My first post on the forum I recently bought a house with some land, and it had a 2.5 acre pond on it. I'm fairly happy with the current size and depth, but am wondering whether it would be worthwhile renovating to an extent to increase surface area and/or depth. I'm attaching a picture showing the depths of various parts of the pond. I'm a bit disappointed as the previous owner said it was supposed to be 24 feet at its deepest, but I guess I should have checked for myself before buying. The pond was kind of a bonus to the overall property, so I wouldn't have changed my buying decision either way. The shoreline is relatively shallow (<12 inches generally), but it does drop off fairly well in most spots to the numbers shown on the chart. I could possibly raise the dam, but not by much (1 to 2 feet maximum). Also, I could dig out the narrow side of the pond and make it more rectangular in shape. My goal would be to have a pond that will hold decent sized bass and bluegill, and some channel catfish. My question is whether the existing pond has sufficient depth and area to hold good fish or whether it would be improved greatly by expanding a bit.
Those depths should harbor plenty of fish. Keep in mind that a pond without bottom diffused aeration has little oxygen down in the lower depths and does not do fish any substantial good. So, a 24 foot deep pond without aeration does not make a lot of difference when compared to a 13 foot deep pond.
If your pond has more clear water, one benefit to a deeper pond, especially around the edges, is that light cannot reach the bottom as well and plants and will be less likely to cover as much of the surface and filamentous algae will not be as prominent.
Adding proper aeration would add dissolved oxygen to the depths which makes a pond more agreeable to holding more fish. This would, essentially, make the pond bigger by making all the water inhabitable by the fish...an even deeper pond with air would hold even more.
Bottom line...How many fish do you have to have and how much time and/or money is it worth to you? Your 2.5 acre and 13 foot deep pond has great potential just the way it is, but I would not stop anyone from trying to make it better.
Tell us more about the pond (plant life, current fish populations, water clarity, structure, etc.). Was it originally 24 foot deep? If so, how long did it take to fill in with over 10 foot of silt/muck?
Thanks for the in-depth response. The pond is probably about 75 years old and the previous owner drained it 10 years ago and dug it out to current depths. He said you could see the bottom of the pond out in the center of it, so was pretty silted up. Not sure the original depth. The previous owner did all the work himself and he said he never did measurements, so likely just guessed at the depth of 24 feet. There are high sloping banks coming down to the pond, so probably felt deeper than it actually was. The pond is fed by a small creek that I believe is, itself, spring fed. There is an earthen dam with an overflow pipe on the wide end.
I've been fishing it for 2 weeks now and caught a lot of large blue gill (hand sized) and a lot of 10 to 12 inch largemouth bass. Saw a 5# plus bass swimming the shoreline, but no larger ones have been caught yet. When the guy drained the lake last time he kept the fish in a deep spot of the pond while he did the renovation. He said there were lots of bluegill, bass and a handful of crappie. He stocked 500# of channel catfish ten years ago (1 to 3 pounds each), but I haven't caught any yet.
I'd be happy to have some trophy sized bass in the lake and then beyond that, just enough fish to keep the grandkids happy fishing and also keep me happy to take some to eat occasionally. So likely the current size is sufficient for that, but as many have said, everyone wants bigger and more!
The lake is pretty clear but weeds haven't been an issue so far. There are a few grass carp and also some ducks that have been keeping the weeds down a bit. I'm planning on installing a bottom diffused aerator and also possibly a fountain (just for looks). There isn't much structure in the lake, so was planning on adding some fish attractor/structure as well.
I am curious about whether I should be stocking game fish and/or forage at this point, so any advice on that is welcome. I may need to do more fishing to get a better idea of populations before that can be determined, I suppose. Also would like to know what the best fish to harvest would be to sustain my goals.
You really need to determine what type and class sizes of fish you have (forage and gamefish). There's not much that can be done until that is estimated. An electroshock survey seems to be the best way to make that kind of estimate, but most choose not to spend that kind of money for get that level of accuracy. Fishing, trapping, netting, and relative weight studies will be give you the next best guess.
Once you have an idea of what's in the pond, you can then determine what needs to be adjusted (if anything). This type of planning gets well beyond my experience level, but there are very helpful folks here that can assist with that.
Stocking fingerlings, of any kind, as well as minnows would likely just be feeding the existing fish an expensive meal that would have very little return on investment.
Two rules of thumb regarding trying to manage LMB populations for larger LMB...
1.) Take out all the ones smaller than 12-14 inches depending. This is based on the tendency for LMB to overpopulate and stunt, AND that most pond owners cannot fish/catch enough of the LMB to control this. Taking out all the smaller ones gives you a chance at leaving more food in the pond for the ones that escape your hook.
2.) Take out the skinny ones for sure. If a LMB is skinny, it probably means that the food size that it prefers is lacking and/or there are a lot of LMB its size in the pond that is competing for that forage size.
It kinda goes the other direction if you want larger bluegill...you want an overpopulated stand of stunted LMB. The numerous LMB can really keep the BG from overpopulating, but those that escape the LMB have a good chance of getting really big since the LMB have stunted.
The above two scenarios (larger LMB or larger BG) are why it's important to estimate what you already have so that you can decide what to do next.
Another option is to drain the pond, remove the fish, and start over. There are many ways to go from there and can often lead to a more trophy-prone pond in the same or less amount of time.
I'd definitely be fishing for the cats...if there in there, they're could be some big ones! And, if they are, they have likely been reproducing which throws a twist into the possible directions. Now, you can manage for larger CC instead.
