Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Want to turn my existing pond into a panfish pond

Thanks Bill, and Esshup, your comments make a lot of sense. The sunfish are aggressive, and gulp down big minnows, could be mowing down the perch. The CC on occasion are extremely agressive, and have caught rapala`s cranked real fast, only 6-8 left in pond. Pretty surprising. Tried the small wounded sunfish but the LMB would not hit. The LMB when one fish is caught with some kind of live bait that`s it. Can`t get another one, and that`s on a 3/4 acre pond. The only time I caught LMB on artificial lures it was during the spawn with a lot of aggravating them with lot`s of close passes.

Seems there is no exact solution going to have to experiment a little.

Fish N Chips thanks for that great find for Israeli Carp. I can't tell you how many time I have search online trying to find them. This was my fish line up in my one acre pond while I had no algae for years while ponds all around me did.

6 Israeli carp, 20 KOI, 50 Channel Catfish, Bass, Bluegill, Fathead Minnows, 18 Grass Carp, but used for cleaning out the Eurasian Milfoil. The grass carp cleaned out nearly kind of plant so plants stopping the algae were nill.

So the big worry was carp taking over the pond. I started with 6 Israeli carp and ended with 6 monsters until the winter fish kill. Perhaps the bass were controlling them. But Zetts said that the University of Auburn conducted test's in the 30's and their conclusion that a ponds that had bluegills controlled the population of the carp from an enzyme they produced in the water. I tried to find this in the archives of Auburn but couldn't find it. It could be true but perhaps the test were never digitized for online use. But for whatever reason, the carp never grew beyond the original 6.

I need to run my tadpole/golden shiner experiment this summer to see if they can control algae using the big populations I have. But the following year I may go back to the Israeli's. I really appreciate the Israeli carp find. Thanks