So my father recently completed a 3 acre pond on his land. I uploaded the pictures on the forums awhile back if you want to see what it looks like. This pond was dug in a pasture with no inflow. It has a 14" berm all the way around it. The pond was filled with well water over the course of 2 months. 11-01-13 to 12-19-13. Bream and fatheads put in 12-29-13. 1" to 1.5" bass put in 06-07-14. A few weeks ago we started fishing a bit (catch and release) to see how large the Bream were. We were catching some very nice ones and even some 10 inch bass. After catching one particularly large bream I noticed the mouth on it was rather large for its body. Also, it was elongated instead of round... then it hit me.... GSF. I ran to the forums and did a google image search and sure enough GSF got in somehow.
Here are the four best guesses how this happened:
1. The pond is now one year old. It was dug and filled with well water. There was a puddle at the bottom of the pond but we never saw any action on it and there had never been a pond here before. The puddle was about 2'x6' and 1' deep. It was rainwater. No in-flow from any other source. I really don't think there could have been any fish in there. No way to get in.
2. The levee overflowed in the spring for a few hours from a very heavy rainfall. The water was bout 1/2" deep running over the levee in two places. There is a drainage ditch for the pastures behind the pond. Could the GSF swim over the levee when the pond overflowed? (This is my guess). The ditch only has water in it when it rains. The ditch drains into a creek about a mile away.
3. There is an 8in overflow pipe that empties into the ditch from the pond. It sticks straight up above the ground about a foot when it is dry and is perpendicular the ground. If the water gets high enough it can cover the pipe. When it does get that high there is still a strong flow coming out of the pond. Could the GSF could have swam through the pipe during a heavy rain? (This is what my dad thinks happened.)
4. We bought the fish from a reputable fish farmer and his batch may have been compromised. (Least likely but still possible)
The GSF are bigger than any of the bluegill bream. At first I did not even consider scenario 1 but as I catch more large GSF I think it may be possible. Just don't know how they could get into a puddle in the bottom of the pond with a berm around it.
Here are my questions.
1. Should we nuke and start over?
2. Is fishing and trapping a better alternative?
3. What do the experts here think is the most likely culprit and how can we fix it.
4. Do GSF grow faster than normal bream in the same conditions?
5. Should we not worry about it since the LMB are HUGE and fat/happy?
A note on the last one. The bass are engorged. They grew to nearly 10 inches on average in less than 12 weeks.
I know that GSF and LMB compete for the same food when they are near the same size. The goal for the pond is to have a healthy bream population with the occasional bass fight. We really do not want to have to start over.
When we set minnow traps we catch GSF 10-1 in the 1" to 2" size.
Fishing with small minnow we catch GSF 8-2 over the bluegill.
When we set a larger fish trap we catch blugill 7-1 over the GSF.
When we fish with crickets we catch bluegill 8-1 over the GSF.
Fishing with crickets we catch healthy looking CNBG and BG and when we switch to minnows we catch mostly GSF.
I know this is a lot of information. Any help or ideas of what is going on would be appreciated.
Stocked December 29th 2013 1.5" to 2" fish
1500 CNBG
1500 Native BG
800 RES
5000 FHM
We added 200 LMB on Jun 7th 2014. 1.5" to 2" fish.
Here is the link to pictures of the pond. The water in the pictures is from the water well.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showgallery&Number=361813#comments
