I purchased a home back in May with a 2 acre pond. I fished it through the summer and caught many nice 2-3lb LMB and a couple 4+. The fish were plentiful but very aggressive and still fun to catch. Very healthy looking bass. The pond had been managed for algae previously but otherwise I think stocking was untouched for many years. Due to the timing of the house sale and the priorities of the previous owner, usual maintenance of dyeing and the start up of aeration was missed. I did not even realize there were aerators installed in the pond that had been shut down the previous winter. Once I realized this - in late June after speaking with the owner - I wanted to begin aerating to attempt to get the algae and duckweed under control. I watched some YouTube videos to understand the basics and knew I had to start up slow. I started at 30 mins and doubled the time daily. There are 3 aerators on a 3/4hp pump spread across the pond. Apparently I did not go slow enough and the day after I ran for 12 hours I triggered a massive fish kill of some of the largest fish in the pond. Some smaller ones also died but from visual inspection not in huge numbers. I pulled out about 15 2+ lb LMB though. Given that the pond was seemingly very healthy (in terms of fish population) prior to this, I want to return to this level of larger fish as quickly as possible. I also intend to re-stock a decent amount of forage species in case there was a larger die off than I was able to detect.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to source LMB in the 2+ lb range or is this unrealistic? I am in NE Ohio.
2. When is the best time of the year to re-introduce them?
3. If I won't be able to source them at that size - what is my next best option to restore a good population of larger fish as quickly as possible in terms of size and population?
4. At what concentration should I re-stock forage species along with whatever LMB I add?

I am really heartbroken by what I did to this pond and I am hoping I can restore it to something close to it's former glory without waiting years.

There are still some decent size bass in the 1lb range in the pond. I don't have any sense for how many but I have caught a handful. I can also see quite a few packs of LMB in the 6" size range lurking off the end of the dock. There still seems to be a healthy population of bluegill but they are generally pretty small.

The average depth is probably around 4' with the deepest being 8-9'. One day I would like to get it dredged and deepened but that is a few years down the line.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Last edited by sandhillfarm; 09/13/24 09:19 PM.