I have mentioned that my fish in the big(2 acre approx) pond were not showing up. I believe I have had my first ever winter kill, a rarity in Texas. Temps got down to about zero, a rarity here.

The water turned green and nasty looking. No fish came to feed. And yet, a mile away my 1/4 acre pond showed no problems. Nor did a spring fed creek. Fish fed normally in both. Then the water turned green in the small pond but the fish still fed. A heavy floating algae growth appeared on the creek. But, no fish problems. They still fed.

Alkilinity and ph were both low. Same in big pond.

I walked around the small pond spraying the algae and hit it in a 30 to 40 ft area in the creek. I effectively sprayed about 40% of the small pond.

Returned a couple of days later and all algae were gone from small pond and creek. Fish fed normally in both.

Big pond: 3 or 4 fish come to feed and water is a sorta nasty green. Still only a couple of fish coming to feed. I sprayed around the perimeter with a hand sprayer and Grandsons were supposed to show up this Sunday to get in the Jon boat to spray the whole pond. However, Mothers Day is postponing it for a week. Finally acknowledging that I have had my first ever winter fish kill. I wasn’t overstocked since I was still rebuilding everything after the cormorants hit. The freeze got me.

Questions and other things to ponder. Why did Mama Natures freeze clobber everything in a 2 acre, 14 ft deep pond and have no effect on the shallow 1/4 acre one and the shallow creek?

Mama Nature can throw some curve balls.

I called this morning and got on the list for replacement bluegills. They are already scarce.

Sorry to hear that, DD.

Dangit DD hate to hear that . We had -1 temp and ice on pond but lost no fish that we know of... we are losing lots of water oak and big post oak due to that freeze... some of the trees were budding out before the cold hit and it froze the sap in the tree...... now nothing

Really sorry to hear that, DD. I have no idea why a small shallow pond would emerge better than a bigger deeper pond, unless the larger pond already had water quality issues that stressed the fish. From what you say, this probably wasn't the case. A puzzle.

My place is 2.5 to 3 hours east of yours, but if you are hard up for BG & have a way of keeping them alive on the trip back, you'd be welcome to some of mine. I was extremely fortunate not to have a fish kill, so have both larger & smaller panfish. CNBG dominant, but you might get a RES or BG as well.

PM me if interested.

Very sorry to hear that Dave. Kind of strange on the big pond kill vs not the small or creek. Does the creek feed the small pond? Maybe it created a higher DO saturation in the moving creek water, and that fed the small pond?
I've heard the phrase 'misery loves company'. What a load of horse pucky. I wouldn't wish anyone joined the 'kill club'. It takes a while to get perspective on what you control (which isn't near as much as we like to think) when it comes to our ponds. Don't spend too much time worrying about it, and start planning for the next generation of big fish you'll grow.
Hang in there pard.

Luke, no. The smaller pond is about 40 yards away and uphill from the creek. About a mile from larger pond. I went there today to look around and do some honey do’s that didn’t work out so well. Gotta go back tomorrow, 140 miles round trip, to fix what didn’t work out as well as I would have wished. Yeah, I screwed up on house repairs.

I hit a one second test throw with feeder. A couple of fish came up. I fed a coffee can full of Optimal at the small pond. They would have eaten a lot more.

I contacted a guy yesterday that works for the company that Lusk was a partner in. He’s going to look for bluegills for me. They are already getting scarce.

Anyone wanting to buy fish needs to get in a hurry.

I wish you lived closer, I have a gazillion young bluegill and bait fish, they have been reproducing in my young pond for 2 yrs now this will be the third and I just put in predator fish last fall so they had a huge head start, now I'm worried the predator fish wont ever catch up with consumption.

Dave I’m about 20 miles from Overtons. I need to get rid of about 3K BG if you need some. Some mutts and some CNBG,no greenies

Dang Pat, I just saw this. I’m having more fish come up but still not enough. I’m curious about whether more are there but just not coming to fish chow. Quite a bit of rain could be influencing them in some way. I’m making 140 round trip drives just to hit the feeder and see what happens. Esshup tested the water and it is ok, no problem so that’s not it. No idea why it turned green.

Appreciate the offer but I’m holding off on doing anything. Since I’ve not run into this before, I’m trying to not stick my head too far up my butt and make some big mistakes on BG. I still have no idea what my LMB situation is and am somewhat worried about creating an out of balance situation.