Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations My 1 year old pond may have issues...

This is kind of a long story, but I need some guidance on the situation I've found myself in.

I have a new 2 acre pond built last fall. The DNR stocked it with 500 bluegill (1-3") and we added about 1000 fathead minnows in October 09. On June 20th this year they followed up with 140 largemouth (1") and 200 channel cat (4-6").

We are out there on weekends, and I noticed a few bluegill spawning on a gravel area we built during the last full moon, maybe 10-20 4 inchers. I've also noticed ALOT of bass in the 4-9" range. It seemed like a lot more than 140 were swimming around in the pond. This past weekend I started casting a small beetle spin around on ultralight to try and get a better idea of numbers. I was catching a small bass almost every cast, when after about 10 minutes I caught a 3 pounder. My heart sank, and I pulled out my bass gear and removed 5 bass total in the 1.5-3lb range that morning.

My only guess is some adult bass swam out the 7" diameter drain pipe on my older upper pond during a brief period of high water this past March (see picture here - http://buildertrend.net/btPhotos/mTWRKa52.jpg) . I didn't think bass were really attracted to current, but obviously I was wrong. The 3lb bass also had his dorsal find rubbed off, perhaps from the long trip down the pipe?

So now things are starting to make sense. I haven't seen an explosion in bluegill like I expected this summer, and there are lots of bass. I tried a nightcrawler on a bobber for an hour or so last weekend, in some good spots, and caught no bluegill. My take is the handful of adult bass that entered the pond this March spawned successfully, and their fry had virtually no predators so a majority made it. I couldn't tell because it just looked like I was seeing the year class of bass we had stocked. There are so few adult bass in the pond that I never saw one. To top it off, those bass no-doubt spent the summer chowing down on a bunch of the bluegill in the 3-4" range from last falls stocking.

Now what? Can I recover this out of balance situation by catching a bunch of adult bluegill from surrounding waters and adding them? If so, how many would you guys suggest? Or am I better off buying a bunch of 3" 'ers from a hatchery and just waiting another year for larger bluegill? Next year should I have a big fish fry on 10-12" bass to try and remove some, or will the pond balance itself out with adequate forage added?

Thanks for your help, and for sticking out this long post!!

I am no expert but I think in addition to your bass problem you added too many channel cats. By planting BG in the fall and then CC in the next early summer you never gave the forage base a chance to get going before adding predators. Also 500BG is not that many for a 2 acre pond. 1000 fatheads is not nearly enough either, unless you were to give them a three year head start.

I would remove any bass or CC you catch and add BG and another forage fish like golden shiners. You will need to add a lot of shiners to get them established, like 10000.

YP would be another good forage fish as well

3# are what, 17"-18" long? You'll need to stock Bg that are 6" or bigger to avoid them becoming expensive fish food for the LMB.

Normally, I believe BG stocking rates are 1,000 per acre, or 800 per acre if you also stock 200 RES per acre along with them. I doubt that you will be able to catch even half that amount to put in the pond.

Iffen it was mine, I'd go on a LMB catching spree, call buddies and have them catch all that they could. Keep 'em all. Then next Spring when the water is around 60°f I'd stock 400-500 6" BG and 100 6" RES per acre. It sounds like you are headed towards the common LMB stunted/crowded pond very quickly.

The CC aren't doing you any favors either - they are competing with the LMB for food.

If you can, I'd stock 30#-50# GSH. Stocking FHM won't do much good 'cept feed the smaller LMB ASAP.

First, you have a beautiful looking place.

Secondly, I fully agree with what REXCRAMER said above.

Thirdly, I'm really surprised at the DNR's stocking plan. I see a number of problems.

From now on, if you are going to restock, I'd come here first. Then I'd go to a private hatchery with the advice. I don't think the DNR did you any favors. Also, getting stock from public waters, or even private waters, is just too risky.

The original bluegill stocking -- no problem. Good start. But, it sure seems like far too few fatheads were stocked for 2 acres.

Putting 1-inch bass in with one year old bluegill seems like a wonderful banquet for the bluegill. 140 bass at 1-inch, seems far too few. I regularly catch 4-6 inch bluegill on polliwogs bigger than one-inch.

I see two mistakes with the catfish. 200 channel cats in a 2-acre pond is a recipe for disaster, unless you are planning on an almost-exclusive catfish pond. At 4-6 inches, they too will greatly enjoy those 1-inch bass. Worst, at that size, the catfish will be pretty safe from the bigger bass you are finding in your pond.

Certainly, things are far from hopeless. At least they didn't stock bullheads and crappie.

I think most of our good friends must be on vacation. Forum activity has been real low for the last week or so. But, being in Nebraska, you've got some of the best pond managers in the country near you.

You probably need a good stock of larger bluegill that can't easily get eaten.

You need to get at least half of of those catfish out of there over the next year, or so. Otherwise, they will grow huge, eat everything in sight (including your bluegill and bass), and take control while they dig caves in the sides of your pond. As you go forward, don't plant more catfish per year than you figure you will pull out the next year. They should be put-and-take. They grow real fast. They are real smart. As they get bigger and wiser, they get tremendously hook shy.

At this point, you probably also need to get more mature bass in there to get things under control, but let's hear from some of the experts. Possibly hybrid striped bass, also put-and-take, could help clean things up without adding to your problems, while providing good fishing and good meals.

Good luck,
Ken

Assuming we are able to catch and remove the majority of "rogue" LMB in the 1+ pound range from the pond, what would be the stocking recommendation for additional 4" BG? Would 250 be enough? Can we do any harm at this point by also purchasing a handful of 6-7" BG? It's hard to tell how many YOY bass we have in there now, does anyone have suggestions on how to estimate that? We do have a seine although I've never used it. Will the YOY bass in the pond spawn next year or do they have to be 2-3 years old?

Guys note this is a northern pond. One standard northern stocking plan puts in FH and 2 inch LMB in year 1 and BG not until year 2. BG tend to stunt more quickly up north.

In your location 2 years old for LMB to spawn. It is hard to say what should be done without good population analysis info. You might try a seine survey.

True, but I remember a post by someone named ewest that said that they'd never seen a BG stunt in a pond that had LMB in it.

Am I disallusioned in thinking the following?

I can always add LMB to a pond to take care of too much forage. I will have a harder time getting a pond into balance if it is full of stunted LMB with not enough forage. This is without having an electroshock boat, seine or rotenone available.

I don't recall that but there are a lot of northern ponds I have not seen. Dave Willis has posted that as the suggested northern stocking plan. It is also contained in several of the northern pond mgt books. That is because of the results that occur if a standard BG first plan is used in many northern ponds. You end up all to often with stunted BG and no LMB recruitment as a result. Studies show that LMB will not attempt to spawn if the effort is futile , such as when BG overcrowding is present.


Both out of balance states (BG overcrowding or LMB overcrowding) are equally hard to fix. The idea is to use the method that gives one the best chance of success. Probably easier to add adult BG and remove LMB to fix LMB overcrowding than to fix BG overcrowding because if you put in enough LMB to reduce the BG with their high reproductive rate you will soon have the opposite result. Either way it is hard to maintain a balanced state teetering between 2 naturally occurring unbalanced probabilities.

Why would BG stunt faster up north? In my pond BG are lucky to get three spawns a summer in while in the South BG might get 5-6 while the LMB still only get one spawn.

Seems like the southern ponds would stunt faster based on BG breeding season length

Or Pike or Tiger Musky also

I'd be worried that the Pike or Tiger Muskies would start to target the LMB once they got bigger. That might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your goals. But, humans can be more selective in which fish come out.

Well I was out at the pond this weekend, and removed another 12 bass over a pound that were obviously from this springs overflow. Two were 3lb, the rest were 1-1.5. The good thing is that the pond at one year old is way under capacity for fish, so the fish can still be picky about where they choose to hangout. We are finding all the bigger bass crammed into the channel at the shallow upper end right now, which is making them easier to catch and relocate. We also added another 50-60 5-7" BG this past week, and will be stocking about 200 more 3-4" BG shortly. I am seeing good numbers of 1-2" BG and FHMs swimming in the shallow weeds, I'm just not seeing many bigger BG. A month ago I did see about 10 BG beds on a gravel area we built into the pond, and they had 4-5" BGs on them. I'm hoping the removal of the LMB and addition of larger BG will help get this stocking back on track. Next spring we'll probably remove some of the 1 year old bass and start harvesting up to 100 of the 200 stocked CC as soon as we can. On a side note, I harvested the fattest LMB this weekend to see what she was eating, and she had 2 bullfrogs in her belly, no fish. I view this as a positive, at least she wasn't keying in on the already reduced 4-5" BG from last fall's stocking!