My pond has 5 fish species in it. Lily pads provide cover in my 9' deep pond. I can test lures I make to see what bites and then make more. But, I don't want to hook fish that are almost like pets in an aquarium and once I get a strike and hook fish, I unhook and release them as soon as possible. In fact, daily, I roll bits of bread between my fingers and toss them to over a dozen sunnies as well as 3-4 small turtles. (Many times the turtles are too slow and robbed by sunfish before they can eat the bread. :D) Fish and turtles will even follow me to where I'm standing on a different shore, expecting a snack. Like I said - like pets!
Also, it's nice to see springtime ducks land and swim around, along with Canadian geese, before they spawn.
Note: I have no idea where the turtles came from or go to in winter when the pond freezes. Same for a huge snapping turtle that poked its head up no more than 4' from my dock! (Haven't seen it this year - yet.)
The problem I had last year was a drought that dropped the 9' deep pond down to 3' and all fish died due to low oxygen and thick ice. Of the dead floating fish, there were four- 7 lb grass carp that ate too much bottom vegetation during the year. I hated seeing all my buddies dead, but had help getting rid of the bodies from daily visits from turkey vultures and a raccoon. (If I stock grass carp, 2 will do.)
Rainfall has been good so far, though air temps have been over 90 for over 3 weeks and no rain. Time to look for an aearatore - 12v or solar if possible for winter.
For restocking of your small pond and to reduce the chances of over population from one of them, you could stock single gender fish species. It could be one or several all male bluegill, maybe 1 pumpkinseed, 1 crappie, 1 yellow perch, 1 LMB, 1 SMB, 1 catfish and for added natural foods you could add 50-100+ fathead minnows. Instead of bread to feed your fish you could go to a local fish farm and buy a small amount of fish food to feed your fish to help keep them healthier and growing better. Or You could contact by Private Message any PBoss forum member and they could send you a couple pounds of high quality fish pellets for your feeding of several fish.
Green sunfish thrive in low oxygen ponds, and are fun to catch. Turtles from what i can tell travel from one body of water to another. Also the hook issue, might smash the barbs down with needle nose pliers, makes removing the hooks from the fish much easier.
SENKOSAM If you add a green sunfish(GSF) to your small pond, IMO I would add only one; just one. It will grow to 9" long. GSF are prolific and very predatory for a regular sunfish type because the GSF have a very large mouth and aggressive behavior attitude. Lots of reproduction from GSF can cause fish management issues in a small pond especially when there is lots of shallow shoreline habitat where they thrive and often escape predation.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 08/01/2510:54 AM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
SENKOSAM, as is always the case from Bill Cody, he has given you some more great advice. Because of your interest in testing fishes' reactions to lures, I'll also suggest you add 1, and only 1, green sunfish, GSF, to your pond. My experience includes having them grow to 11+ inches. And they attack all sorts of artificial lures, often right under your rod tip. Great fun.
Only the most unique goals involve purposefully developing a breeding population of green sunfish. Know the pros and cons before ever adding GSF to your pond. Most pondowners that have GSF regret having them. IMO there are many better fish species than a GSF to use for a high quality fishery. When your pond has GSF you need to figure out how to make lemonaid from lemons.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Bill, I can’t find anything to regret about the greens. Yes, they do take up some space but not much. I have whopper greens and also big bluegills.
I consider them as a combination or trade off fish. Without bluegills, I couldn’t feed bass. The greens only spawn annually and bluegills enjoy a rolling spawn.
The difference is when I hook one. That’s when I get my line stretched and rod bent. I release them to fight again.
It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.
Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.
Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP Grandpa
DD1 - OKAY - now here we go wonderfully together AGAIN. I and many others know that you are an Honorary Card Carrying long time office holding Member of the Green Sunfish Association. WOW what a title! I honor your legend. For those that need to know more about the early activity of the GSF Association see this.
She started fishing in a LMB-BG-GSF at age 3. We had brush piles in about 4-5' of water. She would cast her bobber with a bit of worm, and when the bobber would go 6" underwater, she would set the hook, feel the fish bend her rod, and yell "Daddy, I got a good one!" Those were the GSF that she loved to catch.
She would cast back in, and her bobber would start moving around the surface and twitching. Finally, it would go 2" underwater and she would pause and set the hook, but miss the fish. Then I would hear, "Daddy, I need more worm, I have a sneaky fish over here." She would keep working until she finally managed to catch the sneaky fish, which was always a BG. She HATED "sneaky fish"!
Rarely, she would hook a 12" bass with her tiny bit of worm. As it was taking out drag, I would hear "Daddy, I got one of the big, green ones."
The bass in that pond were always greener than even the green sunfish. However, she definitely preferred catching a mess of GSF compared to catching a few bass. She considered the sneaky BG to be an annoyance.
I still have fond memories of the days when she used her own names for the fish species, rather than the names that I used.
I think for this SENKOSAM small pond it would be best to not have reproducing sport fish that would have a likely tendency with reproduction to overpopulate. Then we get into more intensive management issues and usually end up with fewer larger fish. With reproducing fish for a better quality sized fishery we usually get involved with the efforts of feeding the fish and creating a more eutrophic pond ecosystem; more algae, more weeds, more chemicals, more, more, more. Hey it is a free country so reproducing fish can be easily used. But I suggest know the long term consequenses of going both ways. My philosophy for this one is when the fishery manager wants it to be changed to more reproduction all we have to do is add the other gender of fish that we want to have more of. My experience is having reproducing fish in a small pond can almost always be more problems to deal with. Sometimes simpler is better.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 08/02/2508:39 PM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
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