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.

Just another 1 acre hole in the ground...........with fish !!!