Hello to everyone!!!

First of all I have been a member to the forum for a while, but have been really too busy too check in. I am a big fan of this site as well, ya'll know what you are talking about when it comes to ponds.

Now to the issues, I have a spring feed pond and it is about 15 years old and I really have not had time to mess with it much. This year I have a little time to really start working on it. First it is about .8 acres and is stocked with Florida bass, Catfish and hybrid blue gill. I know this is wrong, but that was what my dad stocked it with. I have a tipical stunted bass situation, most of the bass is about 8 to 12 inches and any given day you can catch quite a few of them. Today I stopped by and bought 5Ibs of golden shiners and about 100 coppernose blue gill and put in it. I know I need some more but did not really want to invest a ton right off the bat.

I do have uncontrolled water weed issue as well. My plan is to stock sum Grass Carp and talipia in the next few weeks. At that time I will add some more BG and GS. The talipia should help out my bass out. The guy I spoke to at the fish store told me I should fertilize as well.

My question is should I fertize before I put in the GC and Talipia or after. I know the pond has not been fertized for at least 10 years and when we did it at that time the water weeds exploded.

Any other input would be apreciated and I have attached a pic as well. The pic is a least 3 years old, but it is in the same condition.

I may have put this in the wrong spot, also my pond is the bigger one in the pic with the weeds around it.

I don't think you need to fertilize but somebody with more experience should be along to answer the question soon. From what I have read here, the fertilizer will add to the weed situation.

I wouldn't start with fertilizer. Actually, why do you think, other than what the guy said, that you need fertilizer?

For Grass carp, you have to apply to the TPWD for a permit. Once you get that, you can buy and stock them. What kind of uncontrolled vegetation do you have? How bad is it?

If you stock bluegill, make sure that they are at least 5 to 6 inches. Anything smaller are bass snacks.

Nothing wrong with tilapia. I like them.

All that said, I would first start hammering bass and reduce their numbers. When the average size bass gets to be 14 inches, you may be getting close to going to step 2 which is tying all of the pieces together.

Not sure what type of weeds, I will take a pic tomorrow and post. The bluegill I put in today was about 5 to 6 inches. I thought at this time might be the best time to put some bait fish since I am seeing a ton of bass that just hatched.

I am sending in for a permit in the morning, looks like it could be a month or so before I can get them stocked. I like the idea of talipia, anthor fish I can my 3 year old to catch as well.

I am going to get a feeder going in the next week or so as well.

This afternoon I caught 4 bass out out of there in about 15 minutes. I threw one back since it was full of eggs. Should I have put that one back? I figured it would spawn and most of them will be dinner.

Forgot about the fertilizer reply, he asked me how clear the pond was and I told him you could see about 3 to 4 feet to the bottom. The pond is crystle clear, it does not have much of a green tint to it.

Leebass:

Yank every bass out that is less than 14", even 16"; especially any full of eggs. While it seems that them spawning will create more food, actually it's just the opposite. There will be more mouths to feed, so everybody gets less food.

Just trying to save you some $$ here, but I'd get the LMB removed before adding any other forage fish. For one LMB to put on a pound of weight, it needs to consume 10# of forage fish. Run the numbers, but say you have 50 LMB in the pond. That's 500# of forage fish that you have to add just to get 1# on 50 LMB.

WRT adding fertilizer, if the weeds are actively growing, and you put in fertilizer, you might just be feeding the weeds.....

Leebass:

I am new to this forum and joined to get information about replacing my drain. I had severe weed problems about four years ago. They showed up one day and the next day they engulfed my entire three acre lake. It was unfishable. Greg Grimes w/ "Water Works" in Ball Ground, GA hooked me up with some herbicide that I mixed in a handheld pump sprayer. I got in my john boat and just sprayed it all over the surface of the lake and it killed every weed in there. Then he got me 13 triploid sterile grass carp. Worked like a charm. Remember that with all the weeds, the small fish have too many places to hide and can't be eaten.

Waterdawg,

Thanks, my pond is not unfishable right now but the way the weed grow it will be by the summer. In most years I have ducks during the winter and clean up most of the weeds, but they did not show up this year. I am going to try the caro and talipia for a couple of reasons. First, I need plenty of cover for my new BG and GS to hide in before they become dinner. Second, I like to have a natural way of managing weeds with out chemicals.


I am hoping to get this pond under control in the next couple of years. I am hoping to really enlarge it in about 3 years. There is a 3rd ditch that runs behide the pond right now and I did a quick survey on the elevation and I can expand this 3/4 of acre pond to almost 2ac. At that point I can cut the dam and really don't have to do much stocking.