Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Can an overpopulated pond be fished into balance?

I have a 1.3 acre farm pond in Iowa that once held very nice bluegill, largemouth bass, and an occasional crappie. In 2012 or so this pond froze out (winter kill). We thought it was a total kill but noticed small fish the next spring. We added about 50 LMB in the 12 to 14 inch range thinking this would control the smaller fish population and we would get back to where we were soon. After all, it was in great balance before the winter. A few things happened in the following years. One, we added an aerator. Two, the pond clarity never got back to where it was before the freeze out. This I can't figure out why. 2012 was a bad drought and I don't know if something changed in the pond or what. It used to be clear and grow surface algae. Since then it's been too murky to grow hardly any. So fast forward to now. We have a stunted population of bluegill and crappie and the bass hardly grew from when we added them. Not sure why the bass did not to grow. I thought they should have done well with the large forage population. We did add 100 catfish in 2013 or 14. They have grown to 3 or 4 pounds a few maybe 5 pounds. We have removed some of those. Last year we added alum to clear the water and that did help some. This year we are going to add bacteria to help with any dead and decaying material to help clear the water up some more.
We have removed 2500 bluegill and crappie the last couple years. I am wondering if we remove more and add some large bass (3+ lbs) and add a feeding program can we get this pond back into balance? Or do we need to start over by killing all the fish and restocking.
Thanks

Welcome to the forum. I am no expert and a southern guy so u might want someone closer to your climate but I would say the catfish over ate the size bg that the bass needed to grow. A 13/14" lmb needs bg in the 3 to 4" size range for eating. And since the catfish grew they are competing for that sized bg. If u want a catfish pond that's good but if u want a lmb pond then thin out the catfish.
I would not remove the stunted bg because when your lmb grow they will need/want the stunted bg for eating. It all depends on what you what your goals are for the pond. Balance pond is not as easy to do as it sounds, it's hard to stay balanced.

My short answer would be yes you can, but it takes some careful planning and a decent amount of "work" to make it happen. And you will need to keep up with monitoring the pond down the road or it will slip right back out of balance. Would be helpful to hear your goals so people could give better advice. In a pond that size, my non-expert opinion is that large BG/Crappie and also large LMB will be almost impossible(or very expensive) to attain and sustain because they are counter to each other.

Phonzie, the particular situation you face is very difficult to correct by fishing. If it were that you had very abundant LMB and large BG, then yes, fishing could help you balance the BOW. Fishing will not be enough to increase the size and reduce the number of BG.

You mentioned that the LMB were 12 to 14 inches when you stocked them. Studies of realized prey provide evidence that is in agreement with the following statement:

95% of the prey largemouth eat are less the 25% of their length For 12" to 14" LMB, 95% of the their prey is less than 3.25" in length. OK, so I think I know that nearly all of your BG are bigger than 3" but also that they do not successfully spawn. The LMB are starving because of this.

Here are some options for you that I think will help.

1. Try to remove at least 200 lbs of BG through seining and or trapping. Do this early before their first spawn. Attack the BG not by fishing but by other more effective means.

2. Either feed or fertilize to improve condition for spawning. Of the two, I favor fertilization but do as you wish on that. Actually, you don't need to fertilize or feed if you don't want you. Removing a big weight of fish from the system is like pruning a tree ... the branches (BG) that remain grow with increased vigor.

3. Try to remove at least half to three quarter of your catfish. 300 to 400 lbs of catfish in the 3 to 4 pound size aren't helping. They don't want to eat BG less than 3" and so there was little predation in this size class. CC will foster a population of 3"-5" bluegill.

3. Its hard to say how many LMB you have left. They probably cannot successfully spawn in the presence of so many small fish. You may need to supplement their numbers. Do not do this until you see that BG are spawning well again. Add them > than 8" and no more than 80.

When we first added the bass, there were plenty of BG under 3 inches. I think the murky water hurt their ability to catch prey. The catfish were smaller than the bass we added, but they are not sight feeders. Could water clarity be the reason for slow growth of all species other than the catfish? I am hoping clearing up the water will help everything grow.
Does feeding increase the fiah holding capacity of the pond ?

You didn't mention the time line for stocking the LMB. Were all 50 stocked the year after the kill? Were they feed trained from a hatchery or were they relocated from a nearby pond?

I think your thoughts about water clarity are relevant but I don't think it is the sole reason for the LMB doing poorly. If I were to guess, I would say you need to look into the aeration and its effect on clarity. Perhaps it is stirring up the pond? Also those catfish may be rooting the bottom.

Feeding does increase the standing weights you can achieve but what you haven't considered is whether the BOW is reaching the limiting carrying capacity each year anyway. Even if the fall standing weights are larger after feeding, there is no guarantee that the spring standing weights won't be nearly the same.

How did you remove 2500 crappie and BG the last couple of years? If you did that by fishing, you've worked very hard at it. I would like to set some context to your current problem. You are in fertile soil country there and your pond may support 300 to 500 lbs of fish/acre ... or perhaps even more. Lets say the average length of your crappie and BG are 4" and the RW is 80. Then you could have around 16500 stunted fish. If you took half of them, they could grow to twice the weight if they didn't reproduce anything to compete with themselves as they grow. But they wouldn't grow to twice the length. They may spend half of that gain fattening up their slender bodies while the other half grows their length. The net result might only be growth in length to about 4.5 inches. If killing them out is an option that you can work with, then this is fastest way to get where you need to go and it is also the most reliable.

I am pretty sure channel catfish are sight feeders. They are predator's that compete with lmb for food. If you want the lmb to grow I am pretty sure you will need to thin the numbers of cats. How murky is your water? Have you measured the visibility?

Bass were added the year after the freeze out. Yes we did fish it hard, it is me and my 3 brothers that own the pond and we all have kids that fish and they can drive themselves to the pond on a side by side. In the spring you can really catch a lot in a hurry.
Catfish mostly feed by scent and feel. That is why they can do better in dirty water.
Update: I guess my brother caught a 3.94 lb bass that was 19.5 inches last night. Maybe using the Alum last year is working some. I think we will keep removing all crappie we catch and most of the BG. I think adding the bacteria to remove the muck and decaying material will help clarity and hopefully overall fish health.
Does everyone like the Purina brand fish feed ?

There are a number of good feeds. Purina is one of them. You can fish the pond to balance but it will require work and knowledge of how to gauge status.

Now that the pond has gone through spring inversion,(this is a natural process in Northern ponds and lakes) the water appears very clear. I can see fish at 2.5 to 3 feet. I have not seen water this clear in this pond in 7 plus years!! The best thing is I am seeing different sizes of fish. I assume this is a sign of a healthy pond or at least one headed in the right direction? I caught 6, 10, and 13 inch bass. And can see BG from 3 inches up to 6 inches. The crappies are maybe only mostly one class size.

Well the good news is that it isn't like you thought it was when you first posted. Some of the original LMB are ~ 20 inches and there has been some LMB reproduction across multiple years. All is well. So how large are the crappie and are they more numerous than the BG?

The crappies are 7 to 8 inches and mostly the same size. We are going to try to remove as many as possible in next few weeks. I would say their population is similar to the bluegill, maybe less.

Good plan. The crappie are big enough to reward you with meals and so the effort brings that benefit to. So over the last two years, have you noticed an increase in lengths of your crappie? I take it that you harvested around 1250 crappie over that time?

I learn something new every day here. If I were asked a few days ago what fish would be the first to die in winter kill among LMB, Crappie, and BG, I would lean toward crappie taking the biggest hit, followed by LMB, and then BG. Your experience makes me rethink that. There is a good chance that the crappie are represented in mostly one year class. When do you think this spawn happened?

I think they had to be spawned the spring prior to the freeze out. That's the only way I can explain how many there are. Otherwise I would think we would catch at least few larger fish. Same with the BG.

I was thinking you may say that and this makes me wonder if during the drought prior to winter whether the conditions were difficult for the larger fish. That is, even where if none of the large fish died before winter they were so stressed that feeding on that YOY crop was suppressed.