New member saying hello. We have a 1 acre pond in the middle of cattle country around Oskaloosa, Ks. 4 and 5 lb LMB are the heaviest I've seen. The bass are healthy and thick. 13 inch black crappie are common (stocked by the neighbor" All sorts of varities of perch, Bluegill, Redear, Sunfish, I'm really not sure about all of them. Catfish, I know there was a 10 lb Flathead a few years ago that was caught and eaten. The pond is about 12 feet through the middle, this is a small watershed with constant runoff coming from those afore mentioned cattle pastures so there is plenty of nutrients spilling in making the algae a mess each summer.

there was a huge fish kill about 6 years ago, about the time we startedreally spending time at the pond. Seems each year the blanket weed is getting worse. Have been considering going with a windmill to aereate and so I thought I would look for a forum for advice and found this interesting place. Lots of helpful info so far and I've only been reading for a few hours.

Planning on using some rakes and bacteria in a few weeks to try to do some damage to that algae, but would like some advice on pumping air. Is it really needed???

Thanks in advance for any and all advice. As we live about 2 hours from pond pics are not an option right now but I can get some soon.

I did find some old pics from last year. The algae is mminor in these pics. It get much worse than this. Advise your 'neighbor" to please stop stocking the pond.

Welcome to the forum. I'm far from an aeration or algae control expert but others are on here. So hang tight, you'll get some good advice soon.

Beautiful pond Newt. Not an expert on pond vegetation either but there are plenty of guys around here who are so hold tight. Just wanted to welcome you too.

As the pond ages and the nutrient inflow remains steady expect the algae to progressively get worse. The next downhill step will be appearence of duckweed/water meal. Both indicators of further eutrophication and enrichment. Aeration will be helpful in minimizing fish kills (summer&winter), although with the pasture nutrient/fertilizer runoff don't it expect it to do much in reducing FA growth.
Read through some of these posts both electric and windmill aeration for background information.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm&c=6


IMO removing the flathead was a wise move and not-so-wise in adding it. They eat too many bass.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and advice. Will keep trying to get a little education here. Loving this forum you have here!! I never would have thought there was so much to keeping a pond in a happy balance. 5 GC were added last year and after reading here I've learned that was probably a waste of time. They're not even interested in what I want rid of. Now my head is spinning and I don;t know which way to go. lol More reading and questions before making any decisions, that's for sure. Thanks again!!

Oh yeah, a question I wanted to ask about the crappie... 4 or 5 years ago the BG population seemed much stronger than it is today, could those crappie be the reason?

yes, both crappie and bass prey on BG. Crappie are not recommended for smaller ponds due to their tendacy to overpopulate without intensive management (read that as LOTS of fishing and removing).

Too many bass in the pond would tend to over eat the food source (often BG). One way to tell if LMB are too abundant is if when you catch a crappie is it always big? Do the bass seem to be skinny or are they generally plump looking? Several large CC or other flatheads could be eating lots of mid size BG thus thining their numbers??

The crappie are not always big, we catch plenty of 6-9 inchers as well. I haven't seen an underfed bass yet in this pond. They have all seemed well fed and plump. Even the small ones. Also as far as cats, we've never caught any besides that Flathead a few years ago. Is it likely there are more in the pond? This pond has soft, black muck for a bottom and we have tried fishing for cats a few times with no luck. Plan on making a trip next weekend and checking water clarity before dragging as much FA out as we can. Just heard tonight from an aunt that their nearby pond in that area is nearly covered with FA right now so ours is probably worse as well. Thanks as always for the comments.

Here's one my son caught last week. I know she's full of eggs but she doesn't seem underfed to me. Other opinions please? He caught it with a shallow diver above the coontail about one foot from the surface. I make my own top water lures and during some summer months these are about the only lures we can fish because of all the FA.

I have sent a message to Rex to talk about maybe stocking some Tilapia as this seems like something that would help us alot, along with putting in some aereation.

BTW, she was released to pounce on another lure again someday.