New member here saying hello. Registered last year and this is my first post. This is also our first time owning a pond and everything I know (very little) I've learned from this site.
We bought a place in Southeast Georgia and have owned it for a year now with an approx acre pond on it. It is spring fed with an overflow system that flows into the drainage system of the property. Even during the driest months, the pond only drops an inch or two. Benefit of living in a watershed area I guess...
The trees around the pond are Bradford Pears (which I have read on this forum are not the idea trees for around a pond) with two small Oaks in the dam. These trees were already planted when we bought the property.
Just as info for this post, there are bass, bream, and grass carp in the pond. These were as well when the property was purchased. I'll start reading the appropriate forum for this before asking questions.
In general, I'm looking for some basic advice on maintenance if needed(haven't done a thing to the pond since we bought the property), trees, and any other structural aspects I should take into account.
Thanks for any input and the great info on the site!
Welcome Ted, That's a real nice setting you have, congrats!
Your pond looks very well maintained from a yard maintenance aspect, mine on the other hand...
At any rate, what are your main goals for the pond and what are any secondary interest for the BOW.
e.g. A swimming pond has different maintenance needs than a catfish raising pond. Tell us what you want and I am sure you'll get a lot of help getting there.
Main goals are to have a pond for my family to fish in and just watching the sunrise over it. No swimming.
Fishing will be catch and release. Our property backs up to a decent size creek that flows to the Satilla River, so that is where we do our fishing for fish to eat.
We have seen five grass carp about 2.5 feet long, around 12 to 15 bass with the biggest being about a foot, turtles, bream(pic attached), and tons of minnows.
You mention trees on the dam which can be a problem long term. Removing some fish can be a benefit to managing a pond for fishing, although most think catch and release is helping. Experts here can help with that once you have a better idea of the fish sizes and condition in your pond. It does look nice!
I was one of those people that thought the best thing for my pond would be catch and release. I have since changed my mind drastically.
Catch and release is, by far, the simplest method of management...read "no real management". There is nothing wrong with this approach and things may just manage themselves, happens all the time with farm ponds that get little to no attention, or not.
Do some reading on Relative Weights of fish and how to use this as a tool for managing your pond's inhabitants. I've no experience in the techniques (my pond gets stocked this weekend), but it does not appear to be too complicated and a great first step in understanding what's going on in the pond. E.g. If you catch a lot of fish that are 5 inches long and they are skinny (low relative weight), but you also catch decent numbers of fish that are 20 inches long and are fat and happy (high relative weight) then you have a lack of forage for the 5 inchers and maybe too many in that size range. You can decide to feed these skinny fish and possibly aerate the pond to help increase their size and the ponds load capacity, or remove a lot of the 5 inchers leaving less fish in the pond for the current amount of available food. Maybe not the best example nor nearly as complex as they get, but you get the idea of how the tool can be used. Many unmanaged small ponds will tend to overpopulate and the population of fish will become stunted, leaving your fishing visitors catching a lot of hungry, small, skinny fish with no real big fish to get excited about. Most people use the relative weight charts and their catch records to establish slot limits for their pond to help push populations and sizes in the right direction.
Ponds require management to reach ones goals in most cases. One fun thing to do is learn how to do a seine survey. Kids love to see fish in a seine net and it helps you determine population status and fish condition.
If you have kids who'd enjoy the activity, hand feeding the BG is immense fun! My grandkids can't get enough of it, and actually prefer it to catching fish. So do I.
Feeding also makes for easier fishing, a better BG population, and healthier bass since they have more forage fish.
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