Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations New Member/Some Questions

Hi everyone, I am a new member here and first I would like to say that this is a great forum. I have a pond in southeast Michigan about 5/8 of an acre in size and about 17 feet max depth with some shallow flats. We have about ten channel cats, fifty hybrid bluegill, about 75 perch, thirty black crappie, around thirty largemouth bass, and some regular bluegill and some pumpkinseeds. The panfish are all very large and appear to be healthy as well as the channel cats. The largemouth however are all small, about 16" is the largest we ever get and most are about 12-14". The panfish that we catch are all pretty big, and the spawn don't seem to survive to adulthood. Do you think that we need to remove some predator fish like the channel cats and largemouth, or increase the forage population, or eradicate the hybrids and put more regular bluegill/sunfish in? The current forage base is mainly small bluegill(altough there aren't too many). We have tried fathead minnows but they always seem to get destoyed before they have a chance to reproduce. There is a couple of laid down trees and wood pallets in there for the fatheads, but no weeds and a fair amount of algae. Sorry for the long post, I hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Pond Boss, Andrew B.

When did you put the (30) LMB in, and how big or old were they when you stocked them? I guess same question for the perch, CC, and crappie.

There are a lot of mouths to feed in there with the CC, crappie, yellow perch, and the LMB.

I'm in agreement with Sunil... Seems like a lot of mouths to feed and not enough forage to go around.

We planted twenty largemouth around 6-8" and also transplanted some larger ones around 12-14". We stocked the ten channel cats and they were between 6-10". The CC are now around 22-24" The perch were all caught elsewhere and released, so the size ranged from 4-12" although we have caught a few >13". The crappie were stocked and they were 4-6" and they now average around 12-13". These we don't catch too often except in the winter we get a few. So do you guys think we should harvest a lot of these different species? And should I try to establish a better forage base with the fathead minnows? As I mentioned earlier, the fatheads don't seem to survive very long even though there is some pretty good cover throughout the pond. Thanks a lot for the help.

Welcome to the forum Andrew. Im in agreement with the other guys, when they say there is a lot of mouths to feed, and decent sized mouths at that. How many fathead minnows did you put in? Fathead minnows are good forage, however, they are very slow swimmers and are very suseptible to predation, whether there is cover there or not, they need to be able to get to it first. Your best bet would be to cut down on some of the predators, and let the bluegill take off.

My next question would be, what exaclty do you want out of the pond. Big bluegills? big bass? big perch? that would help in determing what direction you need to go.

Im sure someone else has some input for you.

We put in a five pound bag of fatheads in last year in late spring. I think that we will start keeping some of the perch, crappie, and maybe a few bass and channel cats. Our overall goal was to have lots of species but that doesn't seem possible with what I have been reading. If there are too many mouths to feed I would say that my new goal would be focused toward bluegill and sunfish with some larger bass. Do you think that we should stock some more bluegill and sunfish? And also do you think that we weren't putting in enough minnows? I really appreciate the help guys.

I too like diversity. It is possible to have a pond with some diversity, however, it is tough to do if you don't have a self-sustaining forage base, which is tough to get with transplant stocking. Crappies and Perch are usually not recommended in ponds less than a couple acres as they tend to overpopulate and stunt. In your neck of the woods, I think your best combination would be channel catfish-Largemouth bass-bluegill. I would try to reduce the hybrid bluegill as hybrids are fast-growing and do not overpopulate as bluegill often do...but... so few hybrids reproduce, regular restocking is required which could cost you more money in the long run, and might not provide ample forage. Another drawback to hybrids in your area is that they will crossbreed with other sunfish (bluegill, redear, green sunfish). When this occurs, hybrid identity and vigor are soon lost.

The rest of this info is a mix from the Michigan State Extension, and the Indiana DNR websites.

"The best all-around stocking combination for Michigan ponds has proven to be largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish. All three provide excellent sport in addition to fine eating.
The initial stocking ratio widely successful in this region consists of five bluegill fingerlings to one largemouth bass fingerling, not to exceed 1,000 bluegill and 200 bass per acre. For a low fertility pond, it is advisable to maintain the 5:1 ratio but reduce the number stocked to 500 bluegill and 100 bass per acre. The desirable stocking size for bluegill is one to two inches and three to four inches for bass. Four to six inch channel catfish should be stocked at a rate of 100 fish per acre."

If this is the route you decided to take, you would have to convert the stocking rates to your pond as it is not an acre in size. The main problem I see you having right now is that as soon as any fish reproduces, the young will get snatched up by the top heavy system. These are just some ideas I had. Hope some of this helps.

Thanks for the reply tjstubbs. You were totally correct about the part with the young getting snatched up by the top heavy system. We have caught some perch and crappie fry in our traps, but never catch small fish. I am thinking that I will go with the traditional approach with the channel cats, largemouth, and bluegill. Is it recommended to mix in sunfish with the gills? Also forage wise, how many pounds of fatheads minnows should I put in, and maybe golden shiners? Thanks again guys, you have been a great help.

No problem Andrew. I don't know if it is recommended, but, I don't think you would do much harm if you stocked some redear sunfish as well as bluegills. The common recommendation that I have seen when stocking both species, is to substitute 30% of the bluegill with redears. I suspect the redears would do a little beter if you had some more vegetation or woody debris as they prefer snails.

I don't know much about golden shiners,so maybe someone else can chime in on them, but for fathead minnows the recommendation is around 2-3 pounds an acre. I believe stocking is usually done in both the spring and the fall. So anywhere between 4-6 pounds a year per acre would be fine. As I mentioned earlier, they are very easy food for bass, therefore you will probably have to stock them every year. So, if you can swing it financially, adding FHM to the mix a couple of times a year would lead to some pretty happy bass. I think that that is probably your best (and cheapest) bet for an alternative forage species. I wouldn't stock gizzard shad, or threadfin due to water temperature limitations.

I didn't get to read all of Andrew's & tj's writings, but most all of the species would have spawned if they were in the pond for over a year. The channel cats may not have spawned if they didn't have the right spawning structures.

I don't think the original stocking was necessarily too much, but with the majority of the predator species having spawned, you've got an over-population situation, most likely.

I'd start removing every crappie that you catch. There will always be more, so you won't be eliminating them from your pond.

I would also start culling LMB either in a slot limit or a "remove all below X inches."

I want to say start adding in standard bluegill to bulk up the forage base, but we have to be aware of the pond's total biomass carrying capacity.

Do you aerate? This would help increase the pond's carrying capacity.

I totally agree Sunil

tj is the man though. He's studied this stuff so go with it!

I wouldn't say Im the man.....yet....just aspiring. I agree though, I think the crappie need to go, and some culling needs to be done before I would start stocking too much. It never even crossed my mind about the predators spawning already, thanks Sunil. At the end of the day...your the man!

Yes the pond is aerated. Thanks again for the help guys. I think we will start removing the above mentioned species. I will probably start by taking all bass < 13" and any size crappie, hybrid bluegill and perch. I'll update you guys on the results, thanks again.

Fished for a little while tonight. Ended up with these plus a few sunfish that I released. My brother is pictured in the one photo. The perch appeared to be a post spawn female. Can someone identify the bottom left fish? I think it is some type of hybrid, we have been catching a lot of these. They are very aggressive and have fairly large mouths for a panfish.

Sorry guys, I guess I should have resized the pics.

Looks like you have a perch, some nice bluegill, a black bullhead and the bottom left fish looks to be a green sunfish. The 3rd photo could be a green sunfish/bluegll hybrid, judging by the orange tips on the fins.

The pics are a bit small and lacking enough detail to be super accurate, but... I'll give it my best...

Top pic:
top fish- YP
next one down- Black bullhead if it is the same fish as the second pic.(even though it has a lot of yellow coloration in it, it's still a black bullhead)
top two sunfish- Look like GSFxBG hybrids, particularly the left one. Is the water in this pond dark stained? Not muddy, just stained?
bottom right sunfish- Looks like another GSFxBG hybrid.
bottom left sunfish- Looks like a pure GSF.
smaller remaining sunfish- Looks like a BGxGSF hybrid.

Second pic:
Another pretty black bullhead.

Third pic:
A very nice sized GSFxBG hybrid.

Forth pic:
Two more nice sized GSFxBG hybrids.

Thanks for the ID help guys. I knew that it was a bullhead, but wasn't sure how to distinguish a black bullhead from a yellow bullhead. You are correct on the hybrids; we planted them from the fish farm and they said they are bluegill/green sunfish hybrids. I am not sure how the pure green sunfish got in there? Our pond is not stained too much, it is a clay bottom and the visibility is about four feet. There is pond dye though. These fish really darkened up(color) after we put them in a cooler. I forgot to mention that the middle fish in the first photo(second row from bottom) had eggs in her.

The easiest way to tell a yellow from a black bullhead is to look at the barbels (whiskers). If its a yellow bullhead they will be yellow, if its a black bullhead they will be black. Being from Iowa, if there is one thing I know....its bullheads haha

And a brown bullheads' whiskers are....?

Burgundy. Kind of weird.

HAHA...

The whisker method works about 99.9% of the time. Yellow bullheads will 99.9% of the time have while, cream or yellow colored bottom 4 whiskers. Brown and black bullheads have brown or black shades in their bottom four whiskers.

Typical yellow bullhead

Non-typical yellow bullhead

Black bullheads IME typically have a steady uniform shading from top to bottom.
Black bullhead

Where as the brown bullhead has mottling. As can be seen in the below fish.
Brown bullhead