My 1 1/2 acre pond has an overflow spillway probably about 20 ft wide. It narrows to about 6 ft wide and runs for about 250 ft where it constricts to about 3 ft wide and discharges into another smaller pond and then overflows into,the woods.
At full pool, when we have a fast heavy rain, the water goes into this spillway drain. I have a 1/2" wire barrier across the outlet where it is about 6ft wide. When we get a lot of rain, the water may discharge for up to a week. Usually, my pond is not at full pool and I would estimate that I only have an overflow about 3-4 times a year, mostly in the winter.
Today we had a 2 1/2 " downpour in about 2hours. I went and looked in the drain and saw a lot of small fry that had gotten through the 1/2 " screen. I have no idea how to estimate how many fish I am losing. Should I be concerned about this or is the reproductive rate such that I am only losing a small % of my fish. I don't what else I can do about it anyway.
Any thoughts? Thanks
