Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Restoring a bluegill pond

Guys I need to guidance on how to quickly restore the population of bluegills in my 1.25 acre, southeastern Iowa pond. My end goal for the pond is to have a sustainable group of excellent 9+ inch male bluegill, some catchable 15-20" bass and the occasional decent crappie.

Details on the pond can be seen here:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=462759#Post462759

I currently have a very aggressive and healthy population of severely stunted 4-5" bluegills, 4-6" crappies and 8-10" yellow bullheads.

We plan to seine the pond in the spring to remove the bullhead and get a better overall idea of the numbers of fish.

I have access to a couple other private ponds and can bucket stock 15-18" bass, and some mature bluegills in the spring.

My question is, what would be the proper number of bass to stock in this pond to help create my goal bluegill population? How many mature bluegills should I add this spring? Should I add some mature crappie or just let my existing group of stunted crappie grow to size? Should I consider any other species of fish to balance out my pond?

This pond hasn't been stocked since the 1970's and hasn't been "managed" since around the same time.

Been teaching my youngest to fish a top water frog for bass lately - yesterday he had 10+ blow ups, 2 hook ups and 1 to the boat Bass population is doing awesome! As much as I would like to have a trophy bluegill pond - the kids have just as much fun catching some big largemouth!!!

We are in the middle of a drought locally so water quality is excellent (4-5' of visibility), FA is dwindling but still carrying a nice green shade bloom. Bout time to start running the cloverleaf trap again

Took the day off work to spend time at the pond

I sold my old helix 5 g1 and got a helix 5 g2 with autochart....made a map of the pond. It is not 100% spot on but it is very close



While cruising around making the map I found several schools of crappies and gills stacked up and suspended


Caught a few to cull from the pond - tossed the fat ones back - skinny ones are on shore for the racoons


Nice to see some 10" crappie!


No pictures of bluegills but I caught 3 today, all very fat. I'll weigh and measure for rw tracking next time I fish



Water clarity is rocking, with 3' of visibility, pond is looking very nice lately.

Looking to thin out some fish this winter....got my 7 y/o on a school of dink bluegills




unfortunately i have a 30' deadfall ash tree that landed on the pond a couple of weeks ago that is restricting access to a spot where we tie up the row boat to access a back trail. I'll have to take the chainsaw down and log it out.

Some more ice culling from the weekend

Matt, that boy is the best reason to have a pond.