Wasn't being (completely) serious about nuking the pond.

Ok so:

Pond is > 70 years old but it was drained and refilled in the late '80s. 5 acres. Shallow (4-5' max depth, average probably 2.5). Very fertile. Opaque water. No aquatic plants to speak of.

I've been here 4-5 years. Neighbors longer. 5 of them. Had some trouble with the drain and it's been going down about 8-12" in the summer. That coupled with some unfortunate over harvesting of bluegill since I started feeding them (not by me and I put a stop to it) has led to runaway golden shiners. I think one of my neighbors put the crappie in to try to deal with them. He apparently said something to another neighbor about taking care of the minnows a while back. At the time I thought he meant he was going to try to catch them with hook and line.

I've pulled hundreds of LMB over the last few years. I'd call them ok good for a pond that's not managed well. Biggest was maybe 6-7lbs. Growth is probably limited by poor visibility in the water as there is no shortage of large shiners. There may not be a lot of tiny fish, though. It's hard for me to tell.

I feed two or three bags a month. Naturally no one chips in.

The signature---the state record for yellow bullhead is < 3lbs. I guess no one cares enough to go through the trouble of certifying them. I've caught probably a dozen bigger than that. Not that a 3.5lb bullhead is *that* big; it's more of a joke since bullheads are undesirable. Someone here pointed out I should have let of my kids certify the fish and claim the record. Maybe I will if I get another one. Think I am pretty close to having removed all of the big bullheads removed. Really getting sick of eating old bullheads. There don't seem to be a lot of intermediate size bullheads. Lots of tiny ones though. Hopefully killing off the adults with crash their population.

I got lazy and started cast netting to get rid of some surplus small bass and overgrown minnows, and that's how I found the crappie. Never caught one on a hook and line but I've never had trouble catching crappie when going for bass in other places. I've also done a bit of jigging and never seen a crappie. So I think they're new.

This seems like a good reason to hurry up and build some artificial habitat and try out that green light I bought a while back. Otherwise I guess the plan is to wait and see. I still plan to do the normal bass harvest.

grower of champion bullheads