We just recently purchased some land with a pond on it. I'm not sure how large the pond is or how large it will be once it fills back up. I started using catfish food purchased from Tractor supply to see if I had any life in the pond, for the first 2 months nothing and then one day there was bait fish galore. A couple of days later there were catfish coming to eat the food. I have fished the pond for bass several times without any success until a couple of days ago, one bass about 4 pounds of fat and healthy.
This is what I'm seeing.
1. I have a ton of bait fish/minnows 2. A good range of channel cat (I have caught 3. 6', 14" and 22") 3. One good size bass. I have yet to catch another of any size 4. Zero perch/sunfish until I added 300 a couple days ago.
Should there be small bass in there also? Will they eat the floating food? Do I have an overabundance of bait fish because I didn't have perch? Or did I already have perch and they just won't eat the floating food.
Chris, I'm thinking that your overall stocking numbers of LMB are very low (seems like 100 2-3" LMB and 5 adults?) for a 1.2 acre pond, and as such, you may not see or catch them very easily until more growth is achieved.
To summarize your situation, I would say you had some kind of existing fish population in the pond upon you acquiring it. From there, without doing anything to effect major changes in that existing population except for maybe removing all bullheads you catch, your supplemental stockings of other fish have been very light if the goal was to create a larger impact.
Some general thoughts: 1) Increase cover in the pond for newly born fish. 2) Add more native bluegill hopefully in the 4-5" plus size range; this could be 500 or more fish. Coppernose Bluegill could be good. 3) Start a feed program which will boost spawning and congregate fish so you can observe more.
