Hi, This site was one of the first places that I discovered when I began planning my pond. The forum, magazine and books have been invaluable. The pond is dug and now I�m hoping for some advice from the community on how to create and maintain a harvestable fish population. We have a half acre pond in eastern Ontario. Below is a description. We hope to have a pond that will provide fish to eat either good size panfish or sport fish. This property is remote without electricity and we really only get there a couple times a month, so we�re looking for something that has minimal maintenance (no feeders ect.) and hope to harvest a few (8 to 10) fish throughout the year. Pond description: Our property is mostly bush with a creek running through the middle. On either side of the creek there is a marsh. Surrounding the marsh is a cedar forest that gains elevation becoming a hard wood forest. Four acres of the cedar forest were cleared and a half acre pond was dug. The depth is about 8� with a few deeper holes ( 12-14�). There is some structure, rocks at the inlet and outlet as well as piles of rock in the deep holes with logs propped up against them. The sides are quite steep but there are some weed beds. The water comes from a spring (30 to 60 gallons per minute depending on the season) and empties into the marsh and indirectly to the creek. This will be the third summer since it was excavated. Since that time it has developed a nice ecosystem with some weed areas, bugs, frogs, crayfish, snakes, etc. as well as minnows (various kinds including some larger 2-3� that I think are brassy minnows) and 2-4� pumpkinseed sunfish, all of which have arrived by themselves. The water level remains pretty constant all year long. When I measured the temperature on August 1st, one of our hottest days during a very hot and dry year, the water was 80 at the surface and 70 at about 8�. I�ve not measured the oxygen level but there are some opportunities for the supply water to be oxygenated. Although straight out of the ground the water travels down 300� of corrugated non perforated BigO, falls down a little water fall and then 200� down a rock lined stream before entering the pond. The pond freezes over in the winter with sections of open water at the inlet and outlet where the water is flowing more quickly. What would you recommend? Thanks Steve Attached are pictures of the waterfall and pond:
