You're welcome,
Another thought is that they could have mostly all been eaten. I thought I read that you had put 250 shiners in a 1/4-acre pond. You would think the heavy vegetation would protect them but 250 to me doesn't sound like a lot.
I grew up fishing in a 2.1-acre pond that had nothing but golden shiners and some green sunfish. The entire pond was full of shiners. Some friends and I did some bucket stocking of bass, bluegill, and catfish we caught from local ponds. Now there is not a single shiner in entire pond. The predators ate every single one of those shiners. Now granted, there was little to no structure in the pond.
