Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations old pond renovation help

I am a newbie to this pond site but have been reading here for the last few months. I figured it was time to ask for some of the great information I have read hear. Hear it goes. I bought my house 3 years ago early spring. My property has a pond on it 1.09 acre average depth 9 feet max depth 12. I bought the house because of the pond. Several weeks after my purchase my pond exploded with duckweed and watermeal. 100% in only a few weeks. That winter I started removing trees near the pond. My pond sits near a creek that is banked with masive cottonwood and sycamore trees. (can not be removed). I now have slight control of watermeal and most duckweed is gone with sonar and aeration. I now have a tea tint that just appeared but still have about 2 foot visability. Normally if you moved the duckweed when it was there you would have a dark clear water 5-6 feet visablity easily. The pond used to be 30 feet deep 40 years ago. Very mucky black bottom that I would like to speed up decompasition on fairly cheap (wife says I have already spent to much). Now for the fish. I finally was able to fish my pond and found green sunfish up to 6", yellow belly bullhead 6"-8", and crappie up to 10". 2 years ago I stocked 250 6 - 8" native bluegill and 30 6 - 10" LMB to get it started (couldn't catch anything before duckweed onset). This year after heavy fishing and removing unwanted fish I stocked 50 Hybrid bluegill (later found that it is probably a big mistake ie green sunfish), 25 channel cats, 30 more LMB to help with predation. No LMB or channels were present before I stocked them. Are their any suggestion on what else I should do short of renovation. Should I still add more LMB I would like to have a decent LMB and bluegill fishery. Thank you all for the information that has gotten me this far. My pond has really turned around.

Your pond is too small for crappie. I would remove all I could; along with green sunfish and bullheads. You have enough bass. A pond can usually only accomodate 100 pounds (or less) of predators like bass and catfish per acre. Your bluegill will be the future key to success. After a couple of years start keeping all LMB under 12 to 13 inches.

I would also subscribe to Pond Boss magazine and buy the book "Raising Trophy Bass" by Bob Lusk.

I agree with DD. You should have plenty of LMB from the two stockings, and the basis of a good forage base with the 250 adult BG. Don't sweat the HBG - with GSF and Bullheads, you've got worse problems and controlling them with predators and fishing should keep the HBG from giving you any trouble.

As suggested, leave most of the LMB in for 2-3 years. You should see noted reductions in GSF, BH & Crappie numbers by then. Check out the Bullhead control threads here; there are ideas on BH traps and netting methods you may find useful. After 2-3 years of running bass-heavy, you should be able to start harvesting the smaller LMB if the undesirable fish are under control.

Thank you all. I was hoping I was going in the right direction. I have alot of friends fishing hard for the crappie right now. The water has warmed and the cotton wood trees are covering the water daily so I may be done for a while. I have had a lot of luck with the cast net for the small 2-3" BH that group during the day. I can net up to 100 in a single throw. I personally removed over 100 crappie during spawn with rod and real. Is there any type of trap that I can use to catch them? Right now they are once again MIA when the cottonwood moves enough to cast a line.