Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat how to enhance BG/RES bed numbers

I have a 3 year old pond, all clay, completely escavated and fish have been in for 2.5 years now. I have BG, RES and HBG in there in good numbers bu tit seems like I catch very few, if any fish that are not from the original stocking. In fact i have only caught 2 RES and only a dozen or so true BG's this year while catching hundreds of the HBG's ( only 100 were stocked so they are obviously doing VERY well) and I noticed this year only 3-4 beds and all were on my highly used sandy beach and never eally saw any quality beds along the edges anywhere else on the pond. My question is if I shoveled a bunch of pea gravel/Sandy 9's/or even Sand around in my shallower areas, do you think that would help attract and make it easier to make beds in the areas that should be holding beds but doesnt?? There is only a 1/4" or so of sediment over the hard packed clay bottom and I wondered if that had something to do with the low numbers of spawners??

Any other ideas to help increase the spawning areas/number of beds in the pond?? I was counting on a boatload of BG's by now to feed my, getting larger all the time, HSB and CC but they just do not seem to be there. I am hoping over the ice season Ill be able to find some YOY YP also, but it doesn't look good for them either, ( I got a bunch of ceder trees submerged for them) but I still havent seen any YOY YP yet and this should have been their second year of spawning also, every YP I catch is 10-13", Thats another thread I suppose....

Salmonid

Have you been catching AND REMOVING 100s of HBG, or just catching and releasing?

The HSB and CC will feed on HBG just as well as BG.

These should help with all your bluegill beds questions – some good pics of them and how to build them.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=85554&fpart=1

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7651&fpart=1

Been CNR everything so far but this winter will start taking some channel cats ( I did have 1 die and kept 2 for a fish fry)and probably a few YP. I do realize the HBG will get eaten but at this rate, there all about 3/4 a lb and really thick around 9" so nothing in the pond is big enough to eat them. My Blue cats might be pushing 4 lbs but most CC are around 2.75-3.25 lbs and the HSB are all around 11-12"

Thanks, Ill be checking out those other threads, in my past life as a trout unlimited geek, we have built multiple instream bedding channels, thats some cool stuff. basically in ideal riffle whre we would have only 1 brown trout redd, we would build up with bigger rocks, 8" tall underwater walls so we could get multple redds next to each other, the key was to have the digging/cutting females not be able to see another hen next to her, they are so territorial., we had some marginal success in some riffles that were about 18 ft wide, we were in 1 occaision able to get 4 redds side by side and actually watched 2 different hens working and the males would switch back and forth by going down and around the walls( 10-12 ft long) and come back up to try to fertilize the the other redd.

Thanks,
Salmonid

Ok, just read through the prior posts and very informative, as always. Looks like , since i can get a pickup truck load of 57's for about 24$ that I might at some time over the winter, if water becomes unfrozen, pick up a load and spread large manure/coal shovel sized scoops around some of the shallower areas just for fun. I figure it cant hurt and may actually help.

I agree that many of the beds may be in deeper water but I just havent seen any YOY panfish at all and was hoping to have 2 year classes ahead of the YP,CC,BC,Blue Cat and HSB reaching YOY eating sized fish, now I am waaaaay behind the 8 ball here and am starting to react reactively VS the perfect Proactive PLAN I had coming in....ha ha, Nothing like a well thought out plan actually working on this pond thing, or so I am finding out.

Thanks guys, Ill probably do this if weather gives me a chance

Salmonid

Last year, the BG in my pond started their 1st spawn at 4-5 inches in the 2 to 3 ft. shallow area which is where the water enters, so some silting.
This year, there were nests beside the dock, in sandy clay on a pretty severe slope......the catch, it was directly under where the feeder goes off. Talk about adaptation. Great for me, as not interested in a large survival rate, but large BG. Spawn and eat simultaneously.

Salmonoid:

If the ice is safe to walk on, I'd spread the 57's out on top of the ice. Once the ice starts to melt, they'll drop down pretty quickly. Personally, I'd rather work on top of the ice than in the icy water, even with neoprene chest waders.

Spawn and eat simultaneously? Sounds like a beautiful dream....

Mark, we have pretty easy access to bank run gravel that's round and varies in size from 1/4" to about 1" or so all mixed. Basically just like the stuff that lines the banks of the Mad river. I've even considered calling Rock Chuckers to see what it would cost to have some delivered and placed in my spawning area. This seems like good spawning bed stuff but I really don't know for sure.

The limestone I orded was only $15/ton total for hauling, delivery and placing. If the rates are the same 10 ton would only run $150 and save a lot of work. They could put down a very consistent layer on top of the ice for you.

Just another thought... is it possible the HBG are taking all the good nesting sites since they may be a bit larger/dominant at this point?

Ryan, thats possible, I ll have a better viewpoint on the YOY fish after i ge tto do some ice fishing, that seemd to be very productive for me last year since I have a huge pile of ceders in the very deepest part of the pond and it held a ton of fish last year, Im hoping to have a better handle on things in another month or so. I figure i can get a pickup truck load ( 1.5 tons) for about 26-28 bucks of the 57's and can easily shovel it within a few feet of the shore to a few key areas for bedding. I am cheap and this would only be a 3 hr job from start to finish and in the winter, Ill need frozen ground to get any truck back there. Stay tuned, I do like your theory about the bigger HBG hogging the best areas, I still havent caught any YOY HBG's yet so they must not have had any success at all, i do know there spawning is very limited to start with.

Salmonid

You may not see significant recruitment of BG until the HBG are thinned out. HBG and large BG can consume a lot of fish fry 3/32"-3/8" long. As mentioned HBG could be hogging the spawning area. Also if the pond does not have adequate shallow water refuge areas the biggest percentage of the fish fry could be getting eaten before they get to the 3/4"-1" size.
Does the pond have submerged rooted vegetation?
Do you use pond dye which limits survival of fish fry?
Do you kill your FA during spawning season? This can kill fish eggs and will reduce plankton which feeds fish fry.