Wasn't sure where to put this question, but here goes. We had this ongoing dispute at work yesterday (and seems like we all got on the internet looking up answers of which, of course, we came up with conflicting answers). What is your observation, knowledge or thought on the following?

"If you build a new pond and neither your nor anyone else puts any fish in it, will fish eventually be there?"

1. Most of us thought that yes, they would appear as birds would either carry fish or the fish eggs over to the pond via feet or mouth.
2. One person went to the State site where it said this was untrue and a myth.

Of course, I told them I would ask POND BOSS as there is nothing more true than a bunch of 'tried and true'; experiences or knowledge from our experts.

SO, what do y'all think? Will fish show up in a fishless pond??? HHUUUMMM????

Mark

Mother nature has ways of moving fish around. They can come from a pond that is overflowing up stream and from the pond below when your spillway is overflowing..

The POND BOSS BOB LUSK, told me one time that fish come from fish and not birds.

Otto

I think it is possible. However, it is also possible for me to buy one lottery ticket and become fabulously wealthy without ever working a day in my life.

If you think about the overwhelming odds against a fish egg ever becoming a fish, even under ideal conditions, the odds are staggering.

I heard that they stick to duck feet and feathers. About 15 years ago, we sacrificed a duck and tried it with BG eggs. They didn't stick.

If you believe that the stork brings babies, I gues they could also bring fish.

Mark,

It's not a myth.

Of course A pond certainly won't stock itself in a short time frame. However, there is no debate that birds move gambusia around. I've seen that with my own eyes. I've also observed 1 bird harassing another, causing it to drop a fish. There's no debating that, because I observed it. All the controversy comes about because the doubters are thinking of a lot of fish in a short time frame. That is ignoring the most important tool of nature, which is time. Given countless opportunities and countless days, unlikely events become inevitable.

Dave, if you play the lottery for 60,000,000 years, I guarantee you will win it. Bet?

I've always wondered whether some birds have the instinct to move fish to a pond to create a source of food.

Also, I don't think much of the fish egg idea; I think it is more the moving of actual fish. And I also think that it would be isolated events, therefore the chance of a a human seeing it would be less likely there as to why most of us have not seen it first hand.

EDIT: I believe that birds do drop things by accident. I didn't mean to suggest that bobad or Overton were saying that birds intentionally dropped fish.

Sunil,

I won't go quite so far as to say birds "farm" fish. (although it's possible that 60 million years of evolution may favor that behavior)

What I observed was nothing more than 1 bird trying to pirate another bird's catch. I've seen that happen on 2 occasions inland, and many times around the seashore.

The sticking points are time and intent. When we say "birds transfer fish to unstocked ponds", some people get a very unrealistic vision of birds deliberately and methodically seeding a pond. When they say it doesn't happen, they're correct in what they're saying. But that's not what most of us are saying. We're saying that over time, fish are incidentally introduced into ponds by birds. Deliberate or incidental, it doesn't matter. It only takes 2 egg-laying fish or 1 live bearer and it's a done deal.

Sometimes I think my fish gave me a virus that created all this digging and feeding behavior I've been experiencing.

Honestly, tornadoes can transfer fish (and frogs and cows and ...) as well. Another low-probability method.

Sorry bobad, you are right. I read my post again and it made it seem like I was saying you had seen what I was suggesting. My fault.

I didn't mean that anyone was endorsing my first comment.

Well, another thought, I never had the first frog and now i got zillions (of course, they're on land so that doesn't count). Still trying analyze the fish thing. If there were a stream or such nearby and it overflowed but then that's probably like the tornado idea. I'd say 9 out of 10 of us were hung on the bird carrying thing, does that tell you what most people probably believe? Food for thought though.

On the pond side, my pond has been very quiet this week, especially today,we're seeing fish beds starting to be mad, no fish yet, spawning must be near (I forgot to check the temperature of the water.

Likelyhood of a bird moving fish is very low probability, but I suppose not impossible. I have two ponds that were stocked 3 and 10 yrs ago. One pond has just shiners and other pond has just primarily yellow perch and 3 species of forage fish. Both ponds are within 60-90 ft of a creek. After routinely sampling these ponds, I have no other fish in the ponds besides the ones that were originally stocked. I received a call today from a guy that was developing a panfish only pond. Neighbor kids told him they stocked some bass in his pond; that is where most fish contamination comes from - "do gooders" - human sources and human errors.

I have heard of fish and other critters traveling through springs or other underground water sources, of course, not very large critters.

This has got to be the best site on the whole Internet.

If it didn't take me so long to read all of the past posts that would be where all my free time would be spent.

OTTO

My guess would be that most fish are introduced from both upstream and downstream during heavy rain events. The last time we had heavy rainfall here I saw small fish that had swam upstream for hundreds of yards to end up in my girl's pond site. When the water returned to normal levels they were stranded in some small pools. It seems like fish instinctively move to new waters when the opportunity presents itself.

Birds that fish ponds will bring in eggs on their feet. Turtles will also bring them in.

One word... herons. If you see them, you can count on having hundreds of fish within 2-3 years. Trust me, I have seen it in my pond.

I threw 2 fish (different species) in their when I first built it. Two years later when I pumped it out to do a major overhaul I had hundreds of fish in there.

Everytime I saw that blue heron trying to fish my pond with only 2 fish I put in there it made me laugh. Little did I know he introduced a number of different species into the pond and created his own private fishing hole.

This is always an interesting topic, seems either you believe or you don't, with not much in between. For me the oddest thing is I am usually a non conspiracy kind of guy, but I believe that fish get imported. And it would not be beyond belief that a GBH could create his own habitat. It defies almost all rules of nature, it is too big to survive in an urban environment, yet like the coyote it doesn't seem to know that. It must taste really bad and have little fear.

The turtle thing I had not thought about,but they come and go in my pond frequently.

My other thought is that there maybe some fish that are more adaptable than others. We have local fish that live in mud without water for months on end, why is it not possible that some fish eggs survive out of water for a while?

I'm not buying the fish egg on bird feet theory. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I think it would be extremely rare. I think someone already mentioned that a fish egg doesn't even have a good chance of surviving under normal conditions. This scenario puts it into astronomical porportions:

*Egg is laid (and may or may not have been fertilized)

*Egg is dislodged by a wading bird (likely mechanical damage)

*Egg travels out of water for a distance (exposure to air weakens defenses/shock from temp changes)

*Egg is shaken off the bird foot (more likely mechanical damage)

*Egg falls to the pond bottom (probable predation by insects, crustaceans, bacteria, fungus, etc)

*Egg hatches (still open to predation, must have an opposite sex/same species fish introduced in the same way, and they must live to maturity to reproduce)

The odds seem staggering to me.

OTOH, if you have a heavy inflow or outflow of water you could have thousands of small fish introduced into your pond in a day. Some of these fish could be large enough to spawn.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. (until I see more evidence of course)

I'm with you on that one GW. I've never observed fish eggs on a bird's feet... though given enough years and a million ponds, it will certainly happen.

I have observed birds being forced by harassing birds to drop their catch. I have also observed a bird with live gambusia fry stuck to its beak. They obvously came from a pregnant gambusia that was just eaten by the bird. They could probably survive on the bird's beak for 10-15 minutes in humid conditions.

If you have a sterile pond within 1 mile of other waters, I think there's a probability curve for the pond being incidentally "innoculated".

I'm guessing that in a given year, there's up to 1 chance in 4 of getting gambusia, 1 in 10 chance per year of getting a cat fish, and 1 in 20 of getting a sunfish. My WAG is for illustration only, and I may be off a lot either way. But you can see that in 10 years you will most likely get a handful of fish.

The debate is not that important anyway. It's more about principle than a practical matter. Getting an occasional fish dropped into your pond is harmless most of the time, because the interloper is probably eaten right away in a strange environment.

I have a small 3/4 acre pond next to my home that I dug with my backhoe in 2003. In 2004, it filled up and the water remained dark brown and muddy looking. In 2006, I bought 200 channel cats from Tyler Fish Farms just outside of Tyler, as wells as coppern nose bluegill and fathead minnows.

Last summer, we started catching bullhead catfish. The year before we never cought any, and the ones that we have cought are very small. The channel cats are 2 to 3 pounds and larger, but the bullheads are just a few ounces. We thought they were baby channel cats until I posted pics of them here and learned to tell the difference in the fins. They are also a yellow color compared to the channel cats.

I guess the possibility exists that bullheads were mixed in with my channel cats. I couldn't say 100% that it didn't happen, but I don't think so. They have a very good reputation and I watched them get the channel cats out of their tanks inside the barn when I bought them. Every fish looked the same to me, but even more important, they would destroy their client base and reputation is they sold something like bullheads.

There is no creak higher then this pond. All the water that gets to it is from watershed that comes across my fields. The pond isn't located in the best place because of this, but I've move hundreds if not a thousand yards of dirt to catch every bit of water that I can to keep the pond full.

We do have herons and egrets there all the time. I didn't see either bring any fish to the pond, but that's how I feel the bullheads got in there. I think it happened last year and my guess is that since it's happened to my small pond, it's happened to my large pond.

Yes, fish will appear in a pond. what fish you get is the question. In my situation, it's not what I wanted, but short of draining the pond and starting over again, I'm stuck with them. Even if I did that, I'm sure it will just happen again anyway.

Eddie

Eddie, what's downstream from your pond? If the water from your emergency spillway goes to any creek or pond then the fish in those waters could most likely move into your pond during heavy rains.

bobad, where I live you can almost be sure Gams will show up in your pond. I can see how they would be more likely to be transfered by birds than other fish for a few reasons. They concentrate in the shallowest water where the birds wade, not deeper water where I would think most fish eggs would be. Also they're present all year instead of the seasonal occurrence of fish eggs. The fact that they are very aggressive might cause them to actively feed on or near birds feet. If fish with roe are transferred the eggs most likely wouldn't get fertilized, but since they're live bearers the gams have an advantage here too.

I think its a scientologist conspiracy. Misplaced theatans are screwing with our heads. Now if you will excuse me I need a new tinfoil hat.

TOM CRUISE AND JOHN TRAVOLTA ARE STOCKING OUR PONDS WITH UNDESIRABLE FISHES!

Mother Nature has a way of making things happen. I won't speculate on how, but it happens. I am sure that flooding is the most common way, but we have a small pond isolated between hills that cannot receive floodwaters and it has more 6" bass than you can imagine. Being in the middle of the woods (i mean really in the middle of nowhere), I am sure it has never been stocked.

I restate my firm belief that most mysterious fish appearances are due to alien abductions. Or Brothers-In-Law.

I knew the hold my pond has over me wasn't normal. It also explains some peoples fanatical defense of GSF. I for one welcome our new alien aquatic overlords

I'm sure you can be quite useful to them, revealing any plans for rebellion being fomented by the humans working in their underground fish feed mines.

Eddie, I also now have bullheads where none were previously. However, I have a creek that it about 10 ft lower than the pond and about 100 ft. away. I believe that in the record rains of 2007, the creek got up to the pond.

This pond is about 1,500 feet from the creek. The path the water takes when the pond overflows would come close to doubling the distance that the water must travel, including culverts, open ditches, woods and a field.

In time, I plan on daming up one of the ditches, adding another three culverts and two embankmants to catch that water and turn it to my big pond.

Before leaving my property, the water then travels about 400 feet along the State Highway before entering the creek. In the last three years, I've had two major floods along the creek. The water from the creek was up about 4 feet over the edge of the creek embakment.

My small pond with the bullhead is 40 feet higher in elevation then the creek.

Eddie

I actually saw a 3'tall blue heron, stuffed to the gills with baby crappie, stab one with it's beak, position it into it's mouth...and fly 300 yds to dump it into another body of water. Seeing is believing...I doubt it was this birds first attempt to relocate a future food source to favorable area for his later return, and feast.

I have been living on my 12 acres for 10 years. It is mostly woods and has sinkholes everywhere. Pretty much all the rainfall in the area is drained by sinkholes and the creeks are few and far between. Three of these sinkholes on my property will hold water year round during an average to wet year. The widest one is maybe 1/4 acre but shallow. It lies right on the backside of the dam of a 5+ acre lake owned by a sporting club I share a border with. The lake doesn't overflow into this small hole but does into a different sinkhole on my ground that don't hold water. All three of these holes have no outflow of water as there has never been enough rain to fill them to the edge of there respective holes (and this has been the 3rd wettest spring on record for our area.) There is no way fish can get into these holes by swimming upstream or downstream as there is no "stream". These holes all have had turtles, frogs, and get visited by herons. I have never seen any fish in these holes since I have lived here. Only last year did I begin to plant fish in them to keep mosquitoes down.

At my parents pond we had to build a concrete spillway "chute" with a small waterfall to keep the bullhead out of their pond. Even with this in place I have found 1 inch bullhead working themselves to exhaustion working their way up the chute. Luckily we have never caught one in the pond so they have not been successful yet(20+ years). I think 99.9999% of fish swim their way into new ponds instead being delivered by air. Since they can't swim their way into my sinkholes they don't show up.

I still believe that the vast majority of fish enter ponds when water goes over the emergency spillway, but I have to give Eastland's word consideration. His post reminded me of this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

I think you probably right. However, the other .0001% can be a serious problem to pond owners that don't want bull heads.

I think incidental fish transferrals are ucommon to rare. Nevertheless, they are inevitable over time.
Here's 1 of the most rare vectors, depending where you live. http://youtube.com/watch?v=cnweu5imNwE

I can't believe nobody has see 1 bird dive bomb another bird and force it into releasing it's fish. It happens millions of times a day, and I'm sure it happens while flying over unstocked ponds a few times a day.

Some ponds are so iolated they could go 100 years without being stocked. Yet I have seen 1 year old stump holes 300 feet from any water (or any possibility of flooding) with minnows in it.

My cat use to move things all over the house. Sticky note pads (he loved the small ones), contact lens case, my wife's hair scrunchy, etc.

It is my theory that cats move fish from pond to pond.

Just to mess with us.

I don't have any proof, it's just a working theory but still...

bobad, are the minnows in the stump holes Gams? I can imagine that a pregnant female could release viable fry as she's carried over ponds in a bird's beak. If 3 or 4 fry made it into a remote pond it's highly likely they would successfully breed. I think the egg theory is possible but far less likely than live bearers spreading this way.

I think that fish eventually will appear in ponds without stocking via other animals etc.etc. But, it you want fish in your pond I recommend that you stock it yourself. Fingerlings aren't that expensive y'know.

I think that they evolve spontaneously in individual ponds.

Hi MisterFisher, welcome to the forum.

Agreed. Eventually at least 1 fish will end up in an unstocked pond.

O Canada! Welcome aboard guys as GW said.

Yea, it was gams. There were a dozen or 2, and all the same size. It's a no-brainer how gams get transplanted in ponds. Bird ruptures pregnant gam, sticky mass of babies stick to beak, bird wades in barren pond, spears a swimming frog or snake, gams are rinsed off of beak.

I almost added Gams to my pond when I stocked 110 RES fingerlings. I'm enough of a skeptic that I put the fish in an aquarium to check them first. I found 4 or 5 Gams.

Lol. Am I the only Canadian here?

Its simple how other fish end up in unstocked ponds. Bird wades through fish bed, eggs or small fry stick to bids legs, feathers, etc. bird flys to new pond and deposits its passengers.

MF, you and JamesM seem to have joined around the same time. Welcome aboard again.

We have several folks from the North Country. All great folks. I haven't seen any of your other posts as I've been tied up lately. Have you told us about your pond? You could start a new thread.

calvin, there's most certainly a split on the forum between who believes the fish egg thing is possible and who does not. There are a lot of past threads that have some interesting discussions.

Here's where I'm at now:

1) Stockings do take place from birds accidentally dropping fish; how this translates into creating existing populations of that 'introduced' species, I'm not sure. There would have to be both sexes.

2) I believe some species of birds may instinctively transport fish from one body of water to another maybe to creat a food source. HOWEVER, I have no evidence to support that.

3) Flooding or access to other waters is one method that I don't think anyone disputes.

4) I think that in some areas of land where there are underground water connections is a very feasible idea.

5) Regarding the transport of eggs by bird, turtle, etc., I don't know enough.

6) Alien stockings? Of course.

7) Ole Mudcat Joe and his compatriots across the land. Yes, more than we know.

Aren't 6) & 7) redundant?

Obviously it's not an easy accomplishment, otherwise we would have a much wider variety of fish in our waters. I believe the pond on my property was void of life when I bought the place...I'm just not patient enough to wait 100's of years to see if an accident happens where fish appear So I helped out Mother Nature and put life in!

Shew!Gosh! So much reading and analyzing. Now I am going to throw another monkey-wrench in. Yesterday evening we went to the grocery about 8 miles away--we live on a farm in the country-side. Along the country road coming back from the grocery to the main road as I'm going around a curve on the country road my eye catches something on the side, I immediately say "Look at that large catfish!" (mind you, this wasn't there before enroute). You should have seen the look my husband gave me (like I was a crazy woman! He didn't believe me. I had to stop and backup the car the curve and pull over on the side of the road. My husband had to get out and go look at it--he just didn't believe it was a fish, he said it must be some kind of road kill. I said, No it is a fish! Believe it or not, there lay on the side of the road an approx 15" beautiful, dead, catfish. Not from my pond I assure you, it was at least 2 miles away from our pond. We had a good laugh trying to figure out how it got there (we know there is a pond delivery truck that passes on the road, maybe??).

Which brings up the question many of you are answering, how long would a fish live out of the water?... how quick the transfer would have to happen? ...birds fly pretty fast and just maybe, if intercepted by another, they drop their catch, large bird? Maybe a cat or such found it in a creek and dropped it here, but then it didn't look attacked or anything, didn't smell?

It just made me really, really think about the question that started this thread, answers I read and I have come to the conclusion anything is possible after seeing this fish on the side of the road in the middle of no-where ...............weirder things happen.................Dot

That was 1 that got beamed down and missed the pond.aliens make mistakes too,ya know

I am sticking with what I have said all along THAT THIS IS MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF MONKEYS.

When it was time to get up this morning my first thought was about this topic.


Thanks Otto

I don't doubt that mature fish are dropped by birds occasionally, but mystery fish show up in ponds far too often for that to be the main explanation.

1. What are the odds that a dropped fish will land in a pond?

(Statistically it is far far more likely to hit dry land, but let's say it hits a pond.)

2. What are the odds of the fish surviving capture, transportation without oxygen and the long drop into the pond?

(Let's say a fish did land in a pond and survive the ordeal.)

3. What are the odds that another fish of the same species will also land in that very same pond and survive?

(Okay, assume that this event happened twice in the same pond.)

4. What are the odds that the second lucky fish is the opposite sex of the first lucky surviver?

(Easy, the odds are 2 to 1, so double the odds against the fish successfully establishing.)

With each of those four steps the odds get higher and higher that the dropped fish won't survive and establish themselves. I believe the "dropped fish theory" can't account for even a tiny fraction of the mystery fish that appear in ponds. I'm more inclined to believe that birds are seeding ponds intentionally.

GW, you are right but left out a lot of steps. The odds are too enormous for all of the birds mustadunit stories.

I'm not saying that it can't happen BUT even under the most favorable of circumstances only about 1/10 of 1% of yoy ever grow up to reproduce.

Otto, get a life. There is a 12 step program for this stuff but is pretty lightly utilized.

He has a life. It's just that you guys who get up at 0-Dark-30 need something to do to kill the huge head start it gives you on the rest of the world.

I like this thread too, it's funny and makes you think. If fish transportation by birds is somewhat "suspect", does the same hold true for birds transporting plant life as well? I would bet the common types of pond weeds mysteriously appear on a more predictable basis.

I'm especially interested in the viewpoints from those who think the bird/fish combination isn't likely to occur.

I have no doubt that Duckweed and Watermeal get transferred by birds. Plants are much more tolerant of being out of the water, and most don't need a partner to reproduce.

This debate (mystery) can be easly solved. This will probably be a good project(experiment) for GW.
Dig a new pond. Not to big. 1/4 ac should be good. Sides should be higher elevation than surroundigs to keep fish from swimming in from other water sources. Fill pond using only filtered well water. Set 24 hour survalence with inferred, heatseeking, thermal imiageing, nigt vision, motion sensetive cameras and record what happens.
Just an idea.

Calvin, it's funny you should say that, I started digging this exact pond yesterday.

It's also important to only use a single shovel to dig this new pond. Using any machinery could facilitate egg delivery via axl grease.

Don't forget Duckweed transferal via hydraulic fluid leaks!

Sometimes lifes miracles just happen. Ever wonder how zooplankton shows up? Turtles, water snakes, frogs? Even in a pond where no other water is near.

Ok, I'm still thinking here. I like the idea of the experimental pond (might be a long time before we find out???? Maybe that fishless pond could show up with some fish--one year? two years?
The dead catfish on the side of the road is gone (sure something took it away for lunch). What if some animal bird or whatever)took a fish from one pond/creek to somewhere else.

Burgermesiter, I'm with you, sometimes it just happens! I think fish would show up in it, how, I don't know--I haven't figured that one out yet.

If the answer is "it takes 150 years" for the remote possibilities to place life into a void pond...does that really make any of us feel better

Heck, what were the odds of an unknown .270 shell casing falling from the sky, and landing right thru my deer stand window, 1 foot away from my chair? I will never place a camera on a void pond to see if life arrives, but I have placed game cameras to watch for .270 casings.

MarkECIN, we did discuss birds moving adult fish to other ponds. Here's my view:

Funny thing this thread, because I was just down to my new pond today and saw two fish that I did not stock. As a matter of fact, I have not stocked ANY gamefish, only just deposited 500 FH and 250K GSH fry into the brand new pond 3 weeks ago. Today as I walked the banks and stood stunned over the gazillion minnows at every turn, I saw two strange looking fish chasing one another. Both about 3-4 inches with some sort of brown and light striping. No clue what they were, but I sure did not put them there. Now, one thing that may be common to new ponds like mine that may help explain is this: Before the pond filled up with water, there was a small brook feeding it that slowly got full of water for a couple weeks prior to closing off its exit. That fed into an old tiny hole of water, which also emptied downstream into an old farm pond. Now those fish could have entered from either end. They could have somehow been in the upper end of the small brook, or in the tiny little "pond" downstream, or even remotely possible to have come upstream from the old farm pond about 300 yards down stream. The problem with theory number one? The little brook always dried up during late summer. No way for fish to survive on the dry ground, unless somehow buried in the mud like I have heard of some species doing. Theory number two, in the tiny catch pond? Problem, we drained out the tiny little pond when we keyed in the dam, since it was in the way. Theory number three, swimming upstream from the farm pond? The fish would have had do a salmon like leap of 25 feet from the stream bed below the dam over the dam and into the new pond. Or they could have lept only 4 feet up into the spillway drain pipe and then shimmied up the 20 feet of pipe at the pond end, exiting into the new pond as well. So far, my guess is the little brook that held a few feet of water in it for a few weeks while the dam was finished, somehow had some of these little fish that had managed to swim upstream from the tiny pond and either were buried in mud or somehow survived long enough. Either that or some bird dropped them into the pond.

The first thing I thought about this morning this topic.

THIS IS THE MOST FUN I EVER HAD.

otto

i'd say eastland and gw are unsuspecting combined geniuses w/ a little burger thrown in.

vector x problem solved = birds + plant material + fish eggs......fish eggs stick on plants, plants stick on birds, plants stay wet, eggs survive trip......"and now you know the rest of the story"

That's an interesting equation there Dave, and it relates to something I've been wondering about; How deep will most fish eggs be and how deep do most wading birds wade? I would think that instinct would direct the fish to avoid stomping bird legs. On the other hand maybe some fish have evolved to take advantage of bird's pond hopping to expand their territory.

Hmm.

GW, the last 2 years I have been watching sunfish nest in water nominally considered "too shallow", then some of them disappear with GBH tracks left behind. I have concluded that the normal minimum spawning bed depths of 2'-3' are designed to avoid most wading bird predation.

Last year I stocked my pond with Redear sunfish, Coppernose Bluegill and F1 bass.

This year, I have green sunfish. Some of you will get a chuckle, as I hate them worse than any fish except maybe mudcat/bullheads.

They were purchased from American Sport Fishing, the place Ray Scott buys his fish. It is not likely that they messed up. They are professionals.

There is a creek with all kinds of fish within .5 mile of my pond. Also there are a few scattered ponds down stream. The pond never has reached spillway, so they did not swim over it.

Either American Sport Fisheries screwed up, which isn't likely, or birds brought them in. Nobody would stock them on me. It's very private. I get a few horseback riders who come near, but have never seen anyone remotely interesting in fishing in my hidden in a hollow pond.

Birds or American sport fisheries brought the fish to my pond. My bet is on birds.

Where have you been, Robinson?

I still lurk here, just don't post much anymore. Maybe that will change. I just haven't been as excited. I'm glad others are having great success and read about them frequently.

I posted, as it was ironic that the green sunfish hater, me, now has a pond full of them, maybe by divine intervention. The only thing that makes sense is birds. Nobody fishes the pond. The fish are unable to swim over the spillway, as it has never reached it, and I purchased my fish from American sport fishers, who are one of the most reputable fisheries in the nation. When I got the bass, there were no green sunfish. I don't know if I could tell the difference with the baby brim though. Even so, the green sunfish weren't likely in the mix.

Birds brought the green sunfish in from the creek a half mile down. Theoretically the green sunfish could have swam to the base of my dam, though not likely, and the birds grabbed them there and put them in.

Oh well. Thanks for asking Sunil.

Hey Robinson...
Can we safely assume that you finally beat the "leaking pond syndrome" that plagued you for so long? What was the cure?

It holds great, at one acre. Problem is, it should be 5 acres. I have narrowed it down to one area. I'm going to put hogs in and feed them over it. It's the one area we did not compact.

Robinson

IF this discussion about how fish got into your pond does not get your blood running, nothing will, it has been great.

OTTO

I can feel some Giants in the making. Ouch! Sorry, man, couldnt resist. At leasts you have a solid acre and some fish. Congrats. A larger one could be jusst more of a headache.
I was up in yur neck o' the woods just last week. I thought about you when we passed 'Robinson Pond' in Franklin.

Robinson I for one am pulling for you to get the pond fixed and full of large BG and LMB. When you get there please post a pic.

Hey, P.I., good to see you back.

Burger, that is funny. Yes, you can see the lake right off the interstate, especially now that the interstate is being widened. I wish I had it. It's only problem is that the river floods and wild fish get into it from time to time. In the case of my studies and experience, if I ever build another pond, it will be very similar to that one. The one's I see that work best in my karst region, are nearest the water table/flood zones.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I still lurk. For a little bit I would sell my place and move on to something that is already built. Ya'll are the best. I just have lost some interest. I still lurk here, and read every other day or so.

This is actually true.

Working for Greg Lafont had a big rain Tuesday morning still draining water Thursday at noon.
Behind the new dam my son and I saw lots of small fish trying to swim back into the main body of the lake. Now there is a 99% chance that the fish washed down and are just trying to get home.

But they were in the middle of a field and could have come from down stream. There was not a bird in sight.

OTTO

Well, I'm not sure what to tell my co-workers now other than give them the link to here and have them read all--so many theories. But for the most part, I believe most of us believe that it could happen given the right circumstances even though a long shot. Of course, I still have one at work that absolutely says "No, never happen in a million years".

Wasn't it Mother Nature that coined the phrase "Build a pond, and they will come!"

Maybe we need to dig deeper into the IQ of a bird. (lol, there is one out-thinking Cecil right now)

And therein lies the sticking point.

If we're talking 1 year, no, ponds will probably not stock themselves. If we're talking 10 years, they probably will.

Are birds smart enough to stock ponds? No, but that's not the question. The question is, can birds, turtles, etc. incidentally transport fish or fish eggs into a pond. Given enough time, the answer is yes.

It's amusing that people scoff at birds "intentionally" stocking ponds, yet they doubtless marvel at their ability to migrate 8000 miles unerringly. Since I've never observed, or seen reliable documentation of that behavior, I don't know if it's real or not. I do know that fish and birds are known to exhibit far more complex behavior than "self-stocking"!

bobad, I don't know if you watched the video that I linked to earlier in this thread. It shows what seems to be very complex bird behavior. Here it is again: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

There are ants that cut up leaves and take them into their colonies as a substrate for growing fungus for food. If ants can evolve to harvest materials for, and tend to a future crop, then I can't see why birds couldn't have evolved to stock empty ponds.

ANT ARTICLE-LEAFCUTTERS

bobad, I think we all agree that birds can incidentally transport fish to a pond.

The jury is out on the egg transporting.

That bird in the video isn't accidentally dropping that nut on the road, but it gets instant gratification, so that might not count as planning ahead like intentional stocking. But, aren't cowbirds known for laying their eggs in other birds nests...their young hatch first, and toss out all the other eggs. I wonder how that species knows that, or, are all cowbird orphans incidental? I also saw a "smart" hawk while I was cutting the field Thursday...as I cut the borders, he flew in and watched hoping I would flush out a field mouse...either that, or he wanted a turn on the tractor

I found two fish in the ditch I made for the trash pump hose to lay in, they made it through the pump!

The pond has only had water in it for ~6 months.

I guess it's possible the neighborhood kids put these in, but they are quite small... I would have expected them to put in bigger fish.

Check the thread here:

Fish appearing

Eastland, leaf cutter ants drag pieces of leaves into underground chambers to be used for growing food for the colony. The Ants aren't getting instant gratification. If an ant can perform such a complex chain of events to produce food then why not a bird?

ET, I can believe they made it, especially since a man made it thru this, same concept...avoid the blades

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6602000191346967728

I'm brand new to this forum. This happened to be the first thread I read so here's my 2 cents worth.

I needed a couple hundred yards of dirt so dug a borrow pit in 2005. Drained it down to less than a foot and doubled its size in late 2007. It is now about 1/3 of an acre and about 10 feet deep.

No fish were ever introduced into it until this spring. It is filled with runoff from 30 acres of farm land and the overflow is never under water in the ditch it drains to (which is dry except after rains).

Just before I went to buy some blue gill and channel cat to stock it, I found over 300 hundred blue gill 1-4" in size schooling and sunning themselves.

I'm not going to speculate how they got there but there they were. As best I can tell, blue gill is all that showed up on their own.

So far, according to this string, I blame Scientologist, Alien Overlords, Birds, Brother-in Laws, Flooding, swimming upstream, and pretty much everything except intelligent tornadoes. One of life's great mysteries.

WileyC, welcome to Pond Boss!

Was there any chance of kids throwing some bluegill into your borrow pit?

Hi Sunil. Nope, no chance. We are surrounded by farm land on 3 sides and 1,000 feet from the road on the other. Nobody ever comes wandering around bearing fishies. They just "magically" appeared.

I need to net some and get them identified. I think they are blue gill but they act wierd. They tend to school and just sit in various spots a few inches below the surface, dive when disturbed by movement and then float back up as a group. The largest school I've seen was about 3" in diameter and had around 100 fish (best guess). Most are sort of rusty brown colored (so is the water), some with visible vertical striping and now that they are growing some, a black dot is visible by their gills. They do look different than the 100 blue gill (not hybrids) I bought to stock the pond with. Waiting till this fall to add the bass as the suppliers bass are fairly large.

Just a theory mind you...

That explains it, sullpond! Great pic!

I did fail to mention that the pond was quickly inhabited by three large snapping turtles and a couple green backs that came from neighboring lakes. The closest one is about 500' away (downhill). I suspected they were the source of the eggs but who knows.

Is it just me or does it always seem the mystery fish are gsf, mudcat or shiners.

Or Gambusia around here. With them it's not if they'll show up, it's when.

Muhaaa, Muhaaaaaaaa, Muhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

How can I join the GREEN SUN FISH ASSOCIATION? It looks like fun.

OTTO

Otto, the GSFA is a little highbrow if you know what I mean. If you qualify you ought to consider a membership in the WTF (Warmouth Technology Foundation).

One also must choose between the Brothers in Smallmouth Association (BISA) and Smallmouth's Our Bass (SOB).

Otto,

We would be proud to have such an esteemed member such as yourself amoungst our ranks.

In honor for all you have done for pondom everywhere, providing new habitat for the mighty GSF, I have added you to our membership roster.

Unlike those other poser organizations the GSA actively protects and preserves the Sunfish that we so lovingly adore. And we don't require ANY membership dues. We are 100% supported via extortion, misappropriation, black mail and other time honored fund raising activities.

Your secret handshake instructional DVD and decoder ring will arrive shortly.

Take that poser organizations!!!!

Sounds to me like GSF eggs might have some adhesive properties that make the odds of inadvertant transportation much more likely.

http://www.nanfa.org/articles/acgreen.shtml






Now we know how the GSF Association really recruits new membership.

Great find Shorty. That is the first article that I have ever seen related to raising GSF.

Oh and while I'm at it, we only use the adhesive egg technique to move GSF populations around the globe.

The GSA recruits new members via the time honor traditions of education, encouragement, commaradie, and "making people offers they can't refuse."

Fuhgeddaboudit. My kneecaps hurt just thinking about it.

Thanks for the membership into the GREEN SUN FISH ASSOCIATION. I will try and act right at the meetings and not make a mule out of myself.

SECOND Enough is enough this morning at seven cst The question will be put to BOB LUSK will fish appear in a fishless pond.

OTTO

I wonder if Bob knows how long GSF eggs might have adhesive qualities after they are fertilized? The whole notion of "transfered by birds" will depend on that anwser. If adhesiveness is only a few minutes then it's highly unlikely, a few hours or few days then the odds of wading heron transfering GSF eggs becomes much greater. This sounds like a good research topic for one of Dr. Willis's students.

I could volunteer my pond. I think a good way to research it would be to do a post mortem examination on the feet and legs of 100 GBH's.

Even if the eggs remained sticky for a long time we should probably assume they would already be stuck to something when a bird waded by. I think transferring a sticky but delicate fish egg from one object to another would be likely to cause mechanical damage.

i think bob is WISELY staying away from this subject

edited post......gw....it only takes two to tango.....

Many fish eggs have adhesive qualities especially in the scatter spawners (shad , shiners and others). I have been checking on Shorty's article and can confirm that unknown to me GSF and other Lepomis eggs do have an adhesive quality. But the research notes and many articles confirm that a host of very specific conditions must be maintained for eggs to be viable and hatch. I do not believe that fish eggs can be transported by birds or animals from one pond to another and remain viable.

Okay, if ewest and I both agree on this I don't imagine there's a need for further discussion.





THIS TOPIC HAS BEEN CLOSED.

I come from Minnesota/Wisconsin. Virtually all of the 15-20 thousand lakes in those two states, plus the thousands in Upper Michigan, Ontario, and Manitoba were filled with the same kinds of fish when my grandparents arrived on this continent. Most of these waters are landlocked. Somehow the same kinds of fish appeared in all of them -- northern pike, muskellunge, walleye, perch, bluegill, suckers, and on and on . . . The walleye, northern, perch, and bluegill that I caught in Kenora, Ontario, didn't look or taste any different than those I caught near Iron River, WI., or near Iron River, MI. That is at least a 600 mile radius of landlocked waters.

Something transferred them.

Or they were connected at some time.

There would have been quite different elevations and a lot of melt water when the last ice age's glaciers retreated.

If you want to go WAY back in time then we have to consider the influence of man. I don't know if birds will instinctively seed a body of water with fish, but I'm pretty sure that our ancestors would have thought of it.

O K,Ill have to fess up.I went back in time and stock fish everywhere

ewest wrote:

You are probably right ewest, when I stumbled across the adhesive nature of GSF eggs it made me have some second thoughts. If I were to guess I suspect that the adhesive nature of lepomis egss is very short lived. I would not be suprised to find out that once an egg is fertilized that the protien coating in the exterior of the egg changes very rapidly and is no longer adhesive after less than a minute or so. Keep in mind that this is just an educated guess as I have nothing to back it up with.

Adhesive lepomis eggs would explain why I saw a couple of smaller BG last year scraping the river rock with their mouths in the center of a BG nest while the mature male was distracted by my presence.

FYI normal hatch time for BG eggs from fertilization to hatch is 2 days. It changes with temp , water clarity etc. Most other Lepomis eggs have similar characteristics .

When BOB LUSK was asked WHERE FISH COME FROM? He said he did not know where they come from!!!!

This could have been over but the discussion is a long way from done.

OTTO

I think pond building contractors carry buckets of Bullheads and Green Sunfish in their trucks.

At least they're half good.


(That joke was in no way aimed at Otto, a man I fear)

What has happened. This site has keep me alive when things get tough and I feel a alone Checking in on the discussion is really a boost.

OTTO

Racoons will try to create new food sources they weave baskets out of catails and carry fish to other ponds....LOL

The storks bring them in just like you and I got here. It's a no brainer guys.

Meteors.

Another story.
Dan Bolin is almost in west Texas.
Large Lake about ten miles away.
No water up stream and none very close down stream.

Dan and right hand man Larry Williams, draining two ponds and both have several varieties of fish.

You tell me.

otto

I know over the years there has been debate on this forum about fish eggs being transported by birds to ponds that had not been stocked. I couldn’t remember if this paper published this summer had been brought up.. The study below involved eggs from the killifish passing through the GI system of a swan and remaining not only viable, but able to develop into a fish. Now I guess the question is can it happen with other species?
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.2774

I had a housing development lake electrofished and it turned out that the channel cats were actually bullheads. Pond stocker made out well on that deal (and no, I don't know who it was).

Excellent find on that paper. Clearly, some fish eggs, specifically adapted to desiccation and surviving tough conditions that have evolved to inhabit temporary water, can indeed be transported within bird's digestive systems. I am not aware of any previous experimental evidence to support this. Thank you for sharing!

Having seen a Great Blue Heron lift a LMB out of my pond, then fly across the pond and drop it to flop around on the far back, I have no doubt that given a million GBH, a million stocked ponds, a million unstocked ponds, and enough time, the herons can eventually recreate all the works of William Shakespeare.

Have you ever seen how GBH catch fish?

Many times. And I have caught many fish what I resume are GBH bill scars down one or both sides of their back.

The stork brings baby humans. Just stands to reason that the stork also brings baby fish.

After the GBH drops the bass by mistake into the new pond, how does he know to return with another bass of the opposite sex and drop it in the same pond?

It is fascinating that this thread started 11 years ago and we have no better proofs than before and have just as muh fun debating it as before!

Maybe for the magazine Bob or someone else can dig a few puddles in the south and set up game cameras. The PB meisters from the south say that every puddle of water will self stock with gambusia, even puddles on a two track.

Just let the newly dug pond set, run the game cams on a motion trigger and record what wildlife traffic visits the pond.

Then when minnows appear, seine them and see what they are. By the time minnows are in there we should have an idea if the only visitors with birds, or raccoons, or GB or whatever.

in re-reading the thread I also learned that Mike Otto used to post here, on this very forum, how awesome is that! I was bummed to see that his last post was in 2013!

We now know that gambusia eggs can survive the alimentary canal of at least one waterbird. We did not know that until this recent publication.

There needs to be a correction and clarification at least for reproduction of mosquito fish aka Gambusia. Gambusia do not lay eggs so the eggs cannot pass through the digestive tract of any bird or animal.
“Mosquitofish is a small live-bearing fish. After a gestational period of 21 to 28 days, the young are born alive at a size of approximately eight to nine mm total length (Krumholz 1948). Larger females produce more offspring (Krumholz 1948). Brood sizes of one to 315 young have been reported (Barney and Anson 1921, Moyle 1976). Females annually have four to five broods (Krumholz 1948).”

”They feed primarily on zooplankton and invertebrate prey at the top of the water column. Adults are known to feed on their young opportunistically (Benoit et al. 2000). This species is also well known for its high feeding capacity. Chips (2004) observed maximum consumption rates of 42–167% of their body weight per day.”
Advanced reading.
https://www.fws.gov/fisheries/ANS/erss/highrisk/Gambusia-affinis-ERSS-FINAL.pdf

My mistake, paper talks about killifish eggs, not Gambusia.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.2774

And for a minute I thought this was April 1.

I should know better. Gambusia look and breed like guppies. Just had a brain fade...

I set up a game camera to catch a pic and the time of day the otters that were showing up. The Moultree camera would then send me a pic to my cell phone. I had to remove the camera because I was getting around 50 pic per day sent to my ph. of different animals, birds that walk my pier. With that many maybe just one of those might transport fish or fish eggs to new waters.

Many years ago before I had my pond dug. I had a small backhoe,and dug a test hole as deep as I could go. I wanted to see if the water would stay. To my surprise the hold ended up with minnows in it.

That is an interesting test.

I've got a backhoe. That might be interesting to try. Have to do it where absolutely no water flow could bring them in from elsewhere.

Exactly!

Thank you thank you snrub! I'm not trying to be the naysayer, probably if puddles of water everywhere 'show up' with minnows then there has to be a scientific reason.

In the old days many of the living things that were hard to see were proven by simple experiments by setting up an item that didn't seem to have any of them in it, putting it in a controlled environment and later finding living things crawling out of it after a while and then connecting the dots.

I would think in warm weather climates in the south people from many states and many climates could try this. Dig a hole, or identify a drainage dip that is dry, let it fill with water (rain water, ground water, it might make a difference!) and then observe.

Of course to observe you would have to have a pretty good camera system that can watch it day and night! At least it should be a fun experiment.

The thing about science is that things supported by reasonable evidence are incorporated in science and those that are not are excluded. However, evidence and understanding change over time so things accepted by science as true have become known as false, and things once thought false have become known as true. Current science is based on our current evidence and knowledge. The posted study showing that killifish can pass through a water bird's digestive tract and survive makes it likely that this species can colonize new bodies of water via this route. Of special note is how far such transplantation might occur since this particular species seems to have eggs adapted to drying out and withstanding other harsh conditions.

As most of you know science is a big part of my PB involvement. One interesting aspect is watching the changes in knowledge as it improves over time. What one study indicates as true often changes over the years as more facts are discovered. This has to be so because imperfect humans are involved in the process. By in large it is the human experience - we are not perfect so we must improve over time.

Merry Christmas and be assured that there are many , many questions left as unanswered so far on our collective journey.

Has anyone else ever seen frogs come down in a thunderstorm? Saw this once and could hardly believe my eyes... but they were plopping down on the driveway and yard......

Rare events are more difficult to investigate using scientific methods. The longevity of fish eggs from different species should be amenable to experimentation under different environmental conditions as should the frequency of eggs being found on waterbirds. Together, the movement of viable eggs among bodies of water at various distances apart could be estimated from such data. I expect all manner of things could rain down from a water spout twister when it peters out.

I agree flooding is not a way of bringing fishes in pond.