Scott:
The pond was originally a 4 acre pond with no bullhead observed. It was dried out for 2 years and then expanded by an additional 9 acres with completion 3 months later. That was three years ago. It was shaped, contoured, built to my specs with islands for wind breaks, ridge lines with ledge drop offs from shallow flats in areas to deep water, points with bolder pile edges, 350 full size leaf free orange tree strategically placed for both bluegill and ambush locals for LMB, BG and LMB pea gravel flats for spawning, Vertex three station aeration with depth to 16'. It is a bass and bluegill Disneyland! Ray Scott has nothing on this pond as far as design and fish features, we went all out. We have a 3,000 gallon p.m. / 1,300' well which we used to fill the pond. We have other ponds and ditches around the pond we hunt ducks on that we drain and are bone dry throughout the summer which we roll to grow timothy and water grass to kill ducks, but they have no connection to our main pond due to big levees. However, we do have lots of waterfowl in the surrounding ponds and I wonder if this could have somehow been a source or maybe inadvertently some came with the Coppernose bluegill we stocked accidentally. I have used the same fish supplier for the last 7 years on other ponds and lakes I manage and never had or seen a non-requested species in the mix. I know they didn't come with the LMB. Who knows where they came from but we have some, how many I don't know. I have not seen and spawn balls of little ones, so maybe our small population of LMB are controlling them already and what I am observing are ones that have exceed meal size for the existing LMB.
You have a nice website by the way.
So Scott, on traps what would you suggest or not? Or am I just making a bigger deal and my LMB will take care of them eventually. In other ponds with healthy LMB populations I don't find concentrations of bullhead very often.
Dave
