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I am in Missouri with property on the water but still going to put a pond in next year filling up my flood zones estimate is 3 acre pond maybe 14 ft depth on the damn end. Watched bambass YouTube got hooked now getting ready to spend money. I have a well there already not being utilized and power, so will fill with well and maintain water levels with it. Full in, aeration, some feeding, lighting, piers, structure. My goal is to raise a fish garden, bluegill as my primary harvest goals. I like to eat fried pan fish lol. Probably have redear and hybrids but not sure on hybrids yet. LMB's of course. Channel cat as a bonus knowing I'll have to stock those again off and on.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!

There's plenty of information here about raising bluegills.

R0b,

Most people fill a pond with surface water (rain running off the surface of the land) or groundwater (the pond is built below the top of the local groundwater aquifer). A water well is typically used as a supplemental water supply.

One acre of land covered with water a foot deep is 326,000 gallons of water. If your pond is 3 acres, with an average depth of 10', then the amount of water in your pond will be almost 10 million gallons.

326,000 gals/acre-ft x 3 acres x 10 feet = 9,780,000 gallons

For a well that pumps 20 GPM, it will take 340 days of pumping 24/7 just to fill your pond! I highly recommend creating your pond design to gather as much rainwater as you can!

Welcome to Pond Boss, and good luck on your new pond project!

Well said Rod

How are you planning to control the numbers of redears(RES) / hybrids? You realize the RES you normally buy will not likely eat pellets?.

3 acres will take a lot of harvesting. I haven’t heard anything about predators other than catfish. They will probably have trouble keeping up with the bluegill spawn.

This stuff is about a predator/prey balance.

It has been said that only bluegills can spawn enough to feed bass and only bass can keep up with the bluegills never ending spawns. If you don’t want bass, you might consider hybrid bluegills. Use a feeder to feed them a good balanced food.

My pond is just under 5 acres with no run off or aquifer and I had no problem filling it or keeping it full,
Let it evaporate for 3 months then turn the well on for a week.
So it’s very possible and doable

Welcome to PB fellow Miserian.

Welcome to PB ! A put and take fishery with HBG and CC with feeding can work well for harvest. It will be a put and take fishery and should have high catch rates.

My damn will actually be the last stop water can go before running into the lake of the Ozarks. So I will be collecting all the water I can from the watershed/runoff. But a 5hp 50gpm well will do 2 million gallons a month. Hopefully the drought is over but I will miss any spring rains. Probably be summer before construction is done.

Oh LMB for the pond as well, I added that to my post since I forgot.

Sorry forgot to post the LMBs for the apex.

What is your goal for size ranges for the LMB? Note HSB can be combined with LMB for better angler diversity.
There are 3 basic categories for bass sizes. 1. Mostly smaller LMB 8"-13" for producing mostly largest BG. 2. General fishing good range of normal distribution of LMB sizes 8"-18" ; when well managed the occasional 19"-20"-21", good range of BG sizes. 3. Mostly big bass with population skewed toward large bass 16-24", BG skewed toward the 3"-6" sizes. Each category has its own management requirements. Learn the needed management techniques before pulling the trigger if you want best success for your goals.

Sounds like an awesome location R0B!

I might manage the pond for the type of fishing that you (or your family) would most enjoy, that is NOT available at Lake of the Ozarks. You already have that covered.

Smaller bass, was reading the forum about following a bass slot for the pond. So your #2. I think they wrote toss back 11" to 14" LMBs. Keep all larger and some smaller. I want good sized BG with the occasional monster.

HSB. Sorry don't know all the acronyms yet.

HSB are hybrid striped bass. Here is the link to the acronyms used on our PBoss Forum. I also provided the link to our Archives. There is a lot of very good pond and fish management information topics in the Archives. Read though the largemouth(LMB) and HSB topics for good discussions of using and managing these two predators. There are also good topics for growing big bluegill and hybrid bluegill.

List of Acronyms
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92442#Post92442

Archive List of Management Topics
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=22&page=1

Sweet. I want to talk to Missourians about ponds. I need all the help I can get.

Link to my renovation thread: My Front Yard Cow Pond

I made some mistakes along the way, but with help from the brain trust here I've learned how to work with those mistakes.