Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations My fish have disappeared

Hi everyone I’ve posted a few times about my 1 acre newish pond this past year and thank u for all the help.

The past 2 months my fish have become harder and harder to come by with the cold temps. Last month I managed to see one bass and a couple bluegill swimming in cold air temps around 40.
This week I have been unable to locate a single minnow bluegill or bass in the pond anywhere. Nothing. Air temps are around 60-70 and I presumed that would create some more action but to no avail.

My concern is that somehow I have had some sort of die off or loss of fish.
I have a vegetation bloom this last month that has somewhat affected my water quality so maybe that has created a fish kill but I haven’t located any dead fish.

Really lost at this point and I need to know whether my pond has turned over and it’s time to restart or if all my fish are just hiding for some reason.

Any experience, info is greatly appreciated

I’ve had it happen. In my case it was overstocked leading to an O2 crash.

Interesting if I may ask did u see any dead fish? For context I put in 3000 bluegill and 100 bass.

I'd place money on you seeing fish again once the water temps warmed up. Say water temps in the low to mid 60's.

I saw only a small percentage floating.

Have you walked the perimeter of your pond? Im sure you have, a couple otters can deplete a smaller pond pretty fast, but you should be able to see some signs on the bank at some point. They wouldnt do much to your minnow population tho.

Just an observation, but the cold water activity here is completely different between my hatchery pond, and my big pond. The CNBG in the big pond, seemed to have acclimated to the cooler water over the years, and will eat 2-3 days after surface ice. The CNBG in the hatchery pond, came from Buffalo last spring, and will vanish for weeks at a time if there is any cold snap, or a water temp drop after cooler rain. I've done as much as setting game cameras all around the pond to catch any otters, and none showed up. In the past 2 months I've only seen fingerlings twice in the hatchery pond, and that was last week. Now, they've disappeared again.

Personally, I wouldn't determine what's in a pond until spring hits, and the water warms up and stabilizes a bit. RBT and HSB would be my only exception.

Al, don't forget about YP.

Alas, no YP in Glen Rose, just dinosaur bones.