Dan, my first pond(I still have it) was barren when I bought the land. I stocked it with fatheads, bluegills, channel cats and bass. Nobody told me that it wouldn’t work. Well, it did, for about 5 or 6 years. I had good bass and pretty dang good cats. But, the predator/prey relationship got out of balance. The minnows spawned and over spawned. I was ignorant about balance and wound up with an oxygen crash that wiped out dang near everything.
Then, the Texas summer sunshine dried it out. When rains came, I restocked with channel cats and small bluegills. That’s worked ok. Somehow, my bluegills became green sunfish which have very limited spawns. That’s. Or a bad thing.
The cats did pretty well but with limited or no effective spawns. Remember that, in a properly stocked pond, 99% of the eggs ever laid, hatched, etc get eaten before their first birthday. Mama Nature at work and she’s a mean bitch. However, this year I see no cats feeding after everything froze over. I’ll have to restock.
BTW, this pond is a mile from the house so it doesn’t get a lot ofTLC.
