As listed in previous posts, my pond was built (expanded from a cattle watering hole) a little over a year ago. It is a little over half an acre and 12' at the deepest. Total ~4 acre/feet of water. The night it was completed, a huge weather system hung over Polk Cty. and dumped 7"+ of rain. I have a huge aggressive watershed, and at the time a shallow creek nearby. The pond filled up over night. I never thought much about it and never saw any movement in the water until I stocked fish. Mid-August, I stocked CNBG, FHM. In September I stocked RES. Nothing over 2-3" long. This end of May I stocked LMB and in July CC and BC...both species were 4" long. I caught both species of catfish after 6 weeks in the pond and they measured up to 7 1/4" of growth. This spring I caught a species of which I was unsure of and I had my Pond Boss friends help me identify as either GSF or a hybrid of. See below...now here lately, I've noticed that I have 4) distinct spawn sizes in the pond ranging from 5 1/2" to 2 1/4". Tony (Sprkplug) being the Guru of GSF that he is, I PM'ed with him and he was gracious enough to help me deal with my overpopulation issue. I have begun that process.
Next, I started catching a few of these (pictured below). I thought they might be a sunfish of sorts with maybe some GSF in the gene pool. I looked on the web last night and saw some pics of pumpkinseed that are very similar, but I really don't know. Anyone that can add something to ID'ing these...please do.
Then, I'm fishing this past Saturday evening and I hook this fish...(see below). Keep in mind, the largest fish in the pond to my knowledge are CNBG, RES, CC, and BC and the largest is 7 1/4-7 1/2".
I catch this 16" CC...as I guess more will be revealed as time goes on...I had no idea the effect that the pond filling up over night would have on my li'l BOW. The creek has been re-routed and I had it dug from originally 3' deep to now approximately 8' deep. Hopefully, the creek will no longer be an issue.
