Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Newbie, Need Suggestions

Recently retired, own a property with a 2/3 acre , 13 year old, stocked pond. Previous owner said pond has too many fish, stunting their growth. Has BG, CC, LGM. Other than fishing it heavily, and/or draining the pond, any other suggestions to getting rid of the stunted fish? Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!!

welcome to PB Brady, i'm a rookie fish manager but have my suggestion for you:

traps or seine (net).

depending on yer goals you need to evaluate the body condition of the LMB and BG and manage appropriately. some folks here like large BG, so having alot of small stunted LMB is not a bad thing. however, if you want big LMB, you need to cull out that stunted LMB population, and boost the BG as the forage base.

for me personally, i would also remove as many CC as possible as well.

hang on for more opinions, the experts will be back in a couple days after the PB conference.

Well you can start by doing what DIED say. Cull all the smaler stunted fish ou. increase forage base and remove CC is you want a LM pond. But then again I am pretty much a rookie, without much knowledge. But soon the PB gurus shall return from their weekend of bafoonery and excess!!!

Are you enjoying retirement? I retired in Sept. The projects seem to be endless. Your pond sounds like my sand pit 5 years ago. It was just there happening on it's own when we had a fish kill in August (five years ago). A big FA bloom and die off. The DO went into the toilet, and so did a lot of the fish. It was then I assessed that the pond needed management (nature has it's moods and swings and intervention was needed to meet my expectations). We put in an aeration system, I started treating with copper sulfate and Cutrine, and we started feeding the fish. See my comment in Water Chemistry about copper sulfate (It's good stuff for ponds managed for aesthetics only).

The reason your fish are stunted is they don't have enough to eat. Too many fish for natures offerings. My BG at that time were about 2", and a ton of them. I would catch a bunch and use them for bait. Well five years later they are table fare. The pond faired well over the winter. I lost two cc which were about 25". The water finally warmed up to where the fish started feeding. I know the advice is to not start feeding until the water temp is 60+, so just a half a coffee can to check things out. Wow, they were hungry with wt about 45.

I know, I'm rambling. I'm very pleased with my results, however. I've got some cc over 30", LMB over 20", and most bg over 8". The water is pretty clear (5'), the fishing is exciting, and I enjoy an occasional harvest. All I can say is what worked for me and share the experience. Note that if you start feeding pellets and your BG are stunted, they will not be able to eat the pellets. I use Aqua Max Omni which is the floating type. The cc will eat it but in the early phases BG will only be able to lip a soaked nugget. To solve this problem, crush some nuggets. Oh, the LMB need something. They will hammer the very small BG, but need something else. I buy a gallon of FHM a couple of time a year to help them a long. I know, time and money.

I hear the question on this forum, "what are your objectives?" I'm very happy with being able to achieve mine... Good luck and good fishing.

I suggest do some extensive fishing this Spring/Summer and decide for yourself exactly what you have AND what your goals are. 2/3 acre should be manageable by fishing, seining, trapping, and possibly corrective stockings (like Grandma wore).

I'll echo what others have said...feed a bit and fish a lot. If you can take 100 small gills by traps or rod/reel, you'll see a pretty quick turnaround on your BG size. Take some CC out (IMHO, not all, as larger cats can prey on pretty decent size BG) but they also will help keep the smaller ones in check.

Starting this past winter, on my bigger pond, no BG get returned to the water...they get fileted (no matter how big) or they are mulch. They'll keep up...

LMB...not an expert as they're not my favorite game species, but start sorting...take out some smaller ones (they eat good, too, ya know) and watch those left behind start growing.

You might try contacting a local professional to see if you could get an electrofishing survey done. That would give you the best idea of the species and size structures you are dealing with. Then you could come up with a good plan of attack to manage the pond based on your goals.