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Starting to dream about replanting my pond since I just dug two deep areas that will hopefully keep fish alive if the drought returns. Anyway we have had nearly 7" of rain in the last month. We usually get about 12" in a year, so it's been really wet, however, the drought was so long and sustained it's just verily starting to get the ground water recharged and my deep areas are now full to the regular pond bottom. So I may be getting ahead of myself, but I expect we will get enough moisture this winter to refill my pond...
Deep spots are 5 to 6' deep, when the regular pond fills it will add about 5 to 6 more feet to the total depth... Anyway I'd like to have a pond that will be somewhat balanced so nothing over populates, but things stay healthy and strong. I don't want to have to supplementally feed the fish if I can get them to stay in a balanced population... What is a good mix to try for so I have fun fishing and a balanced population...
Last time the pond filled it started with fatheads naturally reproducing in the pond until it was teaming with life, then the green sunfish and crappie found their way into the pond...(it used to be on my irrigation ditch, but we no longer use the ditch, so outside fish should not find their way into the pond this time.)
After about 12 years the crappie had overpopulated to the point that the crappie were stunted and looked very sickly (first 9 years the fish were very healthy and fun size.)... I know there was a couple bass in there that died one year during a spring die off, (probably about four years ago) but I'm not sure how many predators were ever in there. (When it went dry this summer all I seen was carp, stunted crappie and stunted green sunfish)
At first the fatheads really made the sunfish grow fast and bigger than I've ever seen in the wild, crappie got to 14" too, but then when they were gone the sunfish and crappie got really small again. So I'm pretty sure I need some help figuring out how to get a correct predator balance. The pond is a little bigger than 1/3 acre... I don't typically eat a lot of fish, so I can't count on me culling the population much...
I like cc, bluegill, lmb, smb and crappie can they be used in a mix that will work? If so how many predators do I need. I've read some suggest only planting
one sex of CC to maintain a consistent number, I assume they can do that with LMB as well. If so will they keep the bluegill or crappie in a healthy number so the fishing will be good without getting too stunted?
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