I need help. Let me try to establish the situation and you who all seem far better informed than me can wade in.

My pond is over 30 years old, beautiful, located in Missouri. All runoff to the pond comes from either pasture land or from heavy oak timber. There is no runoff from tilled land feeding the pond. It also has as best I can tell4 or 5 springs. It is in excess of 3 acres surface with max depth of about 22 feet.

When I became owner the pond needed re-fencing to exclude cattle. That was done. I stocked 200 Channel cats and fished and found nice bluegills and bass. The bass population was high but I had age size classes from fry up to a 9 pounder I caught in 2007, a 5 pounder in 2008 and a friend caught a 6 pounder in 2008.

The negative was chara. I tried chemical control for 4 years. I am a 31 year veteran of the ag chemical business so I had confidence but to no avail. So I moved to grass carp. First I added 5. They were incapable of removing enough. On the advice of an expert, I put in 20 more two years ago. At this point I have virtually zero vegetation and certainly no chara.

The pond looks fantastic, water clarity is good, the catfish are top notch. I have rmoved 5 grass carp via a .22 slug. hard to estimate the current population but they are keeping the pond clean.

Here is the changes that have occured:

Bass: Pre GC, i would see schools of small LMB. They represented from fry up to 8 inch fish. Catching bass was not a challenge, they were healthy but I would say perhaps a bit overpopulated based on the ratio of small fish to 3 pound plus.

Bluegill: pre GC Loads. Lots, tons. All sizes.


Current situation: I have described the pond and water On the BG front, Now I see small BG of 2-3 inch, fry in pond but at this point visually I cannot differentiate BG from LMB when really small, and I am catching some enormous BG's that I was not seeing before. The size classes seem to have changed but no real issue with BG.

LMB is the issue. I have no idea where they are, if they are there, or what has occurred. You guys know pond fish...I fished last week trying to catch a bass any bass just a bass. White beetle spin netted zero LMB, did well on BG and had one CC hit it. I moved to a wiggle wart in crawfish color...zero, nada, none. I changed to a double bladed spinner bait. Fished shallow, I slow rolled it, I pumped and reeled....zero. I moved to a small spinner bait then to a Mepps. Nothing. Even a 6 inch plastic worm failed.


Im doing what I can to shoot GC but I seem incapable of knowing where to aim so basically I see them, I get under 30 feet from them they lay broadside I am what I think is low(under the fish), bang, splash, fish swim away....do I sound frustrated?

What am I missing? have any of you had similar experiences? If and when I get rid of enough CG that I see small surviving amounts of weeds, what plants can I introduce? Should I restock bass?

One other observation. I used to hear bullfrogs in summer and late summer. Maybe 4 or 5 big buggers. This spring the pond is absolutely alive with Bullfrog tadpoles. I don't mean a few I mean scads of them, all healthy and fat and growing getting legs....

Help a guy who is going a bit mad!! Please!

Last edited by Habitatpro; 05/15/10 09:09 AM.