Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations HELP -- Check out the color of my pond--Sat. View

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=mandon+lake,+mi&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.450489,86.220703&hnear=Mandon+Lake&t=h&z=14


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Here's the story:
I have two years on Mandon and this is what I can tell you. Over half of the lake is less than 5' deep. The water is extremely turbid. Drilled a couple holes in the ice last weekend and we have about 1 ft of visability.

Fish: Carp, carp, carp, stunted BG, Stunted Crappie, Big LM, and a few monster Northerns.

I think that the carp are stirring up the sediment on the bottom, blocking the sunlight, causing alae blooms, and creating the turbid conditions.

Check out the lakes surrounding Mandon on the map. They have great fishing and clear water.

This is a private lake and the home owners assoc. will allow stocking, but I can't kill every living organisum in the watershed.

What will eat the carp?

PS. I heard from neighbors that panfish used to be great and pike fishing used to be top notch also. Last year I stocked 18 Northerns that were 13". This year 75 LMB, 5".

I would love opinions on water quality, stocking, and controling carp.

Unfortunately, the only thing that can control carp with a 99% chance of working is Rotenone. Nothing that swims in Northern waters will get large enough to eat an adult carp. Bowfishing, netting, etc., all will help reduce their numbers, but nothing beats killing and starting over.

Even if you can kill the carp, you have to find out how they got in there in the first place and make sure that it won't happen again, or else the BOW will revert back to what it is today.

The young carp do make for good forage fish, but once they get too large they are untouchable. since you can not "Kill" the lake and start over your only option really is to have a removal plan. Start a neighborhood carp fishing contest with the kids and any other activies that will remove the large carp out. electro fishing could help just get as many of those things out as possible. Ubfortunatly it will have to be an ongoing thing to help maintain lower numbers once are finally able to get that done. Maybe Hybrid tiger musky wold help as they grow a little faster and get a litle bigger they might be able to eat a few of the medium sized ones up. A 40" hybrid (Musky x Pike) can eat a pretty large carp. They are steril so they will not over populate.