Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New Pond Owners in Iowa

Hello everyone,

I'm Alinda, and my boyfriend and I just purchased a home late last summer (end of June), and the properties top asset is a 1 and 3/4 acre pond. The previous home-owner died in a motorcycle accident, so we know very little about the pond other than it was stocked with largemouth bass, bluegill, and channel catfish. We do have construction plans for the pond if that is helpful.

We hired a pond consultant to get some help preventing the weed problems this summer, and he sent us here for help with pond stocking, feeding, and wildlife management questions.

Our top priority for the pond appears to be a unique one having read several threads already, and that is to grow large black crappie. We eat a few, but mostly they are my boyfriends favorite. We already stocked 40 large adults caught from friends crappie ponds. Our secondary goal is wildlife management. We pulled 7 large snapping turtles out of the pond last year, and we have several pairs of ducks and a pair of canadian geese that were not present last summer. 3 muskrat have died by high velocity lead poisoning.

The pond is aerated, and we were able to keep water open throughout the winter, and had a minimal winter fish kill despite a very hard winter.

The catfish and bluegill are quite large, the size of LMB are disappointing so far, but were very difficult to catch due to the weeds. Most were 10-12 inches, but we know they are spawning because there's quite a number of fingerling bass.

There is a lot of cover in the pond. It appears they cut the timber and left it where it fell when filling the pond. We were even getting snags while ice fishing - its thick down there.

We are handfeeding Purina Game Fish Chow several times a week, as much as the fish will eat in 10 minutes or so. We have seen only bluegills eating this feed.

The maximum depth of the pond to our knowledge is 12 feet. The banks are steep, and the pond appears to have a pretty level depth with a gradual incline towards the back of the pond where the creek inflow is quite shallow.

Here's some photos of the pond from last summer:
View from the deck - about 3/4 acre of pond is around the corner to the right, and not visible from the house.


Fountain - prior to getting aerator pump repaired:


Inlets to the right of pond, lots of duckweed:


Widest portion of pond, and pond dam:


The weeds we hope to control better this year:


Weed coverage on a bad day - very difficult to fish.




One of the snappers we pulled out - he was tasty:


One of the crappies immediately prior to release:


Bluegill - ice fishing:


Pond over winter - one aerator running. We shut the other off so we could fish closer to the center of the pond.

Looks like you have found a great new hobby in managing your pond, enjoy it. Just curious what the pond consultant suggested for vegetation control?

Managing a pond for large LMB, large Crappie and large BG is VERY difficult.

So if we want to manage for Large Crappie, what should we do with what we have now? We're already planning on taking out a large number of the large bluegills - just gotta find someone that wants to catch and eat them because I'm not in a big hurry to feed coons and coyotes.

The consultant recommended Hydrothal for the algae, and Diquat (Reward) with a surfactant for the duckweed. We were told to spray every 2 weeks for the duckweed and if we are aggressive this year we can hope it will be easier to deal with in the future.

Welcome to PondBoss.....
.....you're going to fit right in.

Traffic is pretty slow on WEs in the spring and summer-you'll get more help when the week starts. There are a lot of previous threads relating to crappies in ponds, and the difficulties in management, might look through the Types ofFish to Choose section.

Dispatching muskrats, eating turtles, ice fishing, supplemental feeding, and getting your aquatic vegetation under control....

Yolk's right. You're going to be right at home here. Welcome.

Catch of the day - not fat but not skinny either. I will pick up a scale and start keeping records this week.

A couple of thoughts and a couple of warnings. I have never managed for large crappie. I've generally tried to eliminate them in water holes of less that 25 acres. I'm also often wrong on advice for places where it snows and gets good rainfall.

To get big crappie, I would do the same thing as raising big bluegills. I would encourage the numbers of large bluegills and small bass to eat the smaller crappie and bluegills that will compete with the larger ones for a limited food supply. Eliminate the bigger bass of 15+ inches that will eat the larger BG and crappie.

What do you Yankees think?

Picked up a scale and started weighing fish today. After an hour of fishing worms on a bobber, this is what we've got so far...

Bluegill - one 4", one 5", and a half dozen 7" not weighed. Two 8" weighed 0.4 pounds, one 0.35 pounds.

Channel Catfish - one 15" 1.08 pound

LMB - one 10.5" 0.63 pounds.

We caught several LMB the other day but didn't have a scale yet. We have never seen or caught a LMB larger than 16"



What is the best way to weigh the panfish?? The large hook on the digital fish scale seems like it might damage the gills.

Put the panfish in a plastic shopping bag and hang the bag from the hook.

Put the panfish in a plastic shopping bag and hang the bag from the hook.
Esshup Gump, you're a gosh dang genius!!!

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