Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Green Sunfish problem

I dug 1/2 acre pond for my brother in the fall of 2010. He has a creek very close by to the pond, and also a drainage ditch that runs right next to the pond. He initially used the ditch to fill the pond up, and then dammed it off. The pond is isolated from the creek and ditch, and has been since summer 2011.

He's never stocked any fish, apart from the young PS I have just moved from my pond to his.

I noticed when I was putting in the last batch of young PS, something was gobbling them up rather quickly, I could see and hear the PS getting eaten near the top of the water when I was putting them in.

I guess his kids just started fishing in the pond last night, and caught dozens of green sunfish.

He does not want them.

What if anything can be done about the green sunfish? Due to the proximity to the creek and drainage ditch, it is likely that they will just keep showing up?

He asked me if he should stock some northern pike.

GSF likely came in with the ditch water that was used to fill the pond - a common occurrence. They will grow fast in a new pond that has lots of invertebrate foods. And they do eat small fish as you witnessed. NP will eat lots of other fish including any smaller bass that are eventually stocked. If he really doesn't want any GSF then renovation with rotenone is the only solution besides draining. No way to get every male & female of GSF out of the pond.

LMB at higher densities of smaller bass can keep the GSF pretty well controlled and few in number since LMB seem to prey on GSF harder compared to other sunfishes.

Ok, well he plans to make it a LMB/BG pond, so I guess he can go ahead an just put in some LMB.

He's not going to be as finicky of a pondmieser as I am, he was just was asking if they will keep coming back.

Add adult BG and over time the pond should be ok.

NP as it gets larger as in 24"-36" will also eat lots of smaller bass which will be counter productive because smaller bass eat a lot of the smaller GSF thus keeping them few in number. Probably the best thing to be doing now is fishing for the larger GSF with small hooks and live bait and removing every larger GSF. Stocking small bass 4"-6" soon or this fall should thin out the current group of smallest young GSF. Also adding the BG as ewest suggests will eventually balance out the entire fishery. BG will outcompete the GSF if predation pressure of bass is adequate.

yep, putting the bass in should help the problem. The female GSF, should be agressive when they are spawning (several times a times) and easy to pluck out.

do you think any other fish traveled through the creek?, bull heads often share the same riverways, gfs do.

He has assumed bullheads made it in, due to the pond staying muddy all the time.

He has also seen some BG, and there were shiners in there along with crayfish.

He has never stocked anything, except for the 1300 young PS I put in there the last few weeks, along with a few hundred shiners.

He probably has bullheads too. It happened to me that way

Bass find bullheads delicious too.

Is this pond in NY, if so, where in NY?

Right down the road from my ponds, in the WNY area.