Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Thinking about starting over?

Hello guys , new to the forum but been reading alot of stuff on here past couple weeks. After all my reading i have come to the conclusion i have messed up in everyway possible. I redug my pond in 2009 and stocked it with 250 blugill and 250 redear and 75 catfish. Also fathead minnows. At the time i wanted mainly a catfish pond. Well 2 years later i think i started adding bass, 4 or so 12 inchers. Then i threw in some whoppers, 2 five pounders and few in the 3 two 4 pound range. Then i added some crappie. It gets even better tho. I then threw in 3 flatheads. Two were 12 inchers and one was 4 lbs. pond is 1/3 of an acre. So problem is i am trying to grow big bg and not having much luck. I have recently caught out both of the smaller flatheads but cant get the bigger one. I feel there isnt many crappie left in there as i have been taking them out and rarely catch one anymore. I put in hybrid blugill past two springs and they seem to be disapearing also. I added some big male bg couple weeks ago to help my other bg not reach maturity to early. Sorry for long post here but whats everybody think. I called a biologist today about killing everything out and starting over. Also have removed many of the catfish guessing maybe 20 left. I feed my fish too started aq500 this year but fish get fewer and fewer eating.

Have you considered adding gizzard shad?

Just kidding. Welcome to the forum.

Assuming your current goal remains growing some big BG [or HBG?], no question your quickest path will be to drain and lime or rotenone...really hard to know what's in there right now, but probably a bunch of hungry predators who are having bunches of offspring that will compete for and with any smaller sunfish.

And don't feel bad. Lots of us have found novel ways to mess up that you didn't even mention.

I'm with Yolk. Starting over would allow you the best chance for success, in the shortest time frame.

Ya been loosing sleep over this deal. When i talked to the fish biologist he asked a bunch of questions but one was if i had ever used karmex herbicide for weeds. Well i have for two years when i needed it. Was told to put in early and it wont kill the fish. Anyway he agreed but said it sets back the smaller fish cause it kills the invertibrates wich they feed on. He did not say it was or wasnt gonna be a problem for sure cause of rate i put in but have never heard of this before. Thinking a kill in august will allow me to restock but if the small invertibrates are damaged maybe i should wait til spring stocking.

No questions asked i struck out swingin a big stick. Lol

Hi Tucker, welcome to the forum!

If I were you, I'd nuke the pond per previous direction - it's small and won't cost much nor pose much effort required to perform. Drain, seine and save any fish you want to keep or sell or donate to friends, then nuke remaining water. Hydrated lime worked well for me on pond same size, is cheap, and doesn't require licensed applicator. Then refill and determine a solid stocking plan prior to making bucket stocking mistakes again. If you want big lepomis then consider a single sex BG/HBG fishery and incorporate supplemental pellet feeding program. If you don't want to go single sex, then plan for dense population of apex predator [LMB] to prey upon BG population. You'll have fewer but large BG but your LMB will be stunted and skinny and stuck at 8-14". That's why I prefer a single sex fishery - no reproduction to worry about and no need to worry about secondary species stunting and you can still achieve a good population of 8-11" fish. A 1/3 acre pond I think could support 300 adult BG or more with pellet program and aeration. Experts can temper this advice. I have a trophy BG fishery dedicated to male BG and female YP. BG are doing very well - YP are kinda struggling. It's by far my favorite pond to manage...little efforts are immediately realized as it's a small pond, more easily managed.

Thanks for the input. I have been thinking about doing that. Here is a thought for everyone. What about adding bg. Let them grow a year and then adding big male bg to make the initial stocking get bigger. Then only add bass fingerlings maybe year 3 dont know how many it would take or anything but just thinkin why wouldnt that work. Or maybe even better hsb but not sure where i can get them.

Tucker,

Welcome,

I have a LMB, BG pond for the most part. My pond is 1 acre in size and I have tried to achieve the best of both worlds in my pond and IMO I have.

If you nuke your pond I would get larger BG right away and some more RES. Get them in the spring or this fall if you can get 3 to 5 inch BG I would say go for it. They would be bedding up that very next spring/summer and making little ones before you know it. I think I read here somewhere that BG will start to spawn at 4 inches so there you go. Let them go till the next spring. Add some more FHM when you want nothing wrong with that. Then the following spring I would add my bass. I would put like 25 fingerling bass in there. Your BG and RES will be way ahead of the curve and your bass will eat on both the FHM and the BG so the pressure on the BG won't be to bad off right away still.

If you feed your BG and you have air setup that would be even better. I don't think just HSB would do it I have like 20 of them and they just don't seem to eat enough course mine are food trained also, but they are a good bonus fish.

After 4 years here is what I have now.

1 pound BG
Up to 4 pound bass
Up to 4 pound HSB

Here are some of my results and you can do it too!!