Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations 14 acre perch pond.

A few questions on a perch pond close to us. I do know the owner quite well. Would like to see the pond live up to its potential with as little $$ spent. Man power for this pond owner is cheap.

Pond back ground.

Old gravel pit dug out as much as possible till water took over.
Spring feed year round completely private land.
Pond is about 10 feet deep on average everywhere and with the dam can add a log and raise and lower water as needed.
Perch were stocked at 10,000 in 1997 and only fish that has been caught or trapped in it that I have seen or heard.
Pond has abundant of coontail and other weeds every year but die off well each year.

Problem with this pond is you can not catch anything ever unless it is trapped or you use a small perch as bait to catch another larger perch. Any large perch look stunted to me. Their mouth gap is equal to there body girth.

What would be the best course of action to help this pond out and bring it into a nice fishery.

Reading another post and it got me thinking. This pond is to its carrying capacity for sure. Only way any fish can get any bigger is to eat its own or elders die naturally. My thoughts were to minnow trap out as many 1-2" perch each year and maybe cut and rake the largest portion of the weeds out.

Cheers Don.

Don the only importance to my post is I'm the first one to get here. Other than that I know nothing about perch and little about fish.

But I nearly always have an opinion.

I would leave all the 1-2" perch and remove as many as I could catch of the large stunted ones. The little ones are all the big ones have to eat. Remove them and the big ones are just going to get skinnier. Remove a bunch of the mid and larger fish and let the ones left eat the small ones.

Sounds like you need to get some forage fish established.

Now the experts can give you some valid advice.

Don, I'd go the opposite direction. IF there are no other fish species present. Take out as many larger perch as possible. The small ones are all that is feeding the other fish....they are being heavily controlled already through predation. Perhaps add a minnow species as well such as fatheads and/or shiners.

What about adding a few bad boys such as Northerns to control the larger perch population in the future? IMHO I agree with Rainman. Remove the big YP. Threads I have read where the LMB are skinny seem to always recommend removing the largest fish. Should apply to YP as well?

If too capacity, maybe pull everything caught out for a while and make room for what will be added, both bait fish and maybe a predator fish. Adding some larger structure in deep parts of the pit? Or is there quite a lot of large rock?

.....And IMHO I agree with fish_m....add a forage minnow that can sustain

Looked at scudds? I will try and share a link once I'm on the computer.

Ummm, ya'll know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I'm wonderin how many minnow traps and fishermen are needed to effectively control the population of a 14 acre pond? I have a 1/4 acre pond and it keeps me pretty busy. Cutting and raking the heaviest part of weeds in that size BOW seems impossible.

Yeah I know what you mean Bob. May need to bring in the top anglers to get things under control....Northerns or Muskies. They fish 24/7 and don't charge!

Is'nt there a hybrid fish from a cross between Muskie and Pike? If so are they available Don?

That is interesting. Never heard of that hybrid. What do you think of a good stocking of WE and a sustainable minnow as an option? Still leaves the big skinny perch......

Ya mean one of these guy's: Tiger Muskie

Seems like something like that could possibly render a 14 acre pond lifeless. Medium sized pets as included.

Looking forward to seeing what Dr. Perca has to say about this. Personally think adding forage or predator fish may be in vain. Just too much water and too many fish.

Abundant plant life was also mentioned. Removing this cover with grass carp (or other means) might also be needed to allow any predators to be effective. One could consider this a great opportunity for growing trophy predators on an established forage base? If there are no LMB or other competing species, could this become a SMB pond?

Wow guys thanks for the reply's. I would like to print all this great info off for Doug who owns the pond and see what he would like to do. Doug is one of those guys that will do just about anything for anyone if they just ask. I would like to help him to give back and it kills me to see such a incredibly body of water do deeply stunted.

Walleye are and option and weed control is too.

There is lots of big logs in the pond. These are added to preserve to make a log cabin in the future on the island in the middle. There is lots of very large rock for structure as well.

Maybe there is a slot size we could shoot for? When we did fish it last all we could catch were tons and tons of little guys who could not grab the hook but would not let go of the bait and would suck the bait dry off the hook. My son had caught one of these small one when bang a big 13" grabbed the line. I have pictures of it on my phone maybe swap them over so I can post. To me it was large mouth big eye skinny body.

Cheers Don.

For small fish go to a small hook.

While catching 3-5" fish our of my main pond to stock in my old pond, one of the hooks I used with success was a #10 cricket hook. The cricket hook has a thin wire and a long shank. One problem with very small hooks is the fish tends to swallow it. The long shanked cricket hook reduced this problem.

Small jig hooks (with our without plastic on it) work well too. These with the built in weight cast better. 1/32 or 1/64 oz.

I'm not much of an angler, but after stocking my pond and before the fish got much size, what fishing I did was for smaller fish. Also later fished for the smaller fish to stock the other pond.

If using live bait just a pinch off a worm a quarter inch long will do it. Slim Jim snack is one of my favorite baits and always keep them in the tackle box with small scissors. Cut off a quarter inch length of Slim Jim with scissors, then cut this round quarter inch long piece either in half or quarters, depending on the size fish targeting. Fast, easy, cheap bait.

I use the smallest plastic jigs when the biting is good. Smallest jig hook you can find in regular fishing section of store. Can even to to the fly fishing section if you can't find any small enough in the regular fishing section. They make some really small jig hooks for fly fishing. Plastics are a lot faster to pull lots of fish out in a hurry when they are biting. Seldom have to re-bait the hook with plastics. But if the bite gets harder, a small piece of worm or Slim Jim or some other real bait on a plain small hook or even added to the plastic jig. I've cut some of the head portion off the plastics to get them smaller for the very small jig heads. Size the bait and hook to the fish you are targeting. Then once in a while, you will still catch a large fish on a small hook and bait.

Small hooks with small baits so they can get it in their mouth.

I'm still scratching my head on this one. If I understand correctly, the lake has tons of small healthy YP but the larger YP are skinny. I am not a pro but, IMHO until something is done to reduce the vegetation for those small YP to hide in, things will not get better.

Bill your are correct. It is just about impossible to catch larger perch. Only time seems to be in the spring when the weed mass is at its lowest and even then very difficult. Ice fishing is dicey with fluctuating water levels.

The fish that can be caught are way to small for consumption. Looking at making a very large trap. Large holes so smaller perch can swim out but large enough to catch 10" plus fish.

It is odd. For a pond this large and so many little fish I would expect there to be lots of larger fish one could catch but it is very difficult to catch the consumable fish. It is as if there isn't any but we all know there has to be. I have often wondered about ponds with to much feed if the larger fish just don't have to eat as much and are difficult to catch but its in their nature to take a free lunch if dropped in front of them.

Don.

Is it effective to drop the water two or three feet in the winter during a hard freeze to help control the vegetation. You get some die-off every year but would exposing and freezing it help more to die-off? Not sure if you would have to do this every year or only every few years. It is free and almost effortless (compared to raking and chemicals) but I am unsure of the effectiveness on these plant species.

Also, I have to think that a predator (WE, SMB) and a forage fish species or two will help to balance things out and allow for larger perch. Doesn't nature want to be balanced? I feel that stunting is a byproduct of an imbalance.

Electroshock that water in the Spring when it is safe to do so and see what floats to the surface.

And bring lots of containers to start culling the ones you need to remove as they float.

It really should be considered as a primary option before you try to fish and remove, add forage, remove weeds, etc.

If shocking isn't an option or too expensive, you can detonate to stun the fish and grab them. Maybe not as humane or scientific or all encompassing, but it works.

Basslover,

Spring may be a good time to get them electrofishing but in my pond they stay too deep for effective electrofishing. Not all the perch spawn come up to spawn at the same time.

I once had my pond electrofished and the only thing that came up except a couple of yellow perch were bass and bluegill. And there were a lot of yellow perch in the pond.

How about gill nets?

I'd bet that the larger YP in the lake are old. They have to get enough food to reach that length, but then they ran out of enough food to keep getting bigger. The smaller ones are eating the food before it gets large enough for the bigger YP to thrive.

Muskies or Northern will get large enough to eat the largest YP in the pond. If the goal is to get large YP in the pond, then that's against the goals, so don't stock them. I don't have a lot of first hand experience with Tiger Muskies, and I've seen data that says that they may not be 100% sterile, so even stocking Tigers in the lake might not meet with the owners goals.

With a lot of weeds in the pond, predators will have to make a lot of missed catches to actually catch their food. More calories for the calories caught. Reducing the weed mass will make prey easier to catch. That can be tricky, depending on the budget and type of weeds. I have no idea how the regs are in Canada regarding pond/lake herbicides.

I don't know how big of a small YP a larger YP can eat, but SWAG says it won't be over 4" or so in length.

With that sized BOW, I'd be very careful what predators you stock to keep in tune with the goals for the pond. Single sex SMB, but where to get enough of them and you have to be 100% sure of the sex.

I think WE would be about your only choice due to water temps, but lets see what Cody says.

What are the goals for the lake?

You ever think of a Fyke Net?

If trapping or seining, I'd go with small mesh. Catch all sizes of YP and sort & release the ones you want to stay. Larger mesh might gill some that you want to release.

Even removing the small ones will leave more food in the pond overall. Just like a stunted LMB pond, removing all sizes helps them grow faster. Then once they start growing you can sort according to WR to see what size fish you have to target for removal.

A large pond/small lake with lots of cover (weeds) and over abundant panfish will probably need predators for population control. There are big shallow weedy lakes that grow decent panfish and predators. Rice Lake in SE, south central Ontario is one example. I local guy went to Rice Lake and caught hundreds of nice BG in a few days. Others are the prairie sandhill lakes in Nebraska that grow big BG in shallow weedy habitats. I think I would research the fishery in Rice Lk and try to duplicate it minus the BG. If the 14 ac pond/lake does not frequently winterkill, I would start by adding SMB and WE; both natural predators of YP. I fear NP will reproduce, become too abundant and eat the other small predators as well as YP. I doubt the SMB will become over abundant enough to eliminate the YP as long as lots of weeds are present. It make require adding LMB to eventually eat enough YP to control them in a weedy habitat. As we know LMB can easily overpopulate, then if that happens I would consider NP who work well sometimes too well in weedy situations. My next step is to research Rice Lk.

http://www.thefishinguide.com/rice-lake-fishing-ON.php

Video showing the weedy mess on Rice Lk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L3sWuVOh1I
Bluegill from Rice Lake
http://bigbluegill.com/photo/imag0149?context=user
Yellow perch from Rice Lk
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/fishing-information-rice-lake-ontario-canada-60227.html
Fish photos Rice Lk - see 2007 & 2009 for piles, buckets and coolers full of panfish pics.
http://www.silverleaflodge.com/photos.html
http://www.silverleaflodge.com/2009_photos.html

Evidently from the pictures Rice Lk has mixed predators which maintain some sort of fishery balance despite the shallow weedy habitat. The musky probably eat the larger fishes both panfish and predator. One should be able to duplicate the Rice Lake fishery in the 14 ac pond if stocking is done correctly. the predators should be added at an adequate size they can immediately start eating the smaller YP and at enough numbers to fairly quickly get the YP population reduced enough that the fry of the predators survive to eventually prey on abundant YP fry-fingerlings. Initially small YP may have to be removed at the same time as adding larger predators (8"-12"). Sourcing enough larger predators will likely be your biggest problem. Fingerling predators will likely have poor survival rate due to having to compete with very high numbers and several sizes of resident YP.

What sort of pond weeds do you have. Rather than planning to get rid of them right now. Use them to help establish foarge like bait fish scuds and crawfish. Scuds Probly won't have a noticeable impact on the weeds but crawfish might and it would help k==p all three from being gobbled up. I like what bill cody and essuhp wrote alot. Can you get a small boat to fish the lake? And can you use the ex tr a perch in your bear bait station?