Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Grandmother's old pond.

Two and a half years ago we acquired an 18 acre tract with small, three bedroom house, outbuilding and my bride's Grandmother's old pond, about an acre, more or less. It was the last piece of the original tract owned by her maternal grandparents to be acquired by the bride and her brother.

Here's the pond as it looked when the property was acquired. View from porch of house. I retired a few months after the purchase and spent several months sampling the fishery and developing plans, one to manage as is and one to renovate and begin over. Upon a thorough investigation of the fishes, we determined it was full of stunted black crappie, green sunfish and green sunfish/bluegill hybrids. Green sunfish were the apex predator as we did not confirm the existence of one largemouth bass. We agreed to take it down to grown zero retaining as much of the original dam's integrity as possible.



View showing portion of dam with willows, large pines, briars and mats of alligator weeds. The dam had deteriorated such that it was simply a narrow dike holding the water back.



First step, pumping pond as low as we could. We scrounged up a pump within the family and a family member willing to spend the time[with compensation] pumping it down. We still had a ways to go in this photo but you can see what we were dealing left. We were able to get it down to a two foot average depth along the dam. Once this was completed Rotenone was to kill the remaining fish. Our initial assessment was correct, no bass and a bunch of runts. I never found a fish or minnow that survived the Rotenone. If you have used Rotenone or attempted to acquire it lately, you will find it a laborious process dealing with licensed chemical applicators, etc., to acquire and have it applied.



I hired a long time acquaintance who builds ponds and renovates earth dams as part of his business. I stayed on the property with the contractor the entire three days to insure we lost no time when we had to solve a problem or change direction based upon some issue. The two earth, casting piers he is building accomplished a couple things. It added pond edge with deep water, provided easy access to deeper water and clear back cast room for the fly rod, my favorite weapon. The pier downhill from the house is a great place to feed pellets over deep water. It saved me the problem of what to do with all the dirt and silt the contractor was generating and access to more water, which correlated to more deep water. With a goal of growing big copper nose bluegill, I wanted a high ratio of deep water to shallow and clean banks to make it easier for the bass to locate and eliminate small blue gill.



Here's the finished product.



Dam covered with straw mats used to control erosion and seeded with winter wheat. I used them to cover the earth "casting piers" as well to control erosion.



The pond finished at a little over an acre. We stocked 800 copper nose bluegill, 200 red ear sunfish, 50 largemouth bass and 10 pounds of fat head minnows in late February, 2016. I put them on Aquamax 500 as soon as they would come to pellets and have monitored their growth monthly. We plan to begin removing some of the original stocking this summer and bass over 14". These are what our largest copper nose look like. The gill pushing 9" is noticeably the larger of the two but the photo doesn't do it justice.

Nice write up, good pics and super looking fish. Gills on the fly are sweet! May you and your loved ones have many hours of enjoyment.

You obviously had a very clear objective right from the start, which helps tremendously. Congratulations!

PS I love flyfishing for CNBG too. On the appropriate tackle, a 1 lb fish feels like a monster.

Looks like all the work paid off. Congrats

Try a 6 lb CC on a 13 ft light action crappie pole with a 1/64 oz jig. I did that last fall. What a fight!

Soon after posting we added a Texas Hunter directional feeder. Once we began a regular, daily routine of feeding twice a day with a mix of AquaMax 500 and AquaMax 600 pellets, our fish really began putting the weight on. In late September my wife caught and released the first of our bluegills to reach the 16 ounce mark, a hefty 9.75 inch specimen. This past weekend we had our youngest granddaughter for a few days and she landed another hefty bluegill measuring 9.0 inches that weighed 15 ounces.

As noted above we stocked in late February 2016 and caught our first bluegill to weigh an honest 16 ounces on the kitchen scale we use to monitor growth along with a bump board for measuring length, in September 2017.

Wife's 16 ounce fish.



Granddaughter's 15 ounce fish.



One I caught and released on a 2 wt fly rod but didn't weigh. A big, hefty fish.



When we began the process, I figured we could get our bluegills to a pound by end of the third summer, but we were pleasantly surprised to find we accomplished it by the end of the second summer. I don't think it unreasonable to think we might have some fish reach 1.5 pounds by the end of next summer.

We continue to mow, weed eat and spray pond side weeds[alligator weed and soft rushes] to encourage local grasses to stabilize the banks. We are able to use a finish mower on a Kubota tractor along 90% of the banks. I manually remove lots of smaller bluegills with two minnow traps and one baitfish trap to assist our bass with their job.

Thanks for sharing this journey... really nice write-up and I love the pics of progress and fun. Congrats on a plan coming together!

/clayton

Our pond just celebrated two years since stocking. We caught our first 16 oz bluegill in September, 2017.

We have continued to make improvements around the pond killing rushes and other noxious weeds. This has resulted in grasses spreading around the pond, replace the weeds. Regular mowing with bush hogg, ridding mover and weed eater now allows us to mow/weed eat 90% of the shoreline.

Our main water weed issues are pond weed and alligator weed. Currently I'm managing the pond weed simply buy reaching out with a long handled net with fine mesh and dragging it out on the bank when it becomes a problem. Using the net, I'm able to remove hundreds of small bluegill and some green sunfish that hide in the pond weed. The green sunfish re-entered the pond after stocking and we just have to manage them and some hybrids best we can. I spray the alligator weed and once it dies use a heavy rake to pull the alligator weed mats out of the pond. This year we will need to deal with some of the "slimy" mosses that are enjoying the rich run off from the neighbors cows.

Here's one of the green sunfish/coppernose bluegill hybrids that was spawned after we stocked. We remove all these and green sunfish and either fillet them or feed our resident coon that nightly visits our bird feeder.



I shut off our feeder during a bout of cold weather but plan to turn it back on after we get through with these heavy rains. Until then, I hand feed them some to keep them interested.

The older the pond becomes the more work is required to stay with the plan. This year we will need to do a better job of removing fish. Our small bass are still fat, indicating they are not successfully removing enough small bluegill. I will add more minnow traps to help out. I noticed while hand feeding earlier this week that a number of large bass are still eating pellets. I will take pleasure in remedying that.

While removing those alligator weed mats I exposed several American eels. They love to hide out in those weed mats.

I think this year will see some of the better gills move close to the 1.5 pound mark. We have made the decision to not remove any redear sunfish unless injured. They don't reproduce well in a small pond and earn their way by eating snails that serve as intermediate hosts for certain parasites that infect fish.

It has been awhile since I handled a 1.5 pound copper nose. Last I did came out of Hughes Old River off the Altamaha River in Georgia in the late 1980s.

Enjoyed this thread and the photos, I say you are well on your way to 1.5lb BG. Stocking some HSB could be a cool bonus fish in your pond, hear they are fun to catch on the fly...

Chunting, neat thread, thanks for the pictures. If you ever get a picture of your RES or of the EEL please post them. I'd love to see these critters that you speak of. I love the picture of the HBG that hit the lure that is about as big as itself! Those GSF genes really show up in those hybrids and make them crazy aggressive eaters.

Do you know how the GSF got back in your pond?

I agree that it might be good to have another predator that may not be such a prolific spawner that could help control the young BG of all types and not be a management concern in and of itself like LMB can be. HSB, chain pickerel, Walleye, or similar predator would be neat to add.

Great looking renovation. I like following your progress. Keep up the good work and I trust you'll hit that goal of 1.5 lb CNBG.

Here's one of our redears caught and released last spring. In older times redears were called "Government bream" and stocked along with other fish in ponds, One of the reasons is spelled out here:

"A few freshwater species of fish have a very unique diet. One of these is the redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus), also called a shellcracker. Redear play a distinctive role in the balance of a pond ecosystem by targeting mollusks such as snails and small clams as their primary food source. Pond managers and fisheries biologists often stock redear into ponds because their unique diet helps break the life cycle of fish parasites that hamper the health of other fish."



It appears that a handful of green sunfish and GS/BG hybrids were able to move up the spillway of our pond from the intermittent stream it empties into during a freakish 15 inch rain event a few months after our pond was stocked. The first spring our redears spawned first next to the spillway and later our bluegills spawned in several spots. All spawning this first spring occurred in shallow water next to banks which made it easy to monitor the beds. A seven inch green sunfish showed up first on a bed with the redears. I removed it by planting a .270 next to it. The shock waves rendered it easy to remove with a long handled net. I caught another green sunfish and one hybrid that were feeding on pellets along with the BG using a pole and small piece of worm. We remove all green sunfish and hybrids. I doubt we can get rid of them but can reduce their impact. I know green sunfish and hybrids have their following but I simply don't like them and don't want them in our pond, We continue working on the spillway by adding "rocks." Rocks are plentiful in this area and stabilize our spillway well.



Largemouth bass are capable of controlling our bluegills, we simply just don't have enough yet to do the job so I aid them mechanically.

Thanks for the pictures. I hope my RES in my pond look nice and fat and fully colored like yours. So the GSF and hybrids came up the creek during high water but where did they come from? I can't imagine there is a body of water or stream that naturally has hybrids in it? Or maybe you have more than one pond?

And another perhaps unrelated thought, why is it that so many public bodies of water do not have hybrid bluegill in it? Natural hybridization between NBG and GSF should happen on its own but it seems we see beautiful HBG pictures in our ponds only because we stock them. Wouldn't it be kind of surprise if you went to one of the non-managed local lakes in your county and started catching HBG?

Can't wait to see more of your pictures and your progress. I love your story and the term 'gubberment Brim'

CC

Excellent! I really like your thread and pictures. Thanks for sharing

i believe with your goals and techniques you will eliminate the gsf within a few more years. i battled them at both my ponds when they were new. i can't remember the last time i saw one here.

Great job ! Now is the time to start doing seine surveys to gather info on the ponds status. Creel data is good but only gives you a partial but important picture. Keep at the management as it is obviously paying off. The hard/complex part of pond mgt starts about 3-4 years after initial stocking.

When we first set our goals after renovating the pond, we figured one pound bluegills would satisfy us. Our first "pounder" showed up last September, 19 months after stocking. We were tickled to say the least. This past couple of weeks we began light sampling and removing culls. Most of the bluegills from the original stocking weigh 14 ounces to 20 ounces, with 16 ounces showing up regularly. A few of the green sunfish/bluegill hybrids showed up and ended in the "eating" bucket. Red ears were sampled and beginning to spawn and showed some pretty good growth since last fall.

Our grand-nephew became bored with fishing "garden hackle" for the 'gills and went off to the other side of the pond to toss hardware for bass. He told me to take care of his rod while he was bass fishing. I did and this 9.5 inches, 1.25 bluegill made its appearance while I was manning the rod. The photo does not do justice to the fish as it was all I could do to get my hand around enough meat to hold it. Our fish have slowed in the length department but are putting on thickness and width, top to bottom. It has now been 25 months since stocking and we have produce our first 1.25 pounder. We are getting greedy now and believe we can produce a 1.5 pounder by fall.




We spent yesterday mowing and weed eating, getting the pond ready for family gatherings and entertaining. We now are able to maintain 90 percent of the pond banks mowed/weedeating to make it easy for fishing. We plan to spend more time staying at the pond house than last year.

Here's a better look at one of the pounders.

What a beautiful pond and some excellent looking BG!

They continue to grow. I caught and released a 1 pound 5.5 ounce specimen this morning on the 4 wt. Not bad for having been stocked 26 months ago.

We've not fished the pond in a month with the last time at the 27 month mark. The largest caught and released at that gathering was 1 lb and 6 oz. I'm hoping we will weight one at 1 lb 8 oz when we take our month samples next week at the 28th month. We will be removing culls, green sunfish and any hybrids. I need to heat the grease up in my Cajun Fryer.

I sampled 11 with the fly rod this morning. Kept three fat females, 8 oz, 12 oz and 15 oz, for the fryer. The rest, all males, were out of the slot and released. Best weighed in at 1 pound 4 ounces. I'd give it a 8+ out of 10 on profile.

That one has spent some time at the buffet table!

Great looking fish!

Congratulations on the great success of your trophy BG BOW and thanks for sharing your management efforts. The fish are great. What a fat fish. 9 1/2 inches weighing 1 1/4 lbs!!! The RW of that fish is ~ 1.65.

You mentioned a slot but not the lengths defining the slot. I take it you might be releasing > 9" but how do you manage the smaller BG both within the slot and smaller?

Do you filet them or just take off the guts & heads?

Dang chunting!!! If I can get my little hole of mutts to raise something anywhere near those fish I'm gonna be one happy camper!!

I generally remove all bluegill from 6-8 inches and put them in the fryer. "Generally." If its a male and has a particularly well defined shape, it might get a pass. Nothing I do is "set in concrete." Most females are removed. If we catch it on a hook and it is under 6 inches, it gets a pass or ends up as bait for our larger bass, those over 16 inches. We remove those and put in fryer. Our goal is have a large population of smaller bass working on the small bluegills. I use two minnow and one baitfish trap to mechanically remove smaller bluegills as well. At this moment our small bass are too fat, indicating they are not keeping up their end of the bargain, so I've been catching small bass from another pond and putting in ours to help out. Our pond is in good shape now for the bass to easily capture the little stuff. You can sit on the porch and watch small bass blowing up small bluegills all day long now.

I'm raising copper nose bluegill and some red ears, not green sunfish or GS/CBG hybrids. All of those we catch either end up in the fryer or tossed on the bank for our resident coons to dispose of.

If you scroll back up to that 1 pound 5.5 oz female I'm holding.....she got a pass.

I fillet all the eating fish myself.

Thanks chunting for this detailed description of your strategy. How many trapped fish must your crop currently? Just an estimate of how many you think you might have to crop until the bass take over.

My strategy is much the same but my population of panfish isn't very high right now. Ive only got 3 LMB stocked right now and so far they seem to be doing good at crowd control. Hopefully I'll see at least marginal recruitment of those next spring and will be able to remove the larger bass once they hit 15". I probably have less than a dozen BG over 6". But there's a good next generation of 2-4" fish on their heels. I'll be adding a few more LMB by fall to give them a better chance come spring and my two cloverleafs stand at the ready if I need to get more aggressive. Time will tell. I'm glad my plan sounds like it might just pay dividends.

We had a four month drought that dropped our pond level 24+ inches. During this period we stopped all sampling because we didn't want to stress our larger bluegills. Now that recent rains have raised the pond some we decided to do a sample. Here are the results. I use the following site to determine RW.

http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/rec_fishing/RWCalc.php

Our first fish over 10 inches.



We caught 18 bluegill and two redears. We sampled 16 bluegill and tossed two 6 in BG back without measuring. The two readears were 8 in and 9 in and weighed 8 oz and 9 oz.



We use a Chatillon 2 pound spring scale graduated in half ounce increments to weigh. The hook on the scale is much too large to secure a bluegill without hooking in the gills. I modified the hook with the addition of a #8 barbless hook I use tying flies. It is easy to hook in the lips and remove leaving only a pin size hole. My wife used the same hook with crickets to catch nine and I used a fly with #10 barbless hook to catch seven.

I was a little disappointed, believing we might catch some pushing 24 oz. We might be a little too optimistic but there are larger BGs swimming around. We feed three times a day with a 50/50 mix of Aquamax 500 and 600. Our basic management plan is to release all BG under 6 in and over 8 in and remove most females. We release all bluegills over 16 oz unless deep hooked or injured. Due to low numbers of 6 to 8 in slot BG we are releasing them until we get a better read on their numbers.

What a beautiful fish.

Great job!

the easiest way i found to weigh them without injury is to place them in a plastic Walmart bag. the fish usually don't flop around much in the bag and you don't have to worry about hanging them on the scales with the big hook.

Excellent idea!
So simple but so effective.

If you take a small bucket with water in it you can tare the scale out and still get an accurate weight when you put the fish in the bucket. If the scale won't take, just note the bucket/water weight and do the math. Very little to no stress on the fish at all.

You have a beautiful spot. Thanks for sharing the pictures. Gives me something to look forward to.

Pond has now been stocked three years and 2 months. I've dealt with severe back issues since last October and had back surgery a couple weeks back. The bride is doing all the mowing and grunt work around the pond for now. Fortunately we had it in pretty good shape before hand. Other than having a medium size cottonmouth bolt ahead of the mower into the pond, not much excitement. Redears are moving on beds and bass have been bedding since last month. We sampled five coppernose this week, all over a pound with the three best weighing in at 1# 4.5 oz, 1# 5.5oz. and the bride's 1# 6 oz dandy shown here. I believe we have 1# 8oz plus swimming around. Hope to find a couple as we began sampling more. Our redears should be pushing a pound. We weighed two last fall that came in at 12 oz.

Good idea, Scott! A hefty black plastic garbage bag might be even better for large bass. They can slip off too easily & injure themselves falling to the bottom of the boat, plus there is the danger of too much weight on their jaw. Black color good because fish, like most animals, tend to calm down when in darkness. Just make sure to put a little water in bag so they don't lose slime coat.

We had an impromptu family gathering at the farm yesterday and the kin wanted to fish. Ok, break out the crickets and scales. I find crickets and artificial lures/flies produce less deep hooking than worms resulting in better survival of our released big fish. So we did some sampling, me handling the net, weighing and culling fish for the "eating' bucket. I lost count but around 40 bluegills, one green sunfish and one hybrid. One large bluegill of 1.38 lbs was kept due to deep hooking. No readers caught this trip.

We kept 14 fish; 9 female and 3 male bluegills plus the green sunfish and hybrid. Green sunfish reinterred the pond during a 10 inch rain 6 months after stocking. There are not a great threat and we plan to keep it that way by removing all green sunfish and nature hybrids caught.

The top four bluegill weighed 1.38 lbs, 1.40 lbs, 1.40 lbs and a new pond record of 1.53 lbs. The green sunfish weighed 1.12 lbs and the hybrid 1.06 pounds. The greatest length was 10.5 inches.

As usual, once a pond gains a reputation for big fish friends you never knew begin asking for fishing rights. The kinfolk are even pressing for more fishing time and "un-supervised" fishing time. We have a small 1 acre plus pond that carries a high population of large bluegill which is a result of our management plan. We also are having more folks tell us how to manage the pond. We never realized how poorly we were doing.

We have no plans to change even if it miffs some folks.

We do allow some of the kinfolks to fish for bass unsupervised and help us remove those bass over 16 inches or so. The bluegills are our priority. All bluegill fishing is supervised by me.

Great detailed update! Congrats on the dandy BG. It's neat to see someone's hard work pay off!

Latest update: Two weeks ago we had a gathering at the pond and I needed to sample the fish. I controlled the netting, weighing, unhooking and decision on fish into the "eating" bucket and those to be released. Happy to report only one BG over a pound kept due to deep hooking. Forty BG caught and we culled 14 which I filleted for a later fish fry. About half scaled over the 16 ounce mark and a number of BG from 1 pound 4 ounces to a new record of 1 pound 8.5 ounces were caught. All who participated caught their personal best BG with the exception of two youngsters who would rather play with the crickets and the fish in the "eating" bucket. Consider the gathering a success. Hard to beat a great meal and quality fishing.

Sorry to say I didn't get a good photo of the new record. I was too busy making sure it was released quickly. Here's one I caught yesterday on my birthday on the 2wt. 1 pound 4.5 ounces on the two weight. After releasing I went back to the cabin and poured another cup of coffee. One was enough. I rarely fish the pond and limit myself to one or two large BG to keep the pressure at a minimum ensuring good fishing for our gatherings and occasionally guest.

Further notes: A number of different age classes are showing up in the samplings indicating recruitment is coming along fine. All fish healthy with high RWs. Have not caught a red ear this year. Haven't fished for them and I provide crickets for our guests because IMO there is less deep hooking with crickets over worms. Have at least one large common snapper that has been in the pond since renovation. I first observed it eating dead fish after I killed the fish. It shows occasionally eating pellets. Pretty cool watching a 20 pound or so turtle daintily eating pellets one at a time. Our three bedroom house[cabin] is know 90 % renovated and we continue to improve the grounds. Our 14 blueberry plants are three years old and growing rapidly with a bumper crop this year. Our ten thornless blackberry plants are loaded. We are little by little adding to our raised bed garden. Added two plum trees to go along with our three pear trees. Plans to add a couple peach trees this winter.

Deer were a problem initially but since purchasing "Wireless Deer Fence" we have solved that issue. We use it both at our home in town and on our 18 acres in the country. It really works. Here's the link. https://wirelessdeerfence.com

Green sunfish/coppernose hybrids still showing up in our samples. One large green sunfish and a hybrid weighed in over a pound and made the "eating" bucket. All are removed when caught.

good information on management and I enjoyed the read. good luck on getting your goal sized trophy.

Stepson visting for a couple days. He was here a month ago and we attempted to get him a big bluegill, but all he was able to catch was small, one pound fish. He is one of the few adults, family and friends, who has not caught a bluegill weighing over 1.25 pounds.

I knew he was coming and bringing granddaughter with him so shut off the feeder two days prior to his visit. We met at the pond and sat around on the porch as dusk approached. A cold front had just past and the temperature was in the high '70s with low humidity. Downright pleasant and we were enjoying just rocking on the porch with some refreshment. I ask him if he wanted to catch some bluegills, that I had crickets in the house and my two weight flyrod rigged as well. He'd never used a fly rod but said he'd like to try.

I grabbed scales, bump board, net, flyrod and walked the twenty yards down the hill to the pond. Within five minutes he was managing the flyrod and fishing. About the fourth or fifth cast his line twitched and hooked up with a real brawler. He's a skilled saltwater fisherman and fought the fish well and soon had it in the net. We just stood there for a moment in awe of the beast he had just caught. The barbless stone fly imitation he was using looks like a cricket and is a good bluegill fly. I put the scale on it and I couldn't believe what it read so I eased the fish back down into the net and weighed again. No change, same as before, new pond record, but more importantly, this bluegill, obviously one of our original stocking, was 3.5 ounces from the "two pound" mark. I now believe we have a realistic chance of producing a "two pounder" by late fall. I never would have believed we could produce these large bluegills when we started this project. The bride's grandmother is surely smiling over our accomplishments with her pond.

Ignore the rod in teeth pose, stepson was hamming it up for one of his partners in their camp on the coast. I had him push the bluegill out some to better show it. I've found it difficult to capture these massive bluegills with a camera.

He caught one more fish, a bass weighing 2.5 pounds before we retired back to the porch to enjoy rest of the day.

Beautiful fish!! I'd be happy to see a 1 pounder come out of mine. I cant even imagine a 2 pound gill on fly. Very cool stuff!!!!

Chunting, Deer are plentiful around our BOW, and we are beginning process of landscaping with them in mind. Really limits what you can plant, some of best stuff will just get eaten quickly.

If you've had good luck with the wirelessdeerfence, I'm buying NOW! Thanks!!!

PS How many of these are needed to effectively cover one acre of gardens?

PPS Congrats on the great BG! I've never caught one bigger than 1 lb, hopefully that will change this year. Flyrod gives them a chance to show just how awesome they are!

I'd use an electric fence to secure an acre. Using a ten foot interval, it get pretty expensive surrounding an acre. These Wirelessdeerfence stakes run $60 or so for three. I'm into the fourth year using most of the original stakes purchased. They are designed to protect small patches or a few plants. We use them at our home in town around a flower bed [7 stakes] and a few next to individual plants, etc..

We have the 14 blueberry bushes, three pear trees and two plum trees secured with the stakes. This patch is next to the pond and deer walk between it and the pond nighty and I've yet to find any damage this year. I use nine sticks here.

Interesting product. I wonder how it would work on hogs.

Doubt it would have much affect on hogs. They get food on their minds and nothing else matters!! Lol

You never know till you try, tho

Closing on the 2 pound mark. From watching feeding sessions I believe we have some, just haven't fished enough this year to catch one. These two caught and released back to grow. The one on the bump board is 1 lb. 14 oz. Pond stocked four years last month. I was running a RW sample when I caught the 1-14. Numbers are actually higher than the previously posted sample. All age classes were high.

The one with my fly rod is 1 lb 13.5 oz.

Have one common snapper joining the feeding sessions. In the 20 lb range. Believe it to be the same one that has been eating pellet since feeding began. We have only seen one snapper at any time so am making an assumption. Cool critter. Was manually removing some algae along the bank with a fine mesh net and caught two American eels. I encounter eels a couple times a year doing work around the pond.

Pond was stocked four years ago this past March. Earlier this week our niece caught and released our first two pound plus. It bottomed out my 2 pound Chatillon spring scale and some. Estimated an ounce plus.

Congrats, that is very exciting. Keep us posted as you catch new records.