My wife's grandfather dug a 17-acre pond back in 1955. Over the years, the pond has filled in somewhat and has been reduced in size, but the thing that puzzles me is the abundance of skinny bass.
The black crappie are as fat as pigs and the bream are fairly nice-sized, but the bass are pathetic. I just had the levee re-done and my pier restored and allowed the folks who were working on the pond to fish it for a few days. They reported to me that even the young bass look skinny.
The guy who did the levee work said the pond apparently has little structure where the forage fish can hide, so I visited the local Home Depot and collected three truck loads of Christmas trees that did not sell.
I plan to sink them in the old pond and stuck a few in our new 2-acre pond that was just stocked for the first time last month.
From all my research, I believe that adding fathead minnows would be non-productive since they would disappear in a little while, but I need input to confirm my idea.
Any suggestions? The guy who worked on restoring my levee pushed several trees into the pond, so I hope that helps some.
