So after the drought drying up my pond requiring a restart (after I had dug two deep spots) that would hold water in low water times. Anyway I planted FHM and 1-1.5" BG fall of 21, drought continued through the next summer limiting the fish to the two small deep spots which were maybe 50' diameter and 5' deep area between had about 12" of water connecting them. By late summer the BG were palm size and I did see some FHM fry throughout the summer. Fall of 22 introduced 5-6 (4-6") LMB due to extremely small size of pond. Drought broke over winter and totally filled the approx. 1/3 acre pond, so far this spring I'm seeing tons of polywogs from the frog population, minnow traps have varied from zero to 50 FHM per night, now starting to see some small groups of FHM fry.. (I'm only seeing 2-6 fish at a time, seems like last time I seen clouds of FHM fry) Couple questions I guess I have, 1. I assume the gill should spawn this year, but so far I haven't seen any offspring for them, how can I tell if they are doing their job? 2. Is my timing with the planting schedule correct per your recommendations? 3. Approximately how big should the BG and LMB be this year? (I am not feeding them, but the pond is very fertile and full of bugs and other fish food.) 4. When will the LMB begin spawning? 5. I know patience is required when developing a good pond, and I am shooting for a mostly self sustaining pond model, but I'd really like to start fishing, when do you suspect I will be able to begin catching some fish? (I did catch a few BG last summer on the small fly), but I haven't seen any signs of the BG since last summer when the water was shallow and I could see them, I know they should be there, but ... 6. Is the small groups of FHM mean the predators are working them over and so just small bunches of them remain? The water depth in the pond now varies from 5-10 fow so I'm not used to a deeper pond, do the fish stay out of sight better in deeper water, so I just may not be seeing them? Anyway sorry for all the questions, but was just looking to see if what I'm doing is correct and if I can start to expect to see some happy results before too much longer... Thanks J
