Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations 2 Acre Pond, 10 years Old, Need help!

Hi all,

I found this board tonight and was really impressed with all the great information.

I'm a bass fisherman and fish mostly lakes in NE Ohio. I grew up down in Harrison County though and we still have a farm pond that is around 10 years old. It's around 2 acres +/- 1/2 acre and prob avg depth of 8-10 feet with some deeper reaching 12+'.

The past several years I can cound the number of 3lb bass on one hand that I've caught. I'm interested in changing that so on my once per month trip I could have a chance at getting a 3-5lb bass for catch/release.

I've caught many types of fish: bluegill(2-11"), crappie(5-12"), channel cats(5lb-18lb), a few 13-15" walleye each year, bass (5"-18") but mostly 8-12". I can sit on the dock with my kids and catch lots of bluegill by using worms on a bobber. I think there are a few big grass carp in there too.

In my past 3 trips this fall I've caught maybe 5-6 bass per 3 hours of fishing, all were 8-13" fish roughly.

My goal would is to be able to a decent population of 3-6lb bass in the pond.

I'm not around it that often but we have someone that lives close by and fishes there occasionally for pan fish.

The pond is relatively open water. Approx 40% of shoreline has tons of willow bushes that are growing and go about 10-25 feet off the shoreline. The other 60% is pretty open shoreline. The bank on open shoreline drops off deep about 1 foot per foot. Other than the willow bushes there is not much cover that I know of in the water. The pond was originally built by the coal company. It is fed by runoff and a very small stream/spring. That area where stream comes in is the side that has all the willows and the immediate area is the shallowest area with most dense willows. Not much weeds at all. Water normally pretty clear(visibility 3-4') Fish are not fed, no aerations, no man made structure(aside of 1 dock). The way I see it the willows and deep water are the only protection/ambush points.

There are a fish 18" fish in there , one was caught and released yesterday by neighbor. It was caught on a live creek chub.

I'm thinking it would be nice to shock the pond to see what is in there and get an accurate assessment. Is this possible without hurting fish? Is it the best way?

How can I accurately assess the state of our pond?

Thanks,
Bill

I thought there was a lot of activity on this site! I guess not

OK, bmickey. Now you've embarrassed me (us), and I'll have to answer. :-) I really thought someone closer to your home would provide some information.

As I read your e-mail, I saw a couple of questions, and perhaps one inferred question.

First, you said "I'm thinking it would be nice to shock the pond to see what is in there and get an accurate assessment. Is this possible without hurting fish? Is it the best way?" Yes, electrofishing can be done without hurting fish. However, fishery biologists use electrofishing equipment that is quite expensive. I can easily spend $70,000 for one 16-ft electrofishing boat. So, you need to find a professional to get a survey completed, unless the Ohio DNR happens to provide some assistance to private landowners. Certainly, you don't want to try it yourself, as it can be quite dangerous without all the safety features built into the work boats. Electrofishing will be most effective for largemouth bass and bluegills, although you’ll catch some of the crappies, walleyes and catfish, depending on time of year. Crappies are very effectively sampled in trap nets, which will also get some walleyes, while channel cats might best be sampled with hoop nets. I realize that I’m using terms you probably don’t understand; I can provide more information if you so desire. If you go to our departmental website, you can find some pictures of these nets at the following address. http://wfs.sdstate.edu/wfsdept/courses/WL230/wl230_pdf/1_230passive.pdf

Then you asked "How can I accurately assess the state of our pond?" Generally, biologists look at relative abundance (do we catch 150 largemouth bass per hour of night electrofishing, or 10 per hour), size structure (are most of the largemouth bass less than 12 inches long, or are at least 40% of them longer than 12 inches), and fish body condition. You can get a lot of information on this web site if you use the search function. For example, there is a GREAT publication available at the following web address to allow you to determine if your fish are thin or plump (body condition). I found this web address by searching for “relative weight” and then I found the post from January 23, 2004 where “Rangersedge” let us know about this.
http://county.ces.uga.edu/habersham/aqua/pubs/relativeweight.pdf

Finally, I think you also were asking about how to improve the sizes of largemouth bass in your pond. Without any more information, I strongly suspect that you have a crowded largemouth bass population. I base this on your report that most of the bass are 8-13 inches long. This is VERY common in the Midwest, especially when you have a nice pond with good habitat. Generally speaking, you have to reduce the abundance of smaller largemouth bass, often simply by harvesting and eating them. For example, if you protected all 12-18 inch bass, and harvested smaller ones, then your bass density should decrease, each bass would then have more food to eat per individual, growth rates will increase, and you’ll start to produce larger bass. HOWEVER, this cannot occur without a trade-off. When you have fewer, bigger largemouth bass, there will not be as much predation on the panfish, and you can expect the sizes of panfish to decline, and their abundance to increase. Right now, you seem to have what I term a “panfish option.” You have a high density of small largemouth bass, which thin the small bluegills and small crappies through predation. As a result, your pond produces those dandy sizes of panfish. In my opinion, any time you can produce 11 inch bluegills and 12 inch black crappies in a 2-acre pond, it’s a great situation. In fact, some people are so leery of crappies in ponds that they would insist you throw back all largemouths just to make sure the crappies don’t get out of control. Thus, I would not lightly jump into a management strategy to produce 3-6 pound largemouth bass. You certainly will lose quality on your panfish (bluegill and black crappie), and it could even get dangerous if you harvest so many small bass that they panfish get overly abundant.

Whew!! How’s that for food for thought??? :-)

Dave

Good job Dave. I'm glad you found time to do this before me. Plus you did a better job. He owes you thanks for the great professional opinions.

FYI to all readers: Dave Willis is truly a fisheries expert. He has co-edited a fisheries textbook titled: "Fisheries Techniques" that was published by American Fisheries Society. It is an excellent book about modern fishery methods.

Ah, shucks! :-)

Aw shucks if you want :p I knew you had it in you when I saw you holding that smb!

Would it be possible to get an autographed copy of your book?

Maybe I should stop quoting "Fisheries Techniques" and pretending it was my own words.

Kudos to Dave Willis. He's a true pro.

Ric -- after all that flattery, I'd sure send you a book if I had a spare copy. However, the book is published by the American Fisheries Society, who keeps the profits. Thus, I don't have any books. I think the book sells for $86, or $52 for society members. My autograph would be free, as I know just exactly what it is worth (0). :-)

Bruce -- don't give up your secrets! I've been impressed with your answers. :-)

Dave

Dave,

First off, Thank you so much for replying with the great information! I didn't mean to embarass anyone into responding...just figured maybe this board wasn't active this time of year.

I definately was planning on the DNR helping us or hiring someone like enviroscience to help out with the job. I will check out those links you sent me and look into trying some of those methods.

I'm thinking I could add some structure (pine trees) in various locations in the pond after this christmas and maybe this alone would give the bass better places to hide and help them prosper. This alone might help the bass fishing. Currently there are no christmas trees or structure other than willows along shoreline. I was considering lowering the pond 5 feet temporarily so we could thin out some of the willows as they are really thick. I'm thinking if I were to do this I'd be better off waiting till after winter because if not it could create a fishkill with the frozen winter weather and less water depth?

Again, THANK YOU so much for taking the time to help me out. I've learned alot reading on this site and its people like you helping clueless people like me learn new things about pond management.

Take care,
Bill

Good morning, Bill. Just joking about the embarrassment.

In most situations, we add brush structures to an impoundment to concentrate fish for anglers, rather than trying to provide sufficient habitat to “help” a fish population. It sounds to me like a couple of brushpiles made from Christmas trees would be good for fishing in your pond. It definitely sounds like a different habitat than you have present, and different habitats generally attract the bass. In the current (just mailed) issue of Pond Boss magazine, I worked with one of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks biologists to put together an article on Christmas trees. It might give you a few ideas. Do you have any “points” on your pond where the shoreline bumps out into the pond? Such a location might be good for one of the brushpiles.

It sounds like the willows are a primary feature of your pond. Do you have any rooted submergent plants? By that, I mean the “underwater” plants that provide so much food and cover in most ponds (not the ones that primarily grow above the water line, such as cattails or your willows). The submergent plants may be growing in the willow beds?

If your pond is completely rimmed with willows, I would think that clearing a few open areas would be good for fish and fishing. I really like diversity in pond habitat.

I am always worried about winterkill, but of course, I live in a harsher climate than you do. Certainly, the volume of water in the pond is one key to how long a winter period (ice-covered period) the pond can survive. So, I would prefer that your pond work be done during open-water times.

You probably saw Bill Cody's response above. He's "the man" in your location. I suspect he'll spot this, and hopefully fill in a few more pieces of information for you. Particularly, he could provide better information on the likelihood of winterkill. Also, maybe he has some thoughts about the willows.

Dave

bmickey - Here are my initial thoughts about your pond without seeing it.

1. The ODNR willnot shock your pond to sample it. They do not do that for private ponds. If you want that done you will have to find a private company to do it. The ODNR may be able to give you names of several places in NE Ohio that may do it for you. It may be sort of pricey. Use search here to look up costs of shocking a pond. There was a fair amount of discussion about it.

2. From your limited description I find it hard to believe that your pond in Harrison County does not have at least one or two people sneaking in and fishing. I had a friend in Dover/NewPilly area near you with a perch raising operation. He did not live on site and always had people constantly sneaking onto his place to steal fish. It was not secluded either. Ungarded and unfenced ponds are very vulnerable to poachers especially desperate fisherman. It is unbelieveable how resourseful they get to sneak in and fish. I even had my relatives with their friends sneaking into my ponds and I was even at the pond once a day and only lived one mile away. Poachers usually do not catch and release fish either. I suspect a majority of your larger bass have been poached. It wouldn't take very long for one or two good live bait fisherman to thin out the relatively few numbers of larger bass in a 2 acre pond. I could do it in two trips. The pond's neighbor proved larger bass can be caught with live bait and that it can be done. If he has told anyone about this pond you can be sure you have at least one poacher. The neighbor or his friend that lives nearby and fishes for panfish may occassionaly take a lg bass. Word quickly "gets out" among fishermen.

3. From your description you have adequate forage fish (lots of bgills on worms&bobber)and some larger bass should be there. I estimate a pond like yours should easily have 14 to 30 bass that are 15"-19" long or longer. 3a. Depending on the numbers of large catfish they could also be thinning the panfish so they are not too abundant. The panfishing neighbor is probably keeping the numbers of larger panfish from being too abundant. He has demonstrated he knows how to catch the larger (18") bass.

4. With decent forage fish numbers you should be seeing or catching several 14" to 16" bass on each trip to the pond. There shoud be good numbers of bass 14" -16" present; about or almost as many as the 12"-13" basses. A few bass 17" to 20" should show up in your catches annually. If this does not happen I would seriously investigate poaching possibilities and this is especially true if a shocking survey does not find adequate numbers of larger fish.

5. From my experience since you do not live at the pond, I question your likely hood of long term success of trying to build a decent large bass fishery at this pond. If poaching is not a problem now at this pond, it will be, once good fishing for large bass exists.

6. Since the willows only cover about 40% of the shoreline this should provide adequate cover for smaller bass and panfish. Adding some more cover would help concentrate larger fish for you and anyone else. However, I don't think adding more cover or deep water cover at this point will help you do a lot to produce or grow those larger bass you are looking for. Some other problem exists besides enough cover.

7. As I see it, since you say you have fairly good numbers of forage fish from your worm & bobber survey, the current numbers of bass in the 10"-13" category should soon (1-2yr) be 14"-16" long and in 3-4yr should easily be 15"-19" long. This makes only common sense to me. I am assuming the numbers of 10"-13" bass are not overcrowded or stunted and I doubt it since you are able to catch 2"-4" bgill and 5" bass. If you had an overcrowded population of 8"-12" bass you would be, or your neighbor should be, catching quite a few trophy panfish and few 2"-5" bgill. If the largest catfish were eating bass they are not eating the 13"-14" bass,,, so where are these fish in your pond or what is happening to them? Those bass that were 12"-13" two years ago should now be 14"-16" and if you are not catching them, then something is wrong with this picture.

8. With 3'-4' of water clarity, the pond should have lots of underwater weeds or vegetation in the shallow areas. If not then the grass carp must be keeping the weeds to a minimum.

9. Since the coal company built this pond and since it seems to have good numbers of smaller fish I will assume there isn't any acid mine drainage to limit the productivity. Fish numbers and growth should be normal. Acid mine drainage ponds do occur in areas of SE Ohio. Ponds that receive acidic drainage usually have the substrates covered with thin or thick layers of reddish/orangeish sediments and the water is usually very clear; visibilities of 8' to 20' deep can occur. Productivity / fertility should not be the problem of too few larger bass for you.

10. Since a stream / ditch feeds the pond is there a chance that carp or bulheads are in the pond and keeping water visibilites limited to 3'-4'? Ever cahch a bullhead with the worm&bobber? Has the neighbor?

11. Have you tried hauling a small boat to the pond and fishing the willow brush from the outside rather than from shore? Fishing from a small boat or float will also allow you to verify the depths throughout the pond. I think if you want to sample the larger bass you will have to fish for them as the neighbor did and use chubs or smaller bluegills (3"-4"). Maybe the neighbor or his friends have trained the larger bass to recognize lures or artificials and the big bass basically prefer live fish. Try that before doing the shocking survey. Use light line 6'-8' test; try completely imbedding the hook in the bait. Or try hooking a small bgill in the lips or through the back under the dorsal and with scissors trim off part or most of the tail. This makes the bgill swim "funny" and more vulnerable to predators. See if you can at least get the big bass to take the bait even if you do not hook or land them. At least you will know if they are present.

12. If you can keep the willows contained to their current size location then that should be enough. Thnen you would not have to worry about drawdown and winter kill. With no weed cover the willow stems are providing adequate cover for recruitment of small fish especally at 40% shoreline coverage. Your worm & bobber survey confirm this fact. Maybe get the "fishing" neighbor to help control the willows for priviledge of harvesting panfish. Those fish should not be free to nonproperty owners.

13. Keep us posted on your progress.

I do have a few pics of the pond guys, if that would help.

Here are the links:
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond1.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond2.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond3.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond4.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond5.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/pond6.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/catfish1.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/catfish2.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/catfish3.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/catfish4.JPG
http://216.58.174.226/mickeysmtncom/catfish5.JPG

"Do you have any “points” on your pond where the shoreline bumps out into the pond? " --
There are no real pronounced points in the pond.

"Do you have any rooted submergent plants?" - No, actually besides the willows the pond is relatively free of vegetation. I think maybe there are too many grass carp in the pond for the size of it! Talked to my Dad, he said it's more like a 1 1/2acre pond.

Thanks again Dave for the great advice!

"so where are these fish in your pond or what is happening to them?" -- Wouldn't doubt it if people hiked into the pond and poached them myself. Nothing would surprise me, some people have no respect. I will try live bluegills next time I fish. I'm not as familiar with that method, I'm used to artificial bait. Should I use a slip bobber or just let them swim around near the edges of the willows?

"Ever cahch a bullhead with the worm&bobber? Has the neighbor? " -- I'll find out from my brother. I know we've caught channel cats and I think maybe a few bullheads (but mostly channels).

" Have you tried hauling a small boat to the pond and fishing the willow brush from the outside rather than from shore?" -- As a matter of fact I just purchased a 10' boat with a trolling motor. I plan on getting a fish finder with temp soon for it! I've fished the pond 3 times now for maybe a total of 15hrs in the boat. I've probably caught 20 bass, all less than 13-14". I caught them on plastic lures, spinnerbaits, crankbaits,etc.

"Maybe get the "fishing" neighbor to help control the willows for priviledge of harvesting panfish. Those fish should not be free to nonproperty owners." -- The neighbor currently has done a lot for us. He has put a dock on the pond and he mows all around the pond and keeps it looking good. He mainly fishes for some crappie or gills for the skillet (atleast I think). He doesn't seem like the bass type person. Now his grandsons or whoever else fishes..who knows!

After reading through both of your posts(Bill and Dave) I think I picked up on a few things. I've decided my plan of attach will be:

1. Get a water test done.
2. I have a source that maybe be able to do a electroshocking. If she works out that will help!
3. I'm going to try catching a few smaller gills and then using them as bait for largemouth.
4. After Christmas I'm going to get some Xmas Trees, maybe 10 or so and put them various locations. I figured I'll tie 2 together and weight with a cement block and sink them. Would it be worthwhile to sink them in the deepest and shallowest parts?

Once again thank you to both of you! You guys have gave me some great food for thought.

Bill, IF you ever want to make a trip up my way to the pond we could fish a day and you could check it out. I'm not sure how far away you are.

Thanks,
Bill

Bill, is that youngster kissing the catfish in the last picture?

LOL, no, that's my son and he was just laying down there being goofy!