Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Owner of first pond

Greetings all--

My wife and I have just purchased 60+ acres in NE Texas, with this old 3/4 acre pond on it. As you can see, it is heavily wooded on almost all sides, and has some vegetation in and around it, but it is not choked with plants by any means. We need to do some clearing of the underbrush, at least on the two sides nearest the homestead, to make it more attractive and fishable.

Although I was told that there were some bass in it, I have not been able to prove that myself. Instead, there is an abundance of green sunfish (which I am finding out are quite the popular topic on this forum) in the 4-5" range--they are quite aggressive, even hitting the fishing line itself where it enters the water. No catfish at all.

Pond is fairly deep at the dam (8-10'), only about 2' at the south end opposite the dam. It appears to be quite old from a review of historical satellite imagery, as well as the size of the trees around it, and while fed only by runoff from a 15 acre watershed it reportedly has never been very low.

My desire for the pond is to produce good fishable populations of largemouth bass and channel cats. My questions center around two things. First, does the abundance of mature trees around the pond create any pond management challenges for me?

Second, what quantities of LMB and CC should I be thinking about stocking? To my knowledge, there are no bluegill or perch, unsure about carp; and I would like to add a few grass carp to maintain the vegetation you can see around the pond edges, so was thinking 3-5 grass carp--does that sound about right?

Oh, third question, the muddiness of the water--how can I tell if this is caused by carp, or just a naturally-occurring phenomenon?

I have already learned a lot from perusing this forum, and appreciate all feedback.

Welcome to the forum. I am sure you are aware of the knowledge that is based in here. You photos look great, were these taken here recently? I am glad to see that you have defined goals for your pond. I would suggest thinking about these four elements: Habitat, Food chain, Harvest and Genetics.

The amount of trees helps in cooling your pond. Potential area where trees could be negative: dam. Willow trees would also be a concern, due to the amount of water the consume.

My first thought for your LMB and CC question, is to build the food chain.

The most common source of turbidity is erosion from barren shorelines and upland areas. Does your water look green?

Welcome Wildcat! That pond is a gem in the rough.

re: trees. Joshua is right about the trees on the dam. But, there's not much you can do about them now. The general rule of thumb is this:
If the trees are less than 4" DBH (diameter breast height) then they can be safely removed. Trees larger than that tend to have larger root systems, and when they are killed, the roots will rot and decay over time, potentially forming a path for water to escape your pond, and weakening the dam.

As for adding LMB and CC, first you have to be sure what fish are in the pond, and what size. If you are 100% sure that there are no LMB in the pond, the first question is why. Were they fished out? Did the pond go thru a fish kill that killed the more fragile LMB?

If there are LMB in the pond, then any smaller LMB that you stock will be expensive food for them. If they were killed during a fish kill, then if you don't take steps to prevent that from happening again, you will lose expensive fish.

LMB will eat fish 1/4 to 1/3 their size (length). In any case, if I were to stock LMB because of no or a very small population, I would stock 25 to 35 LMB 10" long or so. That would make them too large for any existing LMB to eat, and they can start making a dent in the Green Sunfish population.

CC, if you are sure you want to add them, I'd stock 25 to 50 6"-9" in size. I'd keep a notebook on what I caught and removed from the pond, and add just the amount of CC next year that I removed.

They will grow quicker if you feed and aeration will help the pond as well.

Before I stocked Grass Carp, I'd make sure of my plant identifications, and look to see if those plants that you don't like are on the Grass Carp preferred food list. If not, you will be stocking them for nothing.

To determine if the muddy water is caused by fish or other reasons, take a sample in a clean clear jar and set it on the counter for a day or so. Does it get clearer by suspended solids settling out? If so, there is something in the pond that is stirring up the bottom. That issue will need to be addressed before you add any fish.

If not, then the water might be cleaned up by an alum treatment. Search on here for muddy water and alum. If your turbidity is really an algae bloom, and you have visibility of 18" to 36", then life is good.

to recap:
1) determine current fish population - don't guess. It'll cost you $$ that you wouldn't have to spend.
2) identify the pond plants that you want to control. For a good balanced pond, you should have right around 25% of the pond area in cover for the fish to hide and feed in.
3) identify the source of your turbid water

The only other down side to the trees is the amount of organic matter that they deposit in the pond from the leaf load in the fall.

Are you planning on aerating and/or feeding?

Good stuff, I appreciate the guidance. I had not planned on feeding of arerating, no real reason other than the property is about 5 hours from our home, so we will only be there sporadically.

Appreciate the tip on the grass carp--I will take some plant samples on next trip up there and do some ID when I get home. The pond really isn't troubled very much by a large percentage of plant cover, so maybe I will just leave well-enough alone now w.r.t the grass carp.

Re: the fish survey--am assuming you would recommend determining population by taking a sample via the 30 minute fishing method using different techniques/lures/etc.? Or some other way...?

Copy all re: the trees--these are too big to remove from the dam, will just have to keep a watch to see if I start getting more and more leakage in the gully behind the dam.

The photos were taken in the past month, and to my knowledge, there has never been any kind of a fish kill on the pond. There were reports of the neighbors catching LMB, so I can't prove there aren't any still in the pond, so re-stocking with larger LMB sure makes sense.

Hello Wildcat and welcome to Pond Boss. Great first post!

You sir have been blessed with the most magnificent of the sunfish species.

Each day you should praise their existence in your pond and manage your pond to accommodate this gift.


Oh and beautiful pond by the way.

re: fish survey.

Of all the fish sampling methods (electroshock, seining, fishing) fishing is the least effective. If the pond has been fished consistently, there will be fish in there that are very hook shy. For instance, I'm trying to remove CC from my pond (1 to 1 3/4 ac depending on time of year). I stocked 100 6"-9" CC the Spring of 2009. I have a few CC that were in the pond longer than that, and I know that I have 4 CC in the pond that are 29" long or larger. I have had a trotline set in my pond for the past month and a half, with a hook every 4', stretching from one end of the pond to the other. I run the trotline every day, rebaiting when necessary. In that time, I've only caught 10 CC, with one of them being one of the large 29" CC.

So, judging by those fishing results, I could say that my CC population is very low, not the 100+ fish that I know are in there.

As for the plant samples, if you can't ID them, take a clear picture of a single stem or 2 including leaves on a piece of white paper for a background and post it in the identifying plants forum.

Here's a link to a post that has some good I.D. information in it.

And no, the water isn't green at all, just a muddy brown color. I will take a water sample on next trip and see if it settles out after awhile.