.i can tell you what i was told by the wildlife & fisheries people,birds have eggs in there feathers and when they visit your pond they drop in your water and some birds eat eggs and pass them threw there system and say still make it.hard to believe but i guess it's possible.i've talked to a couple people about this and i keep getting the same answers.it's pretty common for my pond to have 1 are 2 big white birds around the pond and often i have wild ducks come in and stay for several days.

Thanks for the replies...

Gotta assume the bird theory is the culprit...the pond is off the road outta sight...never had anybody on or around it...I live on the property and it's relatively isolated from neighbors and never had anybody ask to fish it...will still take advice and stay mum to see if anybody fesses up though...guess I gotta put my 9 year old to work weeding out Bullheads and I'll work the "Greenies" over with a fly rod all summer...sure was frustrating to find them after all I went through to eradicate and start over...oh well, guess that comes with the amateur Pond Meister gig ! Anybody want some free "Greenies" and Bullheads ?

Torchy, what do you mean by not any flowing water. Do you fill it by well? Just because you don't have any water flowing in doesn't mean the trash fish aren't swimming upstream when the pond overflows. In my opinion, that is the most common way they enter. I found a green sunfish lying in a coastal field after a rain (which was wide and shallow during the rain) a half mile from a pond.
I'm not an expert by any means but I'm not sold on the bird and egg theory unless ponds are close together.
I have one pond that is close to a live creek and in four years it overflowed one winter when fish aren't active and I don't have any trash fish. I have another pond that doesn't overflow at all and in three years not a single trash fish.
Your pond being that new means that birds would have carried at least one male and female of two different species that lived to grow and reproduce. That's four fish in the first year.

Does anyone else have any ponds with unwanted species that are filled by well and no outflow and no helpful neighbors?

No flowing water...ie...there's not a pond or year 'round water source within roughly 2 miles of my pond...the overflow goes off the property into a mixed hardwood/pine forest with no standing water anywhere...although I "killed" the pond by draining it and letting it bake in the Louisiana August sun, it was actually excavated about 10 years ago...the water source to keep it full is a combo of rain run off from 50+ acres and high water table in the spring...no well or other constant water source...so I'm left with the "helpfull" neighbor or the bird drop off...I think ...BTW, want some free Bullheads ?

Thanks,
Torchy

Torchy: FWIW: I have a brochure from the NRCS or state or something that states that these mysterious fish stockings can virtually always be traced back to a two legged non feathered "friend" helping you stock your pond. Jeff

Going from my experience (which granted is not scientific), I agree with Brian. I have three ponds that are probably as much as 50 years old and they do not have a single trash fish in them. I have a newly constructed pond which I stocked with coppernose BG and it has the evil greenies. In my case, it wasn't birds that put them there, it was the fish hatchery I bought the coppernose BG from.

I was there when they put the fish in during the stocking...didn't examine individual fish, however they were all 1"-3"...is it possible for a "greenie" that size to grow to the 7" range from November to mid April ?...if so, I may end up liking the &^%$ things after all !...Just kidding, still wanna get 'em out...BTW, didn't feed on a regular basis until mid March...

T

I'm with Rangersedge,
Another possibility is someone fishing your pond in your absence not knowing it wasn't stocked. They could have used greenies & bulls for bait.

A friend at work built a 3.5 acre pond and stocked it last year with bluegill and largemouth. They've been catching decent sized rock bass this spring and wondering if the hatchery that the NCRS office used could have messed up. I didn't think that likely, but... This spring, they've also caught some bass up to 11 inches. I'm thinking I'm not sure, but it may be possible and suggested they post on this site with all the details. Then most recently, they caught a 19 inch bass. Time out. That did it. Forget the hatchery mistake and superfish genetics. Someone had to have "helped" stock their pond for them. I'm still betting someone likewise "helped" stock your pond for you. I'm hoping no one "helps" stock my pond for me.

Forgot a couple points. Their pond is at the edge of their yard behind their house and there is no way fish could naturally get into their pond via drainage from either above or below.

my neighbor put in a 1/3 arce pond, in the middle of a passture , for the cows to drink from . he never stocked the pond and has tons of emerald shinners and bluegills in it. i put in 6-8" bass last year from my pond, i bet there happy now lol

Torchy, tough situation. The bullhead balls should be pretty easy to catch out with a net or to seine them out. You'll probably never get them all, but it's a start. Bass love small bullheads before they get their hard pectoral and dorsal spines, plus they're easy for them to catch. If you don't have any bass in the pond it's an option. How big is your pond and what type of pond are you wanting(large sunfish, combo, easy fishing etc.) You also could run trot lines in your pond. Just bait it and lay it along the bottom. You could even use your greenies as bait. Unfortunately these are 2 very difficult species to eradicate without chemicals or draining again, but even then...there is still a chance that a couple could survive. Were those fish present in the pond before it was drained? I always find the bird theory very difficult to believe due to the make-up of fish eggs. The bird would have to be extremely quick to make it from point A to point B without the thin membrane walls drying out. Most of the birds are wading birds only going out as deep as their legs are long(not getting their feathers wet often) mostly leaving only their legs exposed. So if the eggs were on the bird, they would most likely be on the legs which would not keep the eggs moist if they managed to stick to the feet during flight at all. In my opinion the odds of one egg surviving and making it into your pond and hatching are pretty remarkable not to mention how many eggs would have to survive in order to have the number of fish you have in such a relatively short period of time. Does your fish dealer even raise greenies and/or bullheads? If not, you could eliminate that option. Best of luck to you. If you solve the mystery let us know.

I first noticed the cloud of baby bulheads last year and I am sure the first ones were brought in by the birds.

The big differences between ponds that get stocked by our feathered and the ones that don't are what is stocked initially, distance to other water sources, and how many birds visit how often. We have many birds coming and going on a regular basis and many ponds within a few miles. Most of the local pond owners have species they didn't stock. I also had a bad fish kill 2 winters ago and I am just restocking bass now.

If I was in an area with less bird traffic, greater distance to other waters or was stocked heavily with bass the babies either wouldn't have arrived or would have been eaten before I saw them.

Let me tell you of an example what happened to my pond. My pond ran around about 3 inches deep over a dam that drops down a foot. It runs down a road until it gets to a creek a 100 yards away. the creek is in brush and shurbs so thick animals can hardly make it through. The first thing i noticed was mousquito fish swimming around the pond. I was amazed how in the world did they get in there. Next spring about early may i looked in the water and it appeared to be fingerling bass. So i went home and got the castnet. I threw it out over the fish. Amazingly it was largemouth bass! Not only did i catch that in my net but i caught shad, silver shinners, white crappie, bluegill, greenies, longears, warmouth, bullheads, and carp. These fish were to large to be stocked over by birds or people during the winter. The only way the fish could have got in is by jumping over the dam or coming over the other side where it ran around about 2 feet wide and 4 inches deep. I couldnt belive this until the next fall when we 16inches of rain. We were driving down the county road and look at the ditch which was a foot by a foot and saw carp up to a pound and gizzard shad up to 9inches long swimming up the thing. This water was coming from the neighbors pond that was running around and they swam up in it. Oh yea forgot to mention that my pond had been dry so long it had mesquite trees growing in it.

Like other people, I've had this problem also. Here's my count down on ways I think this could happen.

4) Birds carrying fish eggs from pond to pond. So unlikely that the chances of this occuring approach zero. I hope that some biologist jumps in and explains why this is true.

3) Other species mixed in with the fish we buy. Unfortunately this is more common than we would like to believe. There is a wide difference in the care different fish dealers take in making sure all of their fish are what they say they are. I have often bought minnows with small bullheads mixed in with them.

2) Fish swimming upstream and getting into our lakes. Very common. All it takes is one big rain or snow melt.

1) Someone has done a favor unto us. Happens all the time. Sometimes to hurt us, sometimes without thinking and sometimes to "help" improve our fishing. When we first started our lake in 2000, we started to catch 8-10" bullheads. Obviously, I didn't put them in.

The issue isn't how they get into our lakes but what we do about it. Bob Lusk wrote an outstanding comment about how he was able to manage green sunfish populations. I think it applies to bullheads, crappie and about anything else.

This is the method he used. First, he established a good bluegill population. Then he over stocked larger LMB. LMB will eat green sunfish before bluegills. Because of their shape, green sunfish go down easier. LMB can easily eat a mass of young bullheads also. A person can combine this with removal of adults.

In our case, we are overstock with predators. Although we initially stocked as many green sunfish as bluegills, we seldom see a green sunfish now. Bullheads have never become established.

I hope these comments help.

Norm, I'm certainly not a Biologist but also can't credit birds with stocking ponds.

Fish eggs are too slick and slimy to stick to a birds feathers or feet. However, if they did, they would almost certainly dry out while being hauled through the air. Ok, lets say they got to the new pond in some sort of viable condition. Most game fish eggs are necessarily fanned and thus aerated by a parent. The parent also keeps them from becoming covered by silt. The only exception I know of are eggs that are laid in running water. We don't have any of that in a pond. Next, the parent usually guards the young fry from opportunistic predators. We ain't got that either. If they survive early predation, they have to worry about all kinds of predators. I once read that a 5 lb. largemouth has beaten over 10,000 to 1 odds.

On the other hand, I once told Bob Lusk that I would like to get some mosquito fish. He said don't bother buying them. I would probably get them anyway. How? He said he didn't know. Hey, maybe the stork does bring babies.

One means by which birds can introduce undesired, (Or desired for that matter), species is being overlooked. Some water birds that prey on fish, frogs, etc. regurgitate their food or undigestible bits. Just as it is known to be the source of some snail relocation, (Or parasite spread through their feces), it could also serve as a means by which other species get relocated. Again with all bird related theories... chances are slim, but there is a chance.

So it isn't totally unreasonable to assume there is at least some chance of viable eggs or fingerlings making it into a 'new' pond on behalf of our feathered friends/enemies.

But as discussed in previous posts... there is only so many ways adult or slightly sub-adult fish can get there.

I don't have an answer to any of the questions posted or even any suggestions but think about this. All of the primary species listed are extremely hardy: catfish, greenies. These fish are survivors. When the going gets tough there the last to be gone. So whether its in the form of birds transplanting eggs or regurgitating the fish itself, who knows. They could have swim upstream, or maybe even underground springs that no one else knows about. I think most of the time nature is more in control than we realize.

Chris

Went fly fishing down at the pond...as I mentioned in previous posts there are still bullheads and "greenies" in big numbers...an update, now catching 4-6 inch golden shiners and have spotted 2 inch long fingerling bass...BTW the shiners really like the mosquito pattern fly!! Still trying to figure out how they got in the pond...pretty much ruled out "help" and there's not a chance of them coming in from and outside water source...so, I'm left with the stork method, a fish rain, spontaneous combustion or a perpetual puzzle...at any rate, I think I'll proceed with trapping and the 9 year old catch and toss method !...will not remove the shiners, just "greenies" and bullheads...

I have so many bullheads they are keeping the clay stirred up in the pond. It was crystal clear last summer. I caught over 200 this past week and only 2 were big enough not to be born last year. I stocked heavy on bass and am fishing heavily for the adults.

Being raised on a ranch, in rancing / farming country, I have seen many small stock ponds dug and never be stocked. "Just so the cows can drink." Most are filled by runoff, no chance of fish swimming in to them. Yet they all end up with fish. Usually not a desirable species. Mostly green perch and what we call mudcat. Sometimes bass appear.

Nobody stocked them. There is no swimming from another pond. Leaves the only chance for it to happen to be birds. Or I heard once that fish eggs can evaporate from one pond and enter another pond via rain. Didnt believe that one.

So im left just supposing that the God who designed it all wanted fish in the ponds. So He devised a way for them to get there.

Then we could discuss how the pond weeds get transferred into new ponds!

Nick, I guess that differences of opinion is why we have horse races. Ain't no way I'm going to believe that fish eggs can overcome the incredibly impossible odds needed to go from one pond to another and establish a population.

However, I also don't play the lottery. I heard a 'theory' the other day concerning lottery odds. It said that if you 'invested' $100 per week starting at age 18 and played until you were 75, you would have one chance in 100 of winning the jackpot. Tonights Texas lottery is in excess of $120,000,000. Somebody will win. So, long odds can be overcome but I can't believe that it will happen with life of any kind. It probably goes without saying that I don't believe that the stork brings babies.