Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Can't Rely on Others

This will be a lengthy post, but to sum it up my city has recently installed a 650 acre lake. It connects to several golf course ponds & a local creek. The city doesn't want to stock it because they "feel the creek will naturally stock said lake".

It's been 3 years since the lakes been full, and I've fished it many times for bass, bluegill and catfish.

The bass are few and far between, same with the catfish and the bluegill are all sub 6". This is for a Central Georgia lake mind you.

Unfortunately the grass pickerel and crappie have been and still are taking over the lake. It's a shame because the golf course ponds used to hold monster bass but they were all killed when they dredged the ponds. So there is no forage base or large bass to clean out the crappie.

I've taken this as a slap to the face being I live on the lake and was "promised" a trophy fishery. I understand it takes time for this to happen, but the only thing I see happening is stunted bass and nothing being done about it.

Is there anything I can do about it?

Maybe read your legal documents as to what was promised. If it was verbal, kiss that one goodbye.

Find out what the city is doing and why. It may be that they just don't want to pay for fish.

It was.. I was too focused on the "bright side" unfortunately

Money could be it, or they may not know..?

I say "they may not know" because the other lake they are currently dredging has had weed problems for years because they only dug it to 3-5ft across the entire lake. So hydrilla and other weeds invaded the ENTIRE LAKE so the City spends over $10k per year on grass carp.

Well they finally threw in the towel and dredged the lake, so hopefully they dug it deep enough so that weeds do not invade.

Now the new lakes problem could be they have no clue.. I sent an email to our Mayor about potentially contacting Greg Grimes to take a look at the lakes but she gave me the political run-around.

I'm contemplating about setting up small grow-out containers for some vigorous baitfish and releasing them in the golf course ponds that are the most landlocked so the baitfish may be able to reproduce & establish numbers before moving onto the lake. This may be an optimistic thought but I would really like to see this area live up to it's reputation as a quality fishery, since it's where my love for bass fishing started.

I can't hardly believe a 650 acre lake would have any "stunted" bass in only 3 years. One of the best fishing lakes in Missouri was "stocked" by adding fish to farm ponds that would be flooded a couple years before the dam was completed.

I would make darn sure you get WRITTEN permission to release anything into public waters or the golf course ponds, or you'll almost certainly get a very unwanted education of the legal system.

If I'm going to take the effort, time and money all my ducks will be in a line before releasing anything into any body of water that I do not own.

As for the "stunted" bass, I'm going to be fishing the lake soon, so hopefully I can get a grasp on the fish size & numbers. I'm jumping to the conclusion that it's stunted because every person that fishes the golf course & lake has said the same thing.. No bass and very high crappie & chain pickerel numbers. Even one of my buddies that fishes the collegiate B.A.S.S tour and has won several large tournaments has been skunked 3/3 trips. Is that an accurate way to determine bass numbers? Of course not, but it definitely says something.

Unfortunately I do not have the time or resources to gather up an electro-fishing boat nor do I have any "pull" to convince our city council to do so..

Those are some very important words to heed. I am a longtime officer and board member of a statewide fisheries management group. We had a meeting today that included a good friend who, like Rex, was taken to a whole new level of legalities. My friend's case made it all the way to the Supreme Court regarding who owns what, and what are public waters. After tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, the case was dismissed. It has become a case study for legal students.

Yikes! I'm sorry to hear about your friend, that is very unfortunate. It's about time they started cracking the whip though, with Snakeheads and Zebra Clams to semi-domesticated pythons roaming South Florida people need to take responsibility for their actions.

You def don't want to accidentally spill a bucket of hybrid bass finglerings and F1's in there...They might mess up the balance and eat all the crappie... ha j/k.. Any updates?