Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Carrying Capacity versus Pond Size

I have read lots of the excellent threads on pond carrying capacity.

For example, this a good one that addresses "Structure and Carrying Capacity".

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9167#Post9167

My tenuous conclusion is that sunlight controls both the basis for the food chain AND the generation of oxygen within the BOW.

Therefore, carrying capacity is always a function of the surface acreage of the pond. All of the management you perform to achieve the goals for your pond is ultimately constrained by the surface acres.

I have not been able to find a discussion of how the SIZE of the pond affects the carrying capacity (with all other factors being held constant).

Whenever we read of some guy money-whipping his ponds (because he wants trophy fish right now), we hear about building a beautiful 6-acre pond rather than building six 1-acre ponds!

I intend to build excavated ponds just above the floodplain on our farm in south-central Kansas. I have spent years trying to save enough money, but still have not started a single pond.

My question is basically: How do you get the most pond "carrying capacity" per yard of excavated dirt?

To simplify the problem, is it better to have a 2-acre pond or two 1-acre ponds?

I have generated some numbers purely for the sake of discussion. Assume perfectly square ponds with a uniform depth in the middle of 10 feet. The slope from the shoreline is 3:1 until reaching max depth.

A 2-acre pond would have a shoreline (perimeter) of 1180' and hold 16.2 acre-feet of water.

Two 1-acre ponds would have a total shoreline of 1672' and hold a combined 15.0 acre-feet of water.

For the exact same SURFACE ACREAGE, the two-pond solution has 42% more shoreline and 7% fewer yards of dirt excavated.

My uninformed intuition suggests that after surface acreage, it is the shallow water near the shoreline that is the second most important limiting factor. (All other things being equal.)

I don't hear of the "trophy" guys opting for more numerous smaller ponds. However, the most "productive" guys I read on the forum all seem to generate massive amounts of their target fish by utilizing tiny forage ponds and grow-out ponds to supplement their larger BOWs.

If you had a totally "blank slate" before you excavated your ponds, what would you do? I would love to hear what the experts think on this topic!

Thanks,
FishinRod

My first pond, many years ago. 1/4 acre with no fish. So, I started stocking with fatheads, bluegills, red ears, bass and catfish. For a couple of years everything went well. Big bass, big cats, Etc. Then the inevitable O2 crash occurred. I had no idea about carrying capacity. Then I ran into a young guy named Lusk who explained it to me. I started seining and dumped fish on the bank. Too late; it was polluted. Took quite a few years and the inevitable Texas drought to fix things.

Bob told me the most important consideration is water quality. He still says, “Take care of the water and the fish will be fine. A pond is like a garden. It has to be harvested.”

This stuff is really all about the environment(Lusk).

Something about carrying capacity that I don't see anyone talking about are DO requirements per fish species you have. Catfish require less oxygen than Hybrid Stripers, for example. So do the fish species you have affect your carrying capacity?

We don't have any hard science, that I'm aware of, that shows a fish's oxygen requirements. Would 500 lbs of CC use the same amount of oxygen as, let's say, 300 lbs of HSB? That would be some interesting data.

Tracy,

We went to pond in Allen, TX. TWPD stocked this pond last week and it still had a fair number last weekend. My son had never fished for trout and these outings turned into great memory maker. There is a deeper story to it than just limiting trout, I left a little early from work on Saturday to take him fishing. We got there kind of late in the day and a lot of people were fishing there. The bite was slow for the bait anglers and we were fishing flies. I got three nibbles but they took me not paying close attention with a lot of slack so I didn't catch any. James was having issues with his fly rod due to the crowd, the length of casts required, and back cast obstacles. I asked him several times if he wanted to go home and try again another day. But he was determined to catch a fish and we stayed until it was too dark to fish.

So on the way home, he pulled out his phone and started watching youtube videos on trout. Soon he determined we should have fished with corn. And I told him I would take him again and we would try it. Well the next morning, Sunday, I was up at 5 and getting ready to go to work and my wife came down and said that James had set his alarm for 5:30 to go fishing. So I hadn't planned on going fishing on Sunday morning and had plenty of things I needed to accomplish at work, but I made an executive decision to stay and take him fishing if that alarm woke him up. It did and it was raining and cold and windy. So we rigged up his pole for corn and bundled up. It was the complete opposite of the prior day. Cold, windy, and hardly anyone there. At times we had to run to the shelter and get out of heavy rain. The banks were slippery and I fell flat on my back. But we caught fish and limited out. We ate them for lunch pan fried in bacon fat which is my favorite way to eat them. So was a really great trip despite the weather. It turned out to be long day still having to complete some tasks at work ... but it was worth it.