Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Partial fish kill

We have had another dry summer in my area. Mom's 1/3 acre pond is down over 2 ft with the last runoff event probably in April. On top of this we had over a week of triple digit temps and no cloud cover. The pond water had gotten very green from planktonic algae and then suddenly we get 2-3 cloudy days in a row. Mom calls me to say the water is starting to look slimy and the fish aren't eating. I told her to stop feeding until we get a break in the weather but in the back of my mind I'm dreading what may happen next.

Sure enough she calls me back Monday to tell me there are several dead fish floating. After all was said and done we found 4 GC (all of them), 22 adult HBG, and 11 2-3 lb LMB. This may be all the LMB in the pond as the feeding area has been dominated by 1-3 inch Fx HBG. 30 3-5in bass were stocked in spring 06 but I think only a few made it. Pond is devoid of cover and we have not stocked HBG in about 4 years yet there are 1-3in HBG everywhere. There may have been too much competition from HBG for the bass stockers and the adult bass may have targeted the young bass because they prefer their body profile.

I regret not keeping aquashade in it this year. Last year we didn't put any in and I ended up raking out lots of FA. I applied some this spring when the FA started to grow but as the months went by the aquashade started to fade and the planktonic algae seemed to gradually take it's place. I thought it was great as we had very little FA and the food chain would benefit from the planktonic. It just got too hot and dry too be followed by some cloudy days and we had a O2 crash. The pond doesnt have aeration and don't think it will anytime soon.

Looking forward I want to try to stock maybe 30-40 LMB that are over 8 inch to hammer the Fx HBG. Even with daily feeding the Fx HBG don't seem to be getting to a decent size so I would like to replace them with F1's. Problem is that they will also hammer any new F1 HBG we might stock. Without resorting to a cage nursery does anybody have advise on how to get the Fx HBG out and the F1's in?