Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Need Help, Starting Over

OK this is it, I am going to drain my pond and start over so I have some questions. First I want to tell you about the
pond. The pond is .5 acres with depths of 12 feet and an average depth of about 9 feet(if I did it right). It is fed by a
small stream and has springs in the pond. When the pond fills the extra water backs up into the creek and makes a
stream around the pond to a swamp and then into another creek. This pond is about 20 years old and has had some
sort of fish in it most of it's life.
About the fish, almost 10 years ago I stocked bass and bluegill in it and was removing any pike that I
caught, with excellent results. The bass were all 14”-22” long ,22 of them, and the bluegill were all nice size but
not sure how many were put on because more than one person was helping me. Recently I put in about 20 keeper
crappie, witch I later found out was bad.
About the catch, when all of this stocking was first done the fishing was great, bass bit good and you could
catch them pretty easily and the gills could be caught but not as good as it is now. All bass were released and small
numbers of gills were kept except I have a pretty good idea that people were trespassing and taking fish out. Now
the bass fishing has been getting worse every year, I can catch them but very few and the ones that I catch are 2-3
pounds, maybe 1 per time out. I can see more bass and lots of minnow bass but I don't catch or see small 8-12
inchers or so. The gills that I catch now are 50% 6”+ and 50% 6”- with some of them reaching 10+ inches. One
note about the gills, in the winter ice fishing I can't catch very many keeper gills but lots of 3-5 inchers. Since the
crappie were put in they are caught once in a while, also a pike is caught once in a while but very rarely.
About the plan of attack, I want to drain the pond empty and try to net any fish that I can get and put them
in another pond or something other than killing them because I am afraid that there might be some nice ones in the
pond. If I can't do this then I will drain it down as far as I can and poison the fish to get a total kill. While the
pond is down I also am going to build a concrete dam so I can control the water depth and to have better flood
control and so I can have water moving thru the pond to keep the top of the water clean . I am then going to stock
the pond with adult bass and bluegill and some type of minnows for the bass if necessary.
After the plan of attack, I hope I will keep up on the managing and testing the water and keeping records
of all fish caught and anything else that I will need to do. I have started to read about this subject and am getting
very excited to get started.
In addition to all of this I want this pond to be mainly trophy bass with bluegills as a secondary priority,
probably just like most everybody else.
The questions.
1. How many adult bass and gills can I put in this .5 acre pond?
2. Can the gills be just hybrids or none or a combination?
3. Will I need to feed the bass? The gills?
4. How many fish should I take out per year if I start out with adult fish?
5. When should I put them in?
6. What do you think of my plan? Should I drain and start from scratch?
Well this is about all I can think of right now. I have read some information on this but not on stocking
adult fish and I also just want to know what all of you thought. It seems that there are no all around answers when
people ask about what to do it seems as though all ponds are just a little different and need different methods to
produce the wanted results. Thank you very much for any of your ideas and answers to my post I hope to hear from
allot of you fellow pond bossers.

Hello, I have started the process. The creek that comes in to the pond has been damed up so no water is coming in. The water is down about a foot right now, but I still plan on getting a pump to go the rest of the way. I will start to pump in the middle of August and plan on taking pictures to post on here so everybody can see what is going on.
I have answered some of my own questions from the reading that has been suggested to me, thank you all.

Jawbone. Have you made any plans for keeping fish alive when you get the water level down and find out that there are still some good ones left that are worth keeping? When the water level gets low enough it should be pretty easy to net the fish left and put them into another small pond or holding area until your main pond is up and running again. How about fencing off a portion of the creek to keep them contained until you are ready to put them back? I'll be watching for the pictures and following your progress with great intrest.
Dan

jawbone; here are a couple of my thoughts to help you when you continue on your pond restocking.
1. keep in mind that you only have a .5 ac pond and most experts including PBoss say you shouldn't or it is real hard to grow bass & bgill in less than one acre. I think to do it you have to be aware of several things.

2. In a small pond less the 1 ac the fish get educated real fast to fishing pressures (lures). There have been studies that bass can pass on "lure smart" genes to their offspring (I have the reference). Thus each generation in a small pond keeps getting hook smarter & harder to catch. If you stocked 100 bass in a sm pond and when they are 12-13" long fish them; some will bite over and over, some couple times, some only once and a few will never bite. Obviously those "dumb" ones that are removed, no longer pass dumb genes on the future little ones; thus with continued heavy fishing pressure bass and even bgill keep getting harder & harder to catch. Just heavy fishing with catch and release, also creates "hook smart fish". This could be one reason you were having a harder time catching fish in the old pond. The smaller the pond and the more the fishing pressure the more this is true.
3. Thus I do not recommend you put any of the old fish back into the rebuilt pond, start out with all fresh fish which will have a large number of "dummies" to provide good fishing until they get educated.
4. Always try to maintain some fish in each size class. This helps keep a balance so when old fish die one close to its size fills in.
5. I think it is best if you don't start out right away with big fish unless you can stock a mixture of sizes to obtain a natural balance. Plus dummy fish should be used so they pass on fewer hook smart genes. Big fish depend on lots of the appropriate sized prey/forage to grow and maintain health. Without it they become stressed. Size structure and correct numbers are important in a healthly balanced fish community. Follow Bob Lusk's advice "Growing Trophy Bass". Of course keep in mind he says you can't or shouldn't do bass/bgill in less than one acre. It's not easy for numerous reasons; some listed above. It can be done it just has limits. The bigger the water the easier it is to do a bass/bgill fishery and maintain good fishing.

Thank you Bill, I must have some really smart fish , maybe i'm the one that isn't hooking smart ha ha. The pond is down about 3-4 feet now and I am seeing many more small 1-4 inch bluegill and have seen more bass 12-18 inches. Also have noticed how the pond has filled in with silt over the years but I still maintain a 12' depth in 3/4 of the pond. I am not sure what I am going to put in for fish now. The thoughts of a trophy bluegill pond sounds interesting.
One of my other problems is that I don't want to spend alot of money so feeding may be out of the question, but not sure. Bye for now, will keep you posted. Thanks again!

jawbone - It shouldn't cost more than $40-$50 dollars a year to feed fish (bass/bgill/perch) in a 1/2 ac. pond, even if you used Aquamax the premium feed. $40 will buy you two 50 lb bags; and that should feed plenty of bgill esp if you're not feeding hogish catfish. 100 lbs of quality fish food with a feed conversion ratio of 1.5 -1.7 should produce 58-60 lbs of fish flesh maybe a little more since they are also eating some natural food in the pond. With pellet fed fish also eating natural pond food the conversion ratio sometimes aproaches 1 to l depending on how many pounds of fish are in the pond and what the pond is producing naturally. Thus it's very important to maintain population balance and correct numbers (selective thinning) so growth is optimum among all sizes. Good and proper management is important when growing fish or any crop animal. BCody

$40 per 100#'s of Aquamax? I pay $8 per 50#'s here Bill. Wonder why the huge difference in cost.

I bought 50 lbs of the Aquamax 32% Omnivore feed last weekend. It cost me $15.75. The Games Fish Chow is about $1 per bag higher. I aasume the Mississippi feed stores make a decent profit but Texas and other places is pretty high.

OK, to catch up on questions asked of me and to ask more questions.
Dan, I am going to transfer most or all of my fish to a gravel pit pond that is about 30' deep and has no fish in it that I know of. I can't fence the creek because it isn't deep enough to handle any fish.
Bill, thanks for the price on food. I didn't realize it was so cheep for a year of feeding fish. Now I would have to buy a feeder$ Don't think i'm a tight a.. i'm just froogle .
And now the questions. What do you think of these Georgia Giant Bluegills. They said the fish will work in Michigan.
Lastly, my camera got soaked siting in my tackle box, probably lost all of my pictures of pond so far. Not to worry, pond is down only 3'-4' so there is still time for some of the good pictures of the empty pond and any fish pictures that I can get. Maybe even a picture of me stuck in the muck with a net in hand .

Jawbone,

From your original post, I get the impression that you are draining your pond and starting over with the hope of creating a better balanced fish population. If this is so, I'm curious why you chose draining your pond over using rotenone? Are you planning on doing some further excavation once the pond is drained?

I read in one of your other posts that you plan on adding a concrete dam. If you get a chance can you give us some details on what your plan is? If I'm lucky, the contractor who is going to excavate a little mud hole for me, should be here this week. Usually when I plan something like this, the weather doesn't cooperate but this summer has been so dry, the soil is like concrete. Keep us posted on your progress.

Russ

Russ, Yes I plan on other things than just fixing the fish population. One is the concrete spillway, which is nothing fancy. It will be just a box culvert without a top and the front will have boards to adjust the pond depth. The water will spill over the top board and then into the box culvert and then into a 24" steel culvert then into the creek. Nothing fancy. I also need to do alot of cleaning up of trees at the waters edge and I am going to put in a new structure for the fish. I would like to have some of the pond drug out again but am not going to at this time, I still have a good depth.
Russ, good luck with your new pond and I will keep everyone posted on mine.

Jawbone-- Thanks for keeping us posted. Sorry to hear about your camera....was hoping to see some pictures of your progress. Are you planning to put any of the fish you transfer to the gravel pit back into your pond when it's finished? I saw Bills post about hook smart bass and it sure fits in with what happens in the real world.
As for buying a feeder, I did just that. But, I don't use it. I feed them every night by hand off my dock. I enjoy watching them and seeing how they have really grown in size and the Grandkids love to feed the fish when they come out on the weekends. (Both are under 2 and they go home and throw the cat food down the basement steps calling "Fishy, Fishy". Their Mom wasn't real happy with me...)
As for keeping the cost down, we added a little over an acre to my pond with 3 tractors and an old D6 cable dozer. Took about 3 days and only cost the price of fuel.
Good luck and belive me, it is worth the time and $$$ you are investing.
Dan

Dan, No I don't plan on puting the fish back in the pond. After reading the other post I think it would be a bad thing to do. Is your feeder for sale , this pond is about 10 minutes drive from my house. I would love to feed them like you do, but I couldn't make it there every day.
Thanks for the kind words about my camera,but I now have a new one. WATER PROOF TO 17 FEET DEEP Pictures for everybody!!

Don Wray & others - $40 for 100 lbs 0r $19.95 per 50 lbs is for Aquamax 41% protein for carnivores in the BLUE bag not the green bag for ominivore fish which costs less around $15.00 per 50 lbs.

More info... The pond is down nearly 5' now and I have found a leak in the dam that I have suspected for years. It is running out pretty good(bad). Another good reason for starting over. I will be pumping on Friday so I will let y'all know everything after that. The countdown continous..10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2....

Jawbone- Gee, sounds like the same excuse I use. I broke my "......", I gotta get a new one. With the new underwater camera we can expect underwater pictures now? Sorry, you're too late on the feeder. #2 son has it about 25 yards from his treestand dispensing corn for the deer and turkeys. Was the dam leak causing a problem with the water loss and are you able to fix it without too much trouble?
Dan

Dan, sorry no under water pics, it's just for idiots like me that leave cameras out in the rain. It will take pics under water though!
The dam leak has never caused problems because there is always plenty of water coming in. It just worried me to see water boiling on the other side of the dam. My Grandpa always told me it was a spring.
I think it will be an easy fix. With some clay and a Bobcat it should be fixed in no time with the water being gone.
This will be my last post untill after the pond is pumped out and all of the fish are removed. I will let you know the results.I will be doing it Friday and Saturday so maybe a post on Sunday?
Ta ta