I wasn't sure if an overpopulation of sunfish could affect the spawns/fingerlings of other species in the pond such as bass, perch, crappie, green sunfish and pumpkinseed so I added a dozen 11" crappie and six 1 lb bass. Pond size is only 1/4 acre, 7' deep with two lily pad beds in the corners and various bottom weeds.

Most worrisome is the presence of a large snapping turtle that migrated from somewhere (or was put there by my idiot brother-in-law). Can it hurt the population of the larger fish?

Sam, according to Lusk, 95% of the eggs laid, hatched, etc get eaten before their first birthday. But, they all lay massive amounts of eggs. Just Mama Nature at work. But, the 5% can cause an overload resulting in an O2 crash resulting in a die off. . Been there/Done that.

I wouldn't sweat the turtle

What I have gathered in my very limited experience is that to many BG can and have at my pond not only limited crappie spawning (or stopped it) but done the same to LMB this year. The LMB due to many and large size have eaten most of the crappie 8-10” . In my 6 acre pond the BG have really hampered the spawning of both LMB and BCP.

Thanks guys for the replies. I did have a total fishkill years ago when I couldn't get to the 4' of snow on top of the ice which prevented O2 production during daylight hours by bottom weeds. The banks were too steep from a bad drought for a snow blower to reach and I never thought it would be an issue. Over 100 lbs. of fish were dead after ice out including many nice bass. Had to start all over again. Broke my heart.

I have seen schools of babies (not sure the species) as well as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc year fish. What surprises me is seeing pumpkinseeds on 5 beds this time of year. Always thought that all spawns would be done by spring.

I read that Pumpkinseeds' spawning season is May through July. I think they don't all spawn at the same time, which is why it's spread out.

A Study of the biology of pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus (L.)) in Lake Kerkini (Greece)
C. Neophitou A. J. Giapis
First published: October 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0426.1994.tb00151.xCitations: 6

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Summary
The lifecycle of pumpkinseed, (Lepomis gibbosus (L.)), was studied to obtain information on age, growth and reproduction. Using scales, back‐calculation of length indicates a fast growth rate during the first 2 years of life (69.8–83.4 mm, respectively) after which it decreases. The length: weight relationship of a sample of 600 pumpkinseed specimens can be described by the equation W= 12.078 10‐6. FL3.131 for both sexes. The average condition factor (K) of all pumpkinseed was 1.40, with a range of 1.39 to 1.41. The studied species were sexuall mature at age 1 + The relationship between fecundity F) and fork length (FL) was F = 0.02438 FL3.08. The mean absolute fecundity was 7169 eggs, ranging from 1122 to 12 293 eggs; mean diameter = 0.8 mm. Spawning occurred from the second half of June until the end of July at water temperature 22–25°C.