Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Winter Aeration - Do I need it if fed by a creek?

Thanks for the replies. I have only been in the house for 1 year now. When I moved in last year I didn't see much for fish other than some small (2-3") BG, lots of minnows and creek chubs. So my thoughts initially were that either 1. there was winterkill with the previous owner, or 2. Otter have depleted the pond. After living here for a year, I have heard lots of stories about people catching 36"+ pike out of the pond years ago... I haven't seen any evidence of it, but then again, I am probably not on it enough to tell.

This winter I plan to Ice fish it to see if there are any Pike in it the only evidence of Pike I have seen is below the spillway and they were small.

The previous owner put the Dam in ~15 years ago, but hasn't done anything to the pond... I added aeration and bacteria to try and take care of some of the muck this year.

As with most of us, it has become my grown up "fish tank"...

As for flow, I measure it across the Dam on a periodic basis to understand how much flow I have seasonally to couple the initiative of building a power generating waterwheel... but that is an entirely different discussion! Velocity is between 4-5Ft/s, so calculating the flow is as simple as sticking the depth and width of the water on both sides. We had an extremely dry year this year, so in July/August I saw times 0 Gal/Min, which is unheard of according to the previous owners... Probably the reason I also had a large algae bloom and lilypads.

The last time I went out to fish it I was happy to catch a few of my planter RBT, but am shocked that I never catch any BG or HBG.

I appreciate your thoughts and just wanted to say I enjoy reading the content on here.

Jason