History: Pond was constructed by my grandfather sometime in the early 80s. It is a dammed ravine/washout that at full pool it is just shy of an acre in surface size and at low pool is approx. 2/3rds of an acre. The middle of the pond is around 12’ deep. Pond is filled solely by watershed with no BOW uphill. There is quite a bit of structure in the narrow ravine portion of the pond, old standing cedars and trees that have fallen into the pond. I have not used a secchi to check for clarity but I would estimate it to be a little over a foot. My dad told me that the pond was originally stocked with bluegill, LMB and catfish. My family used to fish the pond frequently in the late 90s and would catch catfish ranging up to a couple pounds and bass in the 1-2lb range. As far as I know no one in the family managed the pond over the years.
Recent: Over the past year and a half my hunting buddies and I have started fishing the pond more frequently. We have found that the largest bass we would catch were in the 10-12” range and were very skinny. We were also catching lots of Hybrid Sunfish. After doing some reading on these forums and talking to the folks over at Overton Fisheries we started removing every Hybrid Sunfish and the stunted LMB. Unfortunately we did not keep good records of fish removed but I would estimate we removed at least 80 LMB and 60 Hybrid Sunfish. As best as I can tell there are not any catfish left in the pond. Unfortunately, my area got very little rain this summer and as such the pond was down close to 3 feet from normal level. In the pics below the dock is normally just barely above water.
Improvements: This past April we added 190 3-6” (a few in the 9” range) CNBG and 15 lbs of Tilapia from Overton Fisheries. We also added multiple piles of cut cedar in various parts of the pond. I also made a minnow/perch trap to help check on the fish population. I have only tried the trap one time but caught a lot of what Todd Overton confirmed to be CNBG fry, that appear to be from multiple spawns(pictures attached). I had the water tested earlier this month, results attached below.
Goals: Improve the pond without spending a fortune. We would like to have a pond that can supply dinner for a few hunting trips each year, CNBG, LMB and Catfish.
Questions:
Fall stocking – I have been considering adding some 6-8” LMB to help clean up the tilapia during the die off and to help supplement genetics. Possibly add additional tilapia for easy forage as well. Thoughts? Maybe add a few catfish to help clean up?
Lime – Planning to add 500lbs of ag lime to bring up the PH. Any advice to help balance the pond is welcome. Water test attached below.
In the picture titled ‘bloodspots’ is a Hybrid I caught a couple weeks ago that had blisters(?). What causes that? Natural or something I need to address?
I included various pictures of the BOW that shows some of the vegetation on the shore. I’m clueless about what vegetation is good and bad. What do you see? Need to remove anything?
Plan going forward is to continue removing the Hybrid Sunfish and let the young bass grow. I also plan to stock Tilapia again next year, probably 30lbs and stock more CNBG. I would also like to do an additional stocking of LMB and add some catfish. Concern there, is the survivability of the bass.
We will be on the property at the end of the month for opening of bow season. If you want pictures of something specific let me know.
I plan on keeping this as a rolling thread that i can keep updated and ask additional questions.
Welcome to the club Webster! It looks like you have a great pond to manage.
I'm no end all-be all in fish ID, but I think your hybrids are really green sun fish (GSF)- someone will correct me if they are just starving HBG, but my bet is pure GSF.
I would avoid putting in any fish this year that would be big enough to eat your recent stockings. A LMB will eat larger fish 1/3 to 2/3rds the LMB's length depending on the forage's make and model. Long skinny forage will be closer to the 2/3rds while taller panfish will be more like 1/3rd the LMB length.
Your veggies look great. Maybe some smartweed in there and a type of rush grass. I like what you have because they are plants that like the bank and get into the water very little. Your pond clarity may be one of the reasons that it does not have any submerged plants or many emergents. Why is it so muddy looking? Silty run-off? Carp, Catfish, or Crawdads? It looks like you may some cat tails, if so, try to keep them to a minimum. Under the right (or wrong) conditions they can get obnoxious.
That's about all that this novice can comment on, until next time!
You are correct about the GSF, mistakenly called them hybrids.
The pond is normally a little more clear than shown in the pictures. I would attribute it to a combination of lower water level this summer and increased cow activity stirring the water up. No carp or crawdads and no catfish as best i can tell. Water clarity is something i would like to improve to help with plant and algae growth but i suspect it will be an up hill battle with the cattle.
I was hoping that the 6-8" bass would still be small enough that the majority of the CNBG i added would survive. But i guess that would depend upon how quickly they grew. Should i continue pulling out the 10"+ bass that we catch to help the CNBG population establish? Additionally, i'm not opposed to stocking larger CNBG in the future. I know that this will be tough trying to find an equilibrium between newly stocked forage fish and the already present predators.
Also, after doing some more searching around the forums i realized this topic might be better off in the Questions & Observations forum. If a mod feels the thread would get better traffic or belongs there, feel free to move it.
Welcome to the forum Webster. Yupp, those are GSF aka greenies.
My old pond was infested with them and they promptly ate the fingerling RES I stocked.
The good news is, by adding CNBG or BG big enough the GSF can't eat they will out spawn the GSF and eventually become dominant over the GSF. I added 3-6" BG to that pond and within a couple years the GSF are now a minor part of the fish population. Here is my experience with GSF. 100% GSF
I'll leave the stocking suggestions to more knowledgeable people than me. Lots of Texans on this forum that can give you good stocking advice for your latitude.
You are correct about the GSF, mistakenly called them hybrids.
The pond is normally a little more clear than shown in the pictures. I would attribute it to a combination of lower water level this summer and increased cow activity stirring the water up. No carp or crawdads and no catfish as best i can tell. Water clarity is something i would like to improve to help with plant and algae growth but i suspect it will be an up hill battle with the cattle.
I was hoping that the 6-8" bass would still be small enough that the majority of the CNBG i added would survive. But i guess that would depend upon how quickly they grew. Should i continue pulling out the 10"+ bass that we catch to help the CNBG population establish? Additionally, i'm not opposed to stocking larger CNBG in the future. I know that this will be tough trying to find an equilibrium between newly stocked forage fish and the already present predators.
Also, after doing some more searching around the forums i realized this topic might be better off in the Questions & Observations forum. If a mod feels the thread would get better traffic or belongs there, feel free to move it.
My favorite fishing spot is a 12 acre cattle ranch pond used for irrigation and water for the cows. The rancher has run a fence out into one area of the pond so that cattle can only reach the water in that spot, which helps with turbidity issues.
Fence may not be a feasible option for you, I don't know your situation. But it did seems to work for her (yes, a woman rancher). Likely to be easier to do now with low water than later.
Welcome to the forum Webster. Yupp, those are GSF aka greenies.
My old pond was infested with them and they promptly ate the fingerling RES I stocked.
The good news is, by adding CNBG or BG big enough the GSF can't eat they will out spawn the GSF and eventually become dominant over the GSF. I added 3-6" BG to that pond and within a couple years the GSF are now a minor part of the fish population. Here is my experience with GSF. 100% GSF
I'll leave the stocking suggestions to more knowledgeable people than me. Lots of Texans on this forum that can give you good stocking advice for your latitude.
That was a cool thread with some interesting observations. I will run my perch/minnow trap next weekend to get an idea of how my BG fry are progressing. I'll post some pics when i get back.
Originally Posted By: anthropic
My favorite fishing spot is a 12 acre cattle ranch pond used for irrigation and water for the cows. The rancher has run a fence out into one area of the pond so that cattle can only reach the water in that spot, which helps with turbidity issues.
Fence may not be a feasible option for you, I don't know your situation. But it did seems to work for her (yes, a woman rancher). Likely to be easier to do now with low water than later.
Unfortunately fencing isn't a viable option for me due to shape of pond and dense brush surrounding a large portion of it. The bigger problem this year was the fact that two of my other ponds dried out which meant the cattle used this pond much more than normal. During the winter this pond clears up quite a bit with less cattle cooling off in it.
