Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

Neighborhood pond temp dropped to 59 degrees as of yesterday, after ambient highs in the low 50s and lows in the mid to high 30s.

I hadn't fed since last Sunday, and the bluegill and LMB were waiting and ready. Catfish were hitting feed also.

Yesterday morning it was 27°F here. Tilapia in the holding tank are still eating. I will take a water temp reading today.

esshup, do you see more customers interested in ponds made of minnows/fhiners/YP/SMB? It seems in northern ponds that SMB are hard to come by and therefore ignored as the apex predator. I also wonder if there will be a better network of sourcing Tilapia in the midwest outside of a few people who try to overwinter them in tanks indoors in the winter. The forage base is important and we continue to look for more ways to build it in the northern ponds.

As noted - Smallmouth bass are hard to find at fish farms all over the USA compared to LMB are available at every retail fish farm.
In my lengthy experience with YP in ponds minnows and shiners are the best forage species for growing yellow perch. However the best predator for controlling YP and still having enough YP harvested for table use,,,, the LMB is not the preferred predator. This is because the LMB eat too many and too large of the narrow bodied (fusiform) YP that they easily swallow. LMB with yellow perch are not well compatible and usually after several years and the old stocker YP die. The reproducing prolific LMB have eliminated basically all the slender bodied YP unless the pond has extensive cover habitat as refugia for the small perch. Bes habitat for YP and LMB is weeds weeds weeds. Minimal or non reproducing predators such as SMB, HSB or walleye or saugeye always work best for producing a high quality yellow perch fishery. Controlling the numbers and sizes of predator are key points for a quality YP fishery.

More practical research needs to be done to learn more about spawning and producing young of year SMB. At this point in time SMB are not an easy fish to spawn to dependably produce young of year. This feature is a big reason why SMB are often well used as predators for yellow perch. Too many predators eat too many of the small YP especially in ponds that have minimal algae and weeds.


If the forage base is lacking, maybe there is not enough habitat and cover as forage fish refuge areas or there are too many predators eating forage fish. As in all wildlife management, balance is very important for a self sustaining fishery depending on ones goals.

On a side note, my bluegill in the neighborhood pond don't seem to care for the latest batch of Optimal Bluegill. I'm not sure why. I did note that the newest batch of Optimal Bluegill are shaped into longer pellets where they used to be mixed size before.

ooh... that would be bad if that is true. I depend on the fact that the Optimal Bluegill is made of a mix of pellet sizes...that is critical to me so that all size classes of fish have something to easily consume including the smaller SFS.

If the Optimal Bluegill now seems to be mostly too big for some of your smaller fish, I would order the Optimal Bluegill Junior and mix the two together. Make your own custom mixed pellet blend of pellet sizes. The Junior is a little higher protein 42% vs 40% thus your smaller fish will grow faster to eat the larger O.Bluegill pellets. Yay!

Today, ambient temp got to the mid 60s, so a very warm sunny day, after several colder days.

I expected the fish to act just as they did yesterday, ready to feed. I only saw bluegill starting to gather.

The bluegill would mostly only hit feed that was sinking. For my first offering, I threw one water-soaked Optimal Largemouth pellet with no takers! I followed up with a second pellet adjacent to the first, and no takers, just observers. I threw the third pellet, and it started sinking and was immediately taken. From there, I threw out some Optimal Grower of which 20% or so is sinking, and they only took the sinking feed. Normally, they'll take the sinking feed first, and then take the floating Grower.

Barely any surface action, and I didn't see any LMB or catfish.

It's amazing how things change day to day.

My adult smb are still feeding. Very slow to get started tho. My 2024 smb are all gone except for one pond that was too hard to net because of weeds. 3" to 8" fish and are not taking much feed. In fact its almost like they disapeared. Going to overwinter and have them available for next spring or replace some of my breeders. Major Pond work is coming to a close for the season. Just getting things ready for what feels like could be a long winter.

Sunil - What is your water temperature?
Once the water temp drops below 60F fish are more hesitant to feed at the surface. This is why some recommendation's are to start and stop feeding floating pellets using the 60F temperature. Depending on the pond situation and type of fish and when hungry fish will feed at the surface in water at 50F. Thus the 60F is not an absolute rule. As you are seeing sinking feed is more readily accepted when water temperature is decreasing. As fish become adjusted to the cooler water temps feeding on pellets can increase.

Was at the pond over the weekend and feeding has slowed way down, used to look like popcorn popping when the feeder went off but now they barely clean it up, I slowed the feeder down to just 5 seconds per throw, once a day. I do not know what the water temp is.

Bill, last time I checked, the water temp was 59 degrees, and the fish were waiting for me to throw the feed; this was after 4 days of no feeding.

My last post about them hitting the sinking feed and not the floating feed, it was a warmer day, so the temps would have still be around 59/60.

I usually have them feeding until the temps get down to 50 degrees.

First rain in a month headed our way this morning.

Got a lousy .22 inches. I don't think that even knocked the dust off of the prairie grass.

Another chance of rain tonight. Fingers AND toes crossed while performing my rain dance is NOT a video that should ever make it onto the forum!

At least it is raining there...

I drove up 35 from Texas to Kansas on Sunday.

I passed one watershed lake in central OK with a dam at least a third of a mile long, and with a complex concrete spillway structure, that was absolutely BONE DRY!

I am pretty sure that is the largest lake (without a breached dam) that I have ever observed that was bone dry.


I feel your pain, brother.

.22 here in NW Oklahoma as well. My wife keeps telling me that we'll get what is needed to sustain us. 38 years of marriage, I just nod and say yes honey LOL

That response right there is the exact reason you have stayed married for so long!

It took me several years of marriage to learn that is an excellent response in MANY situations.

Crazy here in northeast Missouri. I planted food plots back in late August. They are still bare dirt. I’d put down some cereal rye or anything, but there’s no rain coming. Pond is down about 2.5’ now. Lots of deer tracks in the mud around the pond. Might be the only water source near by. Haven’t bow hunted because it’s so warm.

We've gotten little to no rain this summer, so I'm reloading brush piles, and seeing if fry will adapt to a PVC "forest" when the hatchery pond rises back up to full pool. It should get covered in algae once the water rises. I've got tons of 3/4" PVC and hundreds of tree sapling covers.

My big pond is 4' down, and my dock is on the ground. We really do need some rain.

Very interesting structure, Annie.

Very nice application of re-purposing existing materials.

I wonder if some fry would hide inside of some of those sanctuaries?

I have some of those plastic mesh tree tubes that rotted and fell apart in my shop. Never thought of putting them in a pond.

We got .08 inch last night and a hell of a lightening show. Forecast is pretty good for rain mid-week. Fingers crossed and all that jazz!

I hope so. I'll trim the the tops about an inch under water during full pool, and add a slit or two. Another member had mentioned that fry and fingerlings could grow big in a cage, and couldn't get out. Same thing happened to me this year, so I wanted an exit.

On another note, the hatchery pond also had multiple spawns this year and my guesstimate is a few thousand survived. Our CNBG range is from 3/4" to 6", which requires multiple food sizes. Right now it's dust, 2.2mm, 1/8", and 1/4" pellets hand fed twice a day. The mystery juvenile HSB I added months ago are now knocking the smaller CNBG out of the water when they're fed.

Annie just got back from a well needed week long Redfish flyfishing trip at deep south Louisiana bays. Those making it to the backing line made me a bit nervous.

I like how you've resorted to referring to yourself in the 3rd person...

Both of us have dissociative identity disorder.