Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Fish Color

Hi All relative Newbie here.

I have a 2/3 acre pond in SW NYS - 2 years holding fish. We have LMB, Hybrid BG, Perch, channel cats - app 40-50 of each type - and from a local fishing trip 18 local fish Perch, Bluegill, and rock bass.

Plenty of feed - just placed 7 lbs of fat heads in this spring - seems like plenty of feed for them. Fish are doing fine - LMB doubled in size year to year.

Question: The fish seem pale compared to local specicies in the lake - why is that? My fish are lighter / silver colored. The LMB in the lake have a dark green hue and the black is REALLY black. Mine look a lot lighter and have no green hue at all.

The pond does NOT have a lot of vegetation in it at this point.

What is causing that & Should I do anything about it?

I wouldn't worry about it. It's most likely caused by your water color, and available sunlight.

The FHM were probably a quick snack for the fish. A single LMB needs 10# of food to gain 1 pound in weight.

I would say it's the water color also. My pond stays pretty muddy and all of my BG are not very colorful.

Are you bass pellet trained? Doesn't seem like there is much forage in your pond if they aren't... I would be more concerned about that.

CJB - I do feed them w/ Pellets as well. The fish doubled in size in 12 months - the LMB were 5-6" last year - and now they are all around 10-12". Seem like they are growing fine.

There are a tremendous number of frogs and salamanders - lots of pollywogs and critters in the pond as well.

Pretty new at this - but I would have thought the 7 lbs placed in there this spring would have created a pretty good jolt to the forage already in there (put at least 10 lbs on fatheads last year as well).

Love to hear your thoughts.

Without any pure BG, you are relying solely on YP and HBG as your forage base. HBG are typically 90-95% males, this means they have a low reproduction rate. Not a good trait for a forage species. Your YP have a higher reproductive rate, but do not handle LMB predation well and will be extirpated from your pond in a generation or two. Without additional adult sized fish stockings, you won't have any YP in your pond. That would leave HBG, LMB and pellets. Depending on your goals, that can be a fine combination. What are your goals?

CJ,

I think jloestro did say he added some regular bluegills from another body of water.



I personally would have kept the rock bass out of the pond. Just another predator which will compete with your other predators. However I'm not sure how well rock bass reproduce in ponds so you may be fine.

I see I missed that... Well, then perhaps those 18 will pull of the needed reproduction to help feed the fish.