Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding fish kill

Hello all, I've been reading this forum for quiet a while and have subscribed to Pond Boss for about a year. Here's my story and a question. In 1997 my grandfather died. My sister and her husband bought the farm to keep it in the family. (It's been in the family over 150 years) Soon after she bought it, my dad had the pond of his dreams built. I don't know if it added any years to his life, but it certaintly added much pleasure. Since he passed away two years ago I have been trying to take care of everything. Problem - I live two hours away. Last weekend a neighbor of the farm called and said he noticed dead fish on the pond. The pond contained bass, bluegill, channel cats, a few redear and crappie, and 5 grass carp. He said that several of each kind were dead. We have had a warm dry fall. A couple of weeks ago it was warm, then we had a cold front move through, then several days of overcast skys. I won't be able to check the pond out for a while so I would like your opinion on whether enough fish might have lived to spawn next spring and still have a productive fishery or should I plan on starting over? The pond is about one acre in size. I know that I may not be able to tell anything until next spring, but I need something to worry about this winter. Sorry this is so long. Thanks in advance for your help.

It sounds like you had a dissolved oxygen crash due to the overcast days. It usually hits larger fish but will seldom wipe out a pond. I would keep an eye on it until spring. I expect enough lived to respawn.

If there is someone nearby the pond who is skilled with a bobber and nightcrawler it doesn't take long to discover if there are survivors. Dave is correct that in the great majority of cases there are enough fish suriviving to repopulate, but I have seen at least one similar case that resulted in complete eradication.

Thanks, the neighbor said that he saw a few fish still swimming around. We've had some sunny days and it's been very breezy. Hopefully the oxygen level has come back up. I hope to make it up there before it gets too cold to check out things myself. The pond had some very large cats and was starting to get some nice size bass. I now wish I had taken more out this summer. I will have questions about aeration later.