Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Additive Fish

Dwight give us your thoughts on the fish population , balance by size , type and condition etc.

Possible :

Big danger - a reproducing NP population , not enough predation on YP , crappie and BG.

Depending on your answer my thought is to go slowly on removing all the big NP. Movements in fish population rebalancing are better done slowly if the existing populations are in or near balance. If they are out of balance the faster changes are in order.

My guess , pending your data, is to remove 20% by weight of the big NP and enough of the crappie and LMB under 14 inches to equal your normal harvest plus the weight of the WE and SMB you are going to add.

How many big pike are there? Your probably only talking about a handful of those fish in a 5 acre pond, but even so most likely it will take awhile to catch em all out even if you wanted them gone tomorrow. Your gonna need to find an awesome taxidermist because there are not many people in America that can say they caught a 40" northern from their very own pond.

I dont think you will have a problem with pike getting out of control and stunting in your body of water. If for some odd reason they happen to pull off a spawn, your panfish will actually wreak havoc on the baby pike and the stick will wreak havoc on any pike that happens to make it past the 'pond panfish' slaughterfest. If your pond was such that no one would fish it for a couple years than it might be a different story, but regularly spending time on the water and you can keep the baby pikes in check. (if for some reason there would happen to be)

There is a small number of large NP in the pond. We estimate 6 but since they haven’t been tagged identification is not guaranteed. On one occasion the same 38 inch NP was caught by two different people on the same day ice fishing. In that case the hook marks were used for identification.

The predator population consists of NP, LMB, BC, YP, and BG. Every fish that we catch no matter the species are fat and healthy looking (there may be a rare exception, but I don’t recall one). Even the small fish have big bellies on them. I believe this means there is an abundance of forage for all species.

Other than the NP there appears to be fish of each species in multiple year classes. Typically the smaller fish are easier to catch than the large ones, but large ones are definitely in there.

Catch monitoring has recently (OK, yesterday) been implemented with the assistance of Dr. Dave. Every fish we catch will be weighed, measured and recorded by: date, # of Anglers, hours fished, species, length, and weight. The hours fishing will be kept confidential.

Dwight,
Here are a few pictures that might be of interest to you:





Big fish don't get fat by messing around with small meals

"The hours fishing will be kept confidential, "

At least yours !!!


Nate some small fish in those big stomachs.

Eric, maybe thats all those big fish had available to eat? Note how as the size of prey increased the amount of fish in the belly decreases. Also how many big panfish will a 5 acre pond be able to grow annually and how many of those will escape the jaws of 6 big northerns annually? Fish eat all kinds of stuff, but the main question is when its dinner time what do they go looking for?

They are all opportunistic feeders. They will eat the easiest thing they can catch that offers the most positive energetic results. They will do that until the results are negative and then even keep eating less nutrient rich meals (losing weight however)until they starve to death.

The question is if you have a good pond (lots of well conditioned fish of all sizes) then how drastic of a change do you want to make (risk profile) and are there better (less drastic methods) that will get you to the same place with less risk.

Perhaps it would be best just to add your planned WE and SMB, then see what happens for a few years. The NP deserve to die of old age, they are my buddies.

You could always relocated the pike, under cover of the night, to the Rock River.

I don't think they would like the change to the river where they would have to work for lunch!

The pond is only 'good' for panfish up to a certain size, that is info from another thread stating that every year they think the panfish are going to get bigger, but instead they remain plump, but the same size. If you want to grow bigger panfish you need to do something different or something has to change naturally.

I usually take a more aggressive approach on removing undesirable fish and think the faster I can get the resource wasters out the faster I can start to see changes.

There definitely will be ramifications to taking out the big predators that may need addressed once removed, but if for some reason the big pike are the limiting factor to growing bigger panfish, more than likely you won't be seeing bigger panfish in that pond for the life of those fish. Which could be a very long time.

Now on the other hand if the stick and others are happy with how everything is currently than nothing really needs changing or a more cautious/slow change can be implemented.

Back to the smallmouth/walleye- the actual weight of those fish upon stocking isnt really going to be very much. Its not like you would be throwing the pond completely out of balance by adding 15 lbs of smallmouths and 10 lbs of walleyes. Any additional weight gain that they make will just be converting biomass from the pond itself slowly overtime. Will create a nice bonus fish to catch from time to time.

Dwight “The predator population consists of NP, LMB, BC, YP, and BG. Every fish that we catch no matter the species are fat and healthy looking (there may be a rare exception, but I don’t recall one). Even the small fish have big bellies on them. I believe this means there is an abundance of forage for all species.”

“My thinking is that the pond can handle 400 new predators due to the current forage base being healthy,…”

Stick “IMO Dwight just needs another class or two of high end predator to whack his perch and crappie numbers down some. So other than some FHMs on realease of the new fish, I would not worry about adding any other prey until he sees what happens.”

I have seen no indication that there is a problem of “too small of panfish”. I assume the goal is balance and that they are not trying to go unbalanced – trophy panfish.

What is the goal ? I thought it was just to add some bonus SMB and WE. I would not remove all the big NP (just some – 20%) at first. Until the SMB and WE can eat what the NP are eating (volume not size) because to do so only means more oversupply of YP, BG etc.

One thing for sure - an eyes on assessment and clarity of goals would be good prior to doing too much.

From the stick:

"Why do I catch a lot of 9 inch YP and BC ice fishing year after year in Bremer Pond? Each year I think next year they will be the next size bigger, but not. What is happening to the 9 inchers from the year before, and why are there always that size?"

Dwight addressed this a bit with his light beam theory and also acknowledged the fact that there is some fishing pressure throughout the year on the pond, but at some point you do need to ask the question why arent the fat panfish growing any longer and the stick asked the question. Big panfish are consistently caught through the ice on lakes and ponds that have quite a bit more fishing pressure than Bremer Pond.

If all the fish are fat, I am not convinced there is an over supply of stunted panfish, plus if Dwight and co needs to become the top predator to replace the pike they sure can. If done correctly, they could actually be much better predators than the pike.

Coming from my experiences with pike and musky they are a great tool up to a certain size (for certain goals of course), but then I do everything I can to remove them once they get too large. Basically we don't catch and release them very often. Once they get big they just become too good of predators in midsized ponds. They eat seriously big panfish, and pretty much at will.

Now I am not discounting anything that Ewest has said while kind of debating with him a bit. There is good information here to think about, but remember this is not one size fits all management and the stocking/removal of big predator fish needs to be done thoughtfully and is very site specific. there are major ramifications. I just want those of you who don't know that Ewest and I are good friends, and I actually enjoy debating with him, makes me think...

Nate said " Ewest and I are good friends, and I actually enjoy debating with him, makes me think..."

Absolutely agree with Nate and vice-versa. In fact our approaches are not that far apart only as to rate of change and risk.

I am intentionally doing the good cop/ bad cop here. One of PB's major goals is to put out solid info and make people think through all the angles. Nate is giving one cutting edge approach which offers high reward with some risk. I am being the balance and giving the less risky alternative with slower more controlled results. Both have pluses and minuses. You need to hear both and learn how to make the knowledgeable choice commensurate with the risk level you are comfortable with. That advances learning and good choices.

I do not think that the absence of large YP is due to all of them being eaten by the few NP. One method of finding out would be to harvest 1 or 2 NP and look at the stomach contents. I would wait until after ice out to make that check however. Same for a couple of bigger LMB. I have not seen Dwight indicate he wants to address the YP situation only to add some bonus SMB and WE. Will also note that all the info/reports are not consistent on the status of things.

It is Dwight's pond. I am always in full support of what he is doing. I just think that some larger panfish would be fun instead of cathing ones that are all the same size. I believe Dwight was shooting toward that with the addition of WE and SMB to weed out some smaller panfish,and have a bonus fish to catch from time to time. Looks like a great idea for bonus fish, but not so much to eat the panfish. In short. We are after panfish of various sizes and a chance at a big BC or BG. There are lots of YP in the pond but they are not an angling priority. Dwight is busy doing end of the month sruff. I am sure he will be on in a day or two to correct, clarify, or disavow this post.

I am thinking about all that has been discussed. It is not like there is any rush to just do something.

Dwight, have you ever had your pond electroshocked? Seems like this could be a great time to give it a whirl, particularly if the funding isn't a major issue. Really see what you have going on down there that angling alone may not be able to tell you...

Dwight,

Have you ever thought of tossing in a few Coho?
Could be a fun experiment.

This is why I have a concern about Northern Pike spawning. In the spring when they are ready to spawn the water extends up onto the pond banks. Shallow areas with vegetation is where they could spawn.

Dwight it is feasable the NP could spawn in those inundated vegetated areas of the previous years growth. They 'like' shallow marshy habitat for successful spawning.

Dwight, have you thought about replacing NP with Tiger Musky in future stockings if you want to keep the large predator niche filled? You wouldn't have to worry about reproduction, and I think the TM is a much cooler fish than the NP.

Good idea! I will look into Tiger Muskies and if anyone has any thoughts on the subject don't be shy.

One of the strongest drivers in fish is to reproduce and fill the pond. They will find a way to reproduce if its possible. I would never assume the NP could not reproduce just because there may not be weeds.

I have not checked to see if TM can back cross with NP. Are they sterile in all events ?

TM males are always sterile, females are generally fertile and will backcross with either parental species, particularly NP.

The conditions your pond shows with the flooding of vegetation such as that is similar to a lake in PA where they drained it down several feet for dam repairs. It was down for about 4 years allowing vegetation to grow in the area usually covered when at normal pool. When the repair was finished and the lake filled back up, the pike had an incredible spawn producing an amazing couple of years classes.

So Dwight, anymore thought on whether you're gonna pull the trigger and add some SMB or WE to your pond?