Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Blue Heron

How do you get rid of them? They are eating a lot of my fish. Will reflector tape work?

Hardly anything legal will deter great blue herons from making their daily rounds through your fishery. Predation losses can be significant.

Suggest you get friends and family to help by shooing the protected birds off the water. Human traffic is the best watchdog. Otherwise you are left to manmade devices that work only until the birds get used to their presence.

Mark McDonald
Editor, Pond Boss

Tony, Mark said it all when he said "nothing legal" works. However, that doesn't mean that people like me put up with any other predators than I want around my pond. Great blue herons are extremely wary birds. Cormorants aren't so tough to get close to. I would take care of business and keep my mouth shut.

Check out www.thepondguy.com they sell a Blue Heron decoy they claim will keep other Herons away. What size pond do you have and how many Herons are around. I have had two Herons this summer at my 3.5 acre pond which raised two babys. Don't herons mostly eat small fish and in small numbers are not a great nuisance?

I have seen Great Blue Heron's, (I have a resident one that hopefully soon I will make non-resident), eat fairly large numbers of fish and up to the 8" range... I am sure they can eat even larger.
My stocked fish were in the 4-8" range when he started to visit... unfortunately.
Beyond eating stocked fish they are also a major link in the fish infection/grub chain.
What I have heard about decoys is that they have to be moved often to be effective and that eventually the heron will get used to it and land anyways.

This spring I had up to 3 of them on my 1 acre pond. I called the game warden that lives about 1/2 mile down the road from me and he told me to "shoot them with a pellet gun but just don't kill them". Works pretty good for geese too.

I would like to thank everyone. Yes, I need to take care of business. My pond is less than an acre. tb

Paint rifles work good and mark them for future reference! Bob

Dear Mr. Beltrani - If the methods above do not work, I have a yellow lab that loves ponds, fish, and birds. I would be glad to loan him to you. He's a very hard worker and is available next week. You can have a "heron-free" pond by Thanksgiving.

Bill D,
to answer your question about size...I was working on a small subdivision pond this summer in north Atlanta. I was in a hurry but stopped to watch this scene. A heron had stabbed a bass over 18 inches (no exagerration) over 3 lbs. I said no way is he going to try and eat that. It took him holding it upside in his mouth bass head first about 5-10 mins then he suddenly shot his head up and swallowed it down. I charged him and could hardly flop much less try and fly away. SO yes at least on occasion they eat fish of substantial size. I do not tolerate them on my ponds. One took out 18 grass carp over a two week period 18x$7= $126 the heron has to go.

hi, found this forum just "fishing" the web. I sure wish i would have found this last spring,just put in acre pond. The pond construction went very well, im very happy with the outcome. i was reading alot of the topics and they are extremely informative and helpful. I am definitely going with an aeriation system. This topic really hit home. I also have had that damn blue heron at the pond. The pond has no shoreline weeds or cover. That heron ate approximately 40 bullfrogs and leopard frogs. Who knows how many of the fish i stocked. That bird never left until the pond started to freeze. Mr Davidson has the only solution, just gotta take care of business...............

I am curious if anybody has had any experience with the heron decoys. My pond is so isolated that I rarely come upon the herons, even though I know they visit routinely as I occasionally come upon them and see evidence of footprints. Even if the decoy was moderately useful it might be worth for me.

Tom, my opinion is that heron decoys are a waste of money. It is not unusual for me to have 15 herons hammering on my ponds all at once in the spring & summer. They are not completely solitary predators when food is abundant. My feeling is that putting up a decoy may just be telling other herons that this is a good spot to get fish. Unfortunately, herons tend to adapt to everything legal on the market. The only thing that has been marginally effective is routinely scaring them off with a "big bang."