Thanks, y'all! For both the compliments and the advice.
The place really is beautiful and has lots of standing timber in it (not shown in the photo) that is home to woodpeckers, kingfishers, wood ducks, herons, and lots of small song birds - not to mention the LMB, a few bluegill (maybe too few but that's yet to be determined and another subject for another topic), and at least one crappie. There's also a large population of whitetail deer, coyotes, foxes, turtles, frogs, and the inevitable (in Georgia) beavers.
The pond has never been stocked. My belief is that the fish are either "escapees" from a much larger pond upstream or they were the result of the wading birds transporting eggs on the legs and feet.
This place is a tough, tough place to fish! There is so much wood in the pond that it can only be described as HEAVY cover. We use braided lines almost exclusive and we still break off and/or straighten a lot of hooks. You have to be careful not to break rod tips by using lots of slack in the line and gloves to pull the hooks off the logs without overstressing the rods. We still lose a lot of fish that get wrapped up in the logs, limbs, and trees. I LOVE it!
I will try to find some local expertise to evaluate the situation, too. My problem is that I've spent almost all my money just acquiring the property so, I have practically nothing left to use to hire anybody to help. It's also in an area that is classified as "environmentally sensitive" so I'm very limited in what I can do regarding any kind of land disturbance. I knew all of this very well before I made the purchase. In the event of some catastrophic failure of the dam, I could get permission to bring in earth-moving equipment but, only if the dam was on the verge of failing completely.
So, having said that, I *think* my only option is to get those trees off while they are still small and do all I can to mitigate any problems.
That's my basic question: what constitutes doing "all I can"?
