Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fathead Questions

I'm still struggling with my neighbor Lee's pond. We stocked fatheads and bluegill in 2021 and then SMB, YP, more BG, HSB, and CC over the course of 2022. All we see are fatheads of all sizes. No signs of any of the other fish. Water clarity is less than 1', but you can see fatheads everywhere.

1) Would fatheads essentially 'thrive' in waters where other fish like BG, YP, SMB, HSB, and CC could not survive?

2) I'm seeing fatheads that are 1/4" to 1/2" long right now. Theoretically, fatheads should have stopped spawning last Fall '22 when water temps went below 70 degrees. Could 100s and 1000s of fatheads still be that small if they were born (6) months ago??

I think I'm taking my Aquaview camera over there this afternoon to see if I can see anything.

Pond size and #'s stocked?

I hope that the other fish are just thin on the vine, and haven't succumbed to something the FHM survived.

Yes, in the colder months the fish don't grow very much. Yes, FHM can survive in waters where other fish struggle, but if you haven't seen dead fish floating, then I doubt that you've lost a bunch.

Pond size is probably 1/6 acre or so, and with depths to about 8'. Essentially spring fed, and stays full pool all year round.

I've put in 85-100 adult bluegill/RES mix. Probably 200 YP in the 3-6" range. 12 CC about 4-5" long. 12 HSB from 2" to 6". About 100 SMB of various sizes, 2" - 5" from three different sources.

We did have a small fish kill incident where we lost about 20 adult BG/RES and some of the larger SMB, but nothing since then.

The pond owners put in an aerator after that.

Any angling attempts to find non-Fatheads?

Theos, so, we used to see the adult bluegill lazily hitting feed, and then all of a sudden, we never saw them again. We wondered if they were just gorging on baby fatheads and thus possibly not interested in feed; I never fully bought on to this idea, but sometimes, you'd see a bluegill suspended in the water surround by clouds of fathead fry, and the bluegill just seemed to be be inhaling.


I did eventually fish with a meal worm down 5-6' below a bobber and caught an adult healthy bluegill. This was last Fall '22.

Will try fishing more this week.

Sorry to hear you had to add that to your list of chores for the week!

Today's fishing was a half-assed effort with no results.

Lee's young son runs some merciless minnow traps. I asked him to hand me a fathead to hook up, and he handed me a just over 1/2" bluegill. That's the first non-fathead I've seen since last Fall '22.

I'm lost.

When this has happened to me the last couple of years, I’ve figured cormorants. I’ve just finished installing about a dozen or so cedars along the shorelines. I have an order in for some fatheads .

Thanks, Guv. We're not seeing any heavy bird activity. There's an odd GBH here and there, but nothing devastating.

Sunil, the GBH can eat more fish than you realize. They also eat at night and fly at night. I have learned just how many fish they can eat once I started keeping fish in holding tanks. It was amazing how fast the fish disappeared.

I've observed the GBH's for quite some time also. Their scat is also easy to spot. We're not having that issue right now, thankfully.