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Hope this is the correct folder for this question...

My pond is filled by run off from hay fields. It does not get water from other ponds or a creek. To my knowledge the pond has never been stocked.

First, please help me ID three dead fish from the pond, photographed yesterday.



Fish in photo #1 looks like a bluegill.



Top fish in photo #2 is about 5" long and looks like a gizzard shad or maybe a pickled herring.

Bottom fish in photo #2 looks like a glass minnow.

Do those guesses look correct?


Next, how did they get here? Neighbors on either side say ducks and other water birds inadvertently carry fish eggs on their feet/feathers, and spread fish around. A better theory than spontaneous generation or random strangers throwing in fish, but does it really happen?

Thanks!

Edited to get the photos from imgur, not photobucket.

Last edited by Gill Bass; 02/23/18 11:52 PM.
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Here's my guess:

1) bluegill
2) golden shiners
- they swam into your pond during a high rainfall event

That and $4 will buy you a beer in a local bar.

Last edited by Redonthehead; 02/23/18 03:45 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Redonthehead
Here's my guess:

1) bluegill
2) golden shiners
- they swam into your pond during a high rainfall event

That and $4 will buy you a beer in a local bar.



I concur on the high rainfall event as have witnessed such first hand on multiple occasions myself. Green Sunfish and Bluegill generally more likely to do it, but I have seen Golden Shiners do it at well. Rainfall events must be intense and water relatively warm. The do it when light levels are low.


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birds do not carry eggs on their feet or feathers, and even if you can prove that they did, you can't imagine that those eggs are viable when they show up in the new pond. So that theory is less plausible than any other. Funny how that seems to be the prevailing 'truth' though.

Fish most likely had to swim in under their own power or be bucket stocked by 2 legged life forms.

Can all of you see both pictures in number 1? I use Internet Explorer at work and photobucket usually is blocked. Strange thing is that the first picture is blocked and the 2nd one is coming in just fine. Are some pictures allowed in photobucket now? I used to use the CHrome extension to allow photobucket pictures to show but work now won't let me use chrome so hoping others found a way around the block with internet explorer.

For example in this random (but pretty awesome thread) about half of the pictures are showing and the other half are not!

Herman Brothers!!

Cody Note: Yes this is a crime of Photobucket using pictures as randsom. Those pics of fish from the Herman Brother's were very impressive fish. HBros should get a new thread going with their fish pictures to show what is now available when anglers visit their Giant Goose Ranch and fishing adventure emporium.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/24/18 10:27 AM.
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I can see how Golden Shiners could be dispersed as embryos by shore birds. The Golden Shiners spawn in very shallow water, usually on fibrous materials like submerged grass or exposed root wads. The eggs are strongly attached to the fibrous materials. Some of the fibrous material is loose / easily dislodged from rest. A shore bird walking through such and launching from it could have some the loose fibrous material clinging to a foot / lower leg. Embryos / eggs attached to it can survive a few minutes out of water so long as they stay moist. If the bird flies directly to new body of water and alights, the fibrous materials can be deposited with potential of some successfully completing development. It is easy for me to have egg laden fibrous material cling to seine braille. It is also easy to demonstrate how wet fibrous material can stick the leg of a bird such as a chicken.

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I once, a long time ago, bought a duck, killed it, and tried my best to get bluegill eggs to stick to it. Didn’t work


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

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I can get Bluegill eggs to stick just about any surface including me, but only under particular conditions. For Bluegill eggs to stick to a ducks feet, the duck would need to stand still in the nest as the Bluegill are spawning. Bluegill are have experience with, which is significant, will not keep spawning if so intruded upon. The eggs loose their adhesive nature within seconds of being extruded.

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The presence of fish-free bodies of water all over the USA before large human populations were present tells the story.

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There are time, chance, size and distance components to how likelihood a given body will host a naturally dispersed population. A given body is not apt to get new recruits every year and most bodies of water are short-lived rarely last more than a few decades. There is chance of fish kill each year which adds up over time and becomes a major issue when colonization events are rare. Smaller bodies are likely to support smaller and simpler assemblages that are less resilient in face of potential extirpation events. Increasing distance from potential sources of founders decreases odds colonization will occur in a given time frame.

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So everyone is on board with "golden shiner" (or Notemigonus crysoleucas to Centrarchid)for both the fish in #2?

meh... I have to admit, the bigger one did not taste like pickled herring.

I can see sneaking some bluegill into a neighbor's pond so you can catch them later, but how do shiners fit into that scheme? Maybe they put some black bass in as well.

I need to find out what is in there. What forum to discuss LEGAL electro-shocking?

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Yep golden shiners - young of year and an adult. Shiners could have been easily added from a bait bucket release. All anglers want to be fish stockers.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/24/18 10:11 PM.

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Just an FYI, I personally witnessed a green heron pick up a small BG, fly a ways, and drop it. It dropped in the same pond.

Had the bird started its flight 30 feet further west, the BG would have been "stocked" from my main pond to my sediment pond. It did not happen, but it sure could have.

Further distances??? I have no idea.

Could certain birds purposely "stock" new fishless ponds??? I also have no idea. But I have seen a GBH travel an inordinate amount of times to my new RES pond before it had enough fish in it to be of any interest to it for a fishing spot considering there were 4 other ponds nearby chocked full of fish. I suppose it could have been fishing for frogs though.

I do not know. Just makes me wonder. Nature has a way of surprising us in doing weird things to keep life happening.

Last edited by snrub; 02/24/18 10:29 PM.

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I have also seen Great Blue Herons drop fish with a couple instances where prey is dropped onto water. At hatchery where I worked, such likely caused a stocking of one pond desired to be fish-less from another about 100' away. Event had to be repeated for subsequent spawning to occur. Another observation a had a heron fly at least 100 yards before dropping a fish back into the same body of water. Other times fish is dropped on the bank where heron walks out of water to manipulate it prior to swallowing. A frequent factor leading to drops is the heron with fish was disturbed either by me or another heron.

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If the bird drops a female fish in a pond...isn't he then going to have to go back and pick out a male fish and return to the same pond and drop it too??? Hmmm?? Gbh aroung my pond don't seem to drop anything put big white globs of poop!!


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If you are have several ponds in a group close together with only one with fish, then sample the others periodically you will find that many ponds have only one fish. Of those having two fish of the same species, half can be expected to have a pair. As distance increases from the source pond, odds a given "fish-less" pond will be stocked decreases, but is not zero. It is a business of probabilities, not absolutes.

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I think that humans were responsible in some part, even in pre-European colonization North America. I think they would move fish from one body to another close by, so they could diversify their future fishing opportunities. In their migrations, they usually passed by the same bodies of water annually. I think that floods of the 1,000 to 5,000 year variety also played some part.

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I believe that our ancestors stocked fish but don’t know to what extent. Nobody does. I can see them taking small fish for a small distance but not very far. Floods would be the best suspect.

I don’t believe the bird story. I can see how it might be theoretically possible but not to any large extent.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

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GBH around here drop fish all the time...idk why, but I've seen them take spawning gills from my pond and fly to the next pond 400' away. There's so many GBH along the Mississippi flyway, its ridiculous.


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