Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Old Pond No Fish Need Advice

I recently decided that the pond on my property might be a great place to attampt to make a trophy bass pond. It is in Northern California and the pond is about 7-8 acres in size. Currently it does not have any fish in it except for very small maybe inch long minnows, and an extreemly healthy frog population, which I would estimate to be in the 1000-2000 per acre. I need advice on what kind of fish and in what quantities per acre to stock with, and if I need to get crawfish or any other kind of forage like animal??

Welcome to the PB forum tanninbruce.

A good forage base in the proper sizes is necessary for trophy LMB prior to stocking LMB. I would suggest 2 things first. Order a copy of Raising Trophy Bass from the Pond Boss office. Also do some looking here on LMB ponds. Generally you will need a very productive forage fish species or two. Bluegill are used most of the time. Crawfish are a good supp. source. Tshad are used as are GShiners and only in the proper circumstances GShad. RT are very good especially if your water temps will allow year round survival. Many Calif. locations will allow this. Tilapia are used also if your state allows them.

Just to augment ewest's post, how are you certain there's no fish in there besides the minnows?

That'd be a good thing to make sure of, if there's any doubt.

Well am not totally sure, but I did have me and three others out the other day fishing it all day and no one even got a bite. I thought that was good enough to determine a no fish status. What do you think?

I have been to many lakes and or ponds that I have fished and not caught anything nor had a bite. However there were in fact fish in the water. You gave the size of the pond...do you know the depth? Also what do you know of the ponds history...who owned it before you? Did they ever supply fish to the water?

The history of the pond is sort of muddy, some people said it was stocked in the past, some say it wasn't. The people who owned it before me are not in the area any more and I dont know how to contact them. The depth is around 40 ft and the shape is sort of like a pear. I know a half a day of fishing a pond with 4 guys can produce no bites or fish even if they are there, but we also did not witness any fish surfacing, jumping, or no smaller fish in the shallower waters. Just the minnors that were about a half an inch long. I plan to take a canoe out on the pond with a portable depth and fish finder to get exact measurements. I do know that at one time the pond was treated for weed and alge growth which back in teh 80s could have been a harsh chemical that killed off the fish if there were any in there before. But for the moment I am assuming no fish. What other type of information will I need before the first fish hits the water?

Another way to know for sure would be to set trot lines on jugs around the pond. Sometimes CC for example like to eat at night and will travel around a pond hunting food. I would be interested to know the depth of this pond...being 7 or 8 acres it is of a decent size.

Also I am going catfishing next week and am thinking about bringing a few back to put in the pond. Is it ok to have just catfish in the pond or is that a bad idea? I was thinking it would be ok because they really dont compete with any of the other fish I might put in the pond. Any thoughts or advice?? And Longhorn, what are CCs and what do you mean by setting trot lines on jugs? I could also upload some pics of the pond, but I dont know how to do it, any advice there?

tanninbruce, catfish are a true predator fish, and they mostly eat other fish, so they will compete with whatever other predators you decide to put in. However, they do have a niche in the overall scheme if you want them.

As far as fishing your lake to see what is in there, I strongly suggest doing another few all day fishing trips using many types of live bait such as shiners, minnows, crayfish, maggots, worms, waxworms, etc. Fish at all depths also.

You have a nice sized pond, but proceeding with any stocking plan without knowing what you have in there has many risks against acheiving your overall goals (I don't know if you've established your goals for this pond).

Let's keep talking.

The overall goal of the pond is to make it a kickin bass pond, trophy pond if possible, so that I can host small local tournies there thus it is necessary to do this right. I know I have a lot to learn about pond managmentm for I am basically starting from scratch, but I am eager to learn for it is my property, my pond and my future enjoyment of the water.

CC= channel catfish...it is one of many acronyms you might find on this site. This link is a list of most of them.

T\'s Acronym page

Trot lines and or jug fishing is when you tie a line to an empty milk jug (usually this is a heavier line almost like a small rope). Tie a weight a hook and bait them at different depths throughout your pond. Then the next morning go out and see if you caught anything overnight. If you did catch something the jugs may or may not be moving around in the water. Be sure to check them daily as this can kill the fish if they are on for an extended period of time.

Check your state/local fishing regs before using trotlines/jugs. They may not be legal everywhere.

I should have added that Channel Catfish should readily take to pellet fish food.

On the trot-line thing, that would stink if your were not allowed to do that on your own pond.

If a tropy LMB fishery is a main goal, tanninbruce, then you probably don't want to introduce any other type of predator fish, or fish that will do any damage to the LMB's forage base.

Lusk wrote the book on it, and you can buy it through this site as ewest stated.

I'm pretty sure the basic formula is LMB, Bluegill, and then pellet feeding if can. This is merely the rough-out; so much more in the book.

If your pond was in existence before you bought it (meaning that you were not the original builder), then I would be on there being fish in there.

The guy who watches the property says that the pond is about 15ft deep at the deepest point and that it is 7 acres large. He said that 12-15 years ago they threw some catfish trout bass and sunfish in the pond, but no one has fished it in at least 10 years. Like I said there were no sign of fish at all when we were fishing it. Maybe we are bad fishermen I dont know or maybe we were there at the wrong time of day. Either way if these fish are in there one is it a good combination, and two where do I go from here.

Just shooting from the hip here Tanninbruce.

My advice to you at this stage of the game is to read. Slap on a dribble bib and drool over all the valuable information posted here that pertains to creating a trophy bass pond. Digest and then ask questions.

Your statment "I do know that at one time the pond was treated for weed and alge growth which back in the 80s could have been a harsh chemical that killed off the fish if there were any in there before." would raise a flag with me. Personally, I would try to investigate this further.

Welcome to the club!

I just bought Basic Pond Managment and Raising Trophy Bass from the Pond Boss site. Does anyone know generally how long it takes to receive these books? I would also like to know how to upload photos to the forum so that I can show the pond.

I got my books last Spring and don't recall it taking too long for them to show up - probably a week or two.

See Posting Photos

Hi Bruce, a belated welcome to Pond Boss. Good to have another Californian here. DIED (Dave In El Dorado) and I have ponds in El Dorado county. I bought the same books as you and subscribed to Pond Boss magazine (which I highly recommend if you haven't already). It only took about 5 or 6 days for me to get the books.

Be prepared for information overload. The more I read the more I realize how little I know.

Tilapia require a special stocking permit in California that is apparently difficult to get (or so I've been told). So they are probably not an option.

I'm not an expert (actually I'm more like the court jester ) so I'll defer any real answers to the experts here (and there are plenty of real experts here). One word of advice though just between you and me (all others please close your eyes) and that is don't get the experts debating techical fish details or you will be mired in paragraphs of highly technical information that will contain words such as fecundity and pisciviorous. Soon your eyes will roll back in your head, you will make strange gurgling noises, and you will fall out of your chair into a brief four to five minute mini-coma.... Or perhaps that is just me.

Anyway, all kidding aside, you have found a great site with a collection of industry experts that are willing to freely share their expertise with all of us pond meisters (amature and pro alike). ....and they even put up with me.

gurgle gurgle
dear Jeff, SYMMLMAO (Sometimes You Make Me Laugh My Ass Off)

I wonder if a call to the Dept. of Fish and Game might shed light on tilapia stocking permit requirements. my guess is - if you have an open water shed (i.e. it drains directly to major water body/river) they wont allow it. if you have a controlled situation, probably just cost a lot of time and money to permit, but they could surprise you.....its a worth a call....sometimes they are reasonable.

tanninbruce......there is a really cool underwater camera on market for around $200 i think its made by aqua vue....comes with a long cable, you drop a fish like camera probe down in water and watch on small TV screen in boat......you'd find out in a hurry if you had fish.........just a thought...........ask yer buddies to take up a $pool and buy ya something good for Christmas!

The pond I bought was established and fish-less despite having lots of frogs. I couldn't believe there were no fish in it so I got a bunch of lively worms and tossed them in at various points and watched what happened. Every single worm wriggled its way to the bottom unmolested. Also, despite calm summer evenings with lots of bugs flying around, I never saw a rise in the pond.

So what I did was stock a bunch of fathead minnows in the summer, then released bluegills in the fall. The next summer I put in tiny bass. The following summer I had 12 inch bass. All I did was take the advice shared on this site and I have a really nice fishery (but with a lot less frogs!).

Here is a pic of my pond, how big do you think it is? Is the measurement usually done in surface acres or total acres? My Pond Second Pic

Hard for me to guess close, but it looks a lot bigger than my 1 acre. I'd say at least 4 or 5.

I think we always talk surface acres. Sometimes volume will be estimated in acre-feet (that's one surface acre of water one foot deep), but considering that's an area estimate times an average depth estimate, it's a double-WAG for most of us.