Bill, In my case, it was definitely the oaks. They had been down and in the bowl about 2 weeks when the rain hit. The water was so black that visibility was less than 2 inches. I called the NRCS, the County Agent, the State Fisheries guys at Fort Worth, and Texas A&M. A&M wouldn't talk to me. Nobody with a college education had ever heard of the problem. However, some of the local dozer operators knew about it. They had made the mistake before. I tried to fix it myself. I got a jar of it and put a little bleach in it. It cleared immediately. So, I went to a swimming pool supply place and got 10 pounds of chlorine. They told me that it would clear 2 Olympic size swimming pools. That was a lot more water than I had in the pond. However, it didn't do much good. Then I bought 25 pounds. Again almost no effect. Next, I bought 75 pounds. That turned it the color of tea but still killed some fish that I experimented with. At that time, I started pumping. I am told that flooded, standing timber is not a problem and that dried oak is not a problem. I did test it by putting some in a bucket of water. It turned black and I feel proved the problem. I believe my problem was caused by the amount of fresh green oak relative to the size of the pond. It wouldn't have affected a 100 acre lake. Also, had the rain held off for a month, I probably wouldn't have had a problem. Try it. Cut a fresh piece and put it in a bucket of pure water and see what happens. Or put a green oak log in the mud by the side of your pond. Come back in a couple of weeks and move the log. You should see a lot of black gunk under it. Scoop it up, put it in a bucket and add a couple of minnows. They probably won't last long.
