Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? No visible fish activity

For background see my post "Inherited Pond"

Over the last two years I have treated the pond with Algecide, Muck Remover and Herbicide (cattails). All were safe for ponds and wildlife. Pond is about 1/8 an acre and 6' deep. I know it has one large turtle (24") and MANY frogs. I have caught Green Sunfish (one every 15-20min) but all are 2-3" long. Recently I have added 4 6-9" bass and Bluegill (bucket method). I also have an order for fish (150 BlueGill, 50 Shell Crackers and 10 Large Mouth).

Here is my concern...my water is clear to 12" but I see zero fish activity. I have no minnows, bait balls, breeding nests or surface activity (I have tried bread and floating fish food-no luck).

I know there are fish in the pond, I know the water is healthy, I know I have not seen any dead fish floating.

Am I just being a bit impatient or is it normal NOT to see fish activity in small farm ponds?

Pond is near Lexington, KY..

When I make one lap around our pond I see minnows, bluegill, bass lurking just outside of range waiting to pounce, tadpoles when seasonally available, as well as tons of wildlife prints in the mud; raccoon, deer, turkey, etc..Near the feeder I always see a cloud of bluegill with occasional bass cruising through too. Here in South Mississippi, our bluegill have already spawned at least twice(April and May). You can see their beds and the rigorous activity of individual fish.

A healthy pond is going to be teeming with life inside and outside on the perimeter.

We do not fertilize, but we do feed three times a day. Our clarity is around 36 inches most of the time; heavy rains do muddy it a little bit, but it settles quickly.

Unless you feed at the same spot and same time every day with a good palatable fish food, you probably won't see fish feeding. Barometric pressure and water temp all play a HUGE part in fish activity. If you are there post cold front the pond looks dead.

Walking around the pond may drive the fish to deeper water if they aren't used to you doing that. Try sitting there in a chair for 15-20-30 minutes without walking around. Try tossing a hightcrawler about 24" below a bobber. Hook the nightcrawler once through the collar, minimal weight, tie the hook directly to the line, no snap swivel, use a #10 short shank hook.

The worm/hook/no swivel & a bobber is how I discovered the Green Sunfish. I inherited the pond and am resurrecting it of sorts. I do not (accurately) know the depth or what I inherited. From this website, research and consultants we deduced the stunted Green Sunfish had taken over hence my stocking plan.

I figured if the Green Sunfish had truly taken over I would see a couple bat balls this spring now that the algae and cattails are reduced.

My goal is not to have a feeder or worry about trophy size fish. Just a healthy pond that I can bobber fish or fly fish in now and then (yes I know I will have to cull out at some point).

If fish are really that shy I guess I will have to wait and be patient.

With a high population of GSF, you will have a very hard time getting any other species to successfully reproduce and not have the fry eaten before they can grow to catchable size. I'd recommend stocking 50 largemouth bass per acre, and make sure that they are 10"-14" in length when stocked.

To find the depth, use a slip bobber with a weight that will sink the slip bobber. Cast and adjust the depth until the bobber just floats. Repeat around the pond until you find the max depth.

Pond is only 1/8th acre. Good idea with the split weight and bobber. Currently I just guesstimate with the Dam height and elevation changed (run-off fed). I figure 6-8" at deepest. That was confirmed due to the complete freeze over this past winter and the Green Sunfish still were present.

I have a small boat that will be launched later this spring and I will use either the stick or anchor and rope method.

Hopefully the 4 Bass I stocked will make a dent in the Green Sunfish, allowing the few Bluegill either to go hybrid or have a spawn prior to my shipment coming.

I like using a 10' piece of 3/4" PVC pipe. You should be able to easily feel when you tag the bottom and you can mark with a Sharpie.

Then try and push the pipe INTO the bottom. For an old pond with lots of organic "muck" you should be able to push through significantly deeper. Hopefully, you will then be able to feel the "original" bottom of your pond. That might give you some useful information for future pond management if you ever get the opportunity to clean out or deepen your pond.




Did you ever put in your ten extra largemouth from your stocking plan? Hopefully the answer is yes. However, I would still consider bucket stocking some 10-14" bass as esshup suggests. (He is a pond management professional.) I think you need the larger size to eat the larger brooder Green Sunfish. Further, some of the bucket stocked bass will probably not thrive in your pond. So not all of the number that you add will become effective GSF predators.

(When I first joined Pond Boss, I thought moving bass from one nice home to another nice home would still result in healthy and happy bass. However, the pros have pointed out numerous situations with tagged fish that some just do not respond well to the environment of their new home.)

With a large population of Green Sunfish, I think you need a period with too many bass! You will need to make a large dent in the GSF population to get your pond in balance.

The good thing is that LMB are one of the easiest fish to remove at a later date. If the pendulum swings too far in that direction, it will be much easier to identify that you have stunted bass and need to start culling some, compared to the very difficult job of analyzing your GSF population.

Have fun and don't stress about making an "error". Any slight miscalculations performing the tasks you have mentioned above could not cause an "unfixable" error in your pond - in my non-expert opinion. (Letting your drain pipe stay clogged and then having a big rain washout your dam is what I would consider a true error.)

Good luck improving your pond!

Stocking plan is still TBD. The company I went with delivers with a truck (not mail). They are waiting for multiple ponds in my area to order prior to scheduling a truck. Should be later this spring/early summer.

I was afraid of stocking too many bass and having them starve. They have insects Green Sunfish (no idea how many), small frogs and I would hope tadpols.

May have made one mistake...TBD...I put one (singular) 10" white bass in the pond. Their mouth was bigger than the other bass I put in there so maybe they can help thin things out.

I have dumped a bunch of Muck Away into the pond and have pulled the cattail root balls out after killing them off.

Bottom is VERY soft but seems to be more clay than decomposing junk.

I like the green sunfish. Admittedly, their only annual spawn will not be enough to feed larger predators like bass. I have greens and bluegills. The greens will out fight a bluegill of the same size every time. The bluegills are the only sunfish that can spawn enough to feed bass. I have room for both.

Not really a mistake if you only stocked one. After all, it does take two to tango!

White bass do prefer a different selection of forage compared to black bass. So it shouldn't really compete against your stocked LMB. I definitely would not let anyone stock any more white bass.

DD1 is the greatest advocate on the forum for Green Sunfish.

My Daughter #2 completely agrees with Dave about catching GSF versus BG.

When she was very young she loved going fishing in a pond with both species. The BG would start moving her bobber around, and then partially take it under, so she would set the hook. She would miss the fish, then ask me to put on another bit of worm, and she would cast back into the same spot. After the same result a few more times, she would lament, "Those are the sneaky fish there Dad, I am going to move so I can catch the good ones."

She would then move to the other edge of the brush pile, and be happy as can be when a GSF would then hit the worm hard, bobber goes under, and then she has a nice little fight on the spinning rod with a GSF. Further, their mouths were large enough that I could stick my thumb in to hold the fish and easily remove the hook and slap on another 1/2" of worm.

Rinse and repeat until she had cleaned out all of the "good" GSF, and the "sneaky fish" would then be the only ones nibbling.


To expand on DD1s comment: There are many people on Pond Boss that have trophy/eating size BG as the main goal of their pond. They manage the LMB population to cull the smaller BG such that most of the biomass of BG in the pond is made up of larger individuals.

GSF are more aggressive to angling and breed more slowly. Therefore, I believe it would actually be easier to have a "trophy" GSF pond compared to a BG pond!

In Kansas, the State Record BG is 2.31# and the record GSF is 2.36#. However, the record hybrid BG is 2.65#

I do NOT know the reasons why no one has tried for that type of pond using GSF. I think our experts do greatly prefer eating BG compared to GSF? (Might be wrong on the one?) I also do not know if GSF will slurp up pellets that same way that BG will?

Maybe some of our panfish experts can give you some better advice. In your small pond, perhaps a fun GSF fishery might be the optimal use?

That's hard to believe about the GSF in Kansas since FishBase.org has the largest one listed at under 2 pounds.

esshup,

Below is the link for the State Records

Official Kansas Fishing Records

If you are skeptical of that record, do you think it was more likely a hybrid that was misidentified?

It is a relatively old record - from 1982.



P.S. Personally, I think of GSF as generally larger than BG. However, I suspect this is due to observation bias based on the places I have fished.

In the larger reservoirs with both species where I have fished, I have caught many more large GSF. However, most of those were caught on larger presentations while fishing for bass. I don't think a BG of the same size would have been capable of getting the hook in his tiny mouth.

The only place I have consistently caught large BG was in a spring-fed pond where the owner had a feeder set up for his channel cats. The BG would certainly eat more of the food when the feeder went off, compared to the CC! I don't think there were any GSF in that pond, but don't know for sure.

Yes, I would be leaning towards a Hybrid Bluegill with more GSF traits than normal, or a HBG period. After seeing all the idiots on FB ID fish, nothing surprises me any more. I have to sit on my hands or I'd whizz a lot of people off that are on there. One guy posted pictures of a stunted BG and RES. More than one person said they both were crappie. To be honest, I must live a sheltered life. The amount of villiage idiots out there on FB that post like they know what they are talking about is amazing to me. Like my Dad would say, "You must have thought God was asking you if you wanted pains instead of brains and you told him that you didn't want any."

What a line.

Correct about me being a GSF fan. They will out fight a pansy Bluegill or Redear every time. I have a lot of them and when one hits my bait, I know it.

Lusk said it years ago.
“What’s the problem with a Green Sunfish? How can a fish that only spawns annually be a problem when Bluegills have rolling spawns.