I built a new 2 acre pond on our farm in Randolph County Missouri 3 years ago. It was completed in May 2006. Due to drought it wasn't full enough to stock until the following spring. We followed the Missouri Dept. of Conservation guidelines and had a local fish farm stock fatheads, bluegill and channel cat in april 2007. I substituted redear for about 1/3 of the bluegill about. I also had them throw in an additional 10 lbs of golden shiners. Unfortunately, due to flooding, none of the fish farms in my region could supply largemouth until October 2008. I was worried that the sunfish might overpopulate without predators for so long but I talked to the MDC fisheries biologist and he thought it would be fine. We have been feeding the cats all along at least 2-4x per week. (We live 8 miles from the farm.)
During the summer of 2008 I took my 5 year old son out to catch a few catfish. We only did it once since they were only in there for about 16 months at the time. We caught a couple bluegill and tossed them back.
Fast forward to the present. The bass have been in since October. The past two weekends were the first opportunity we had to fish this summer due to having 4 kids in sports. I took the kids and targeted bluegill and cats. Immediately, I became concerned when we started catching GREEN SUNFISH one after another. I thought "Whats up with this!" The only thing a green sunfish is good for in my book is catfish bait so we cut them up and used them for that, catching several really nice cats. What concerns me is that they shouldn't have been in there in the first place! We caught at least 40 green sunfish for every bluegill or redear. In fact, you can see thousands of little greenies chasing your jig right up to the bank. What is worse is that they have decimated the fatheads completely. There are some huge golden shiners because they come up when we feed the cats, and we catch them on jigs too.
I am worried that although those tens of thousands of greenies will be food, they will also compete with them for food and eat alot more of the bass fry than bluegills or redears will. I am furious, so I called the fish farm's number and it is no longer in service. I hope they went bankrupt. They should have if that is how they stock.
How do I get rid of the Greenies without killing everything and starting over???? I don't want to push it all back another 2-3 years.
By the way, if fingerling bass were stocked last October, shouldn't I be seeing a few of them by now, or even catching one now and then on a beetle spin or jig. I wasn't present when the farm brought them out, my dad was. He wouldn't know a bass fry form a Green sunfish fry. The fish were provided by two different farms. If there are greenies that are as big as my hand, wouldn't they have had to come from the initial stocking?
I'm sorry I'm rambling. I've just been waiting so long to have the "perfect pond" that I'm livid about the outcome. I've been throwing every green sunfish on the bank to try to control the population but I'm sure it's a loosing battle. Any advice would be appreciated.
