Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Glad to Be Here

Hey PB,

Been reading as much of this forum as possible over the last year, thanks so much for all the wisdom.

Creating an account because I want to give back, if possible, but also so I can ask questions geared towards my particular situation. My pond is smaller than most, and I live farther north than most... and it can be a challenge to find information that pertains to my situation.

I moved onto this property almost 2 years ago. The pond is about 1/3 acre and from 1-8 feet deep. It was stocked with bass 15 years ago... and that's all that was done. After fishing it a bunch the first year, I realized the pond was full of stunted bass... and nothing else.

My goals? Healthy fish my kids can catch for fun. I just sickened me to see all the emaciated bass in this pond.

This past year, after a bunch of research, we took 2 steps to start correcting the problem:
1. Caught a bunch of mature bluegills (approx 300) from a friend's pond and put them into my pond
2. Caught and removed every bass we could from my pond and culled them

At this point, I'm really debating what to do with this pond. I was pretty sure that BG and LMB were the answer... but now I'm realizing that most of the BG/LMB stuff I've read comes from southern ponds... and might not work in such a small northern pond??

So that leads me scratching my head as far as what to do with my pond. I don't need trophy fish, just healthy populations of healthy fish. Can I make bass/bluegill work? That would be my preference... but healthy and balanced is the real goal. Does that mean bluegills and cats? Ok. Does that mean perch only? Fine. I'm open to almost anything.

I just want a self-sustaining, healthy pond... and I'm willing to put in the work to make that happen! Thanks so much!

Ps. I don't own the property... so expanding the pond is out of the question, as much as I'd like to.

Seems like you are on the right path, but it will likely take some time for the BG to produce the forage that the LMB need. Probably good to keep removing LMB for a while until the BG get going. Others with more expertise will likely weigh in.

The recent issue of PB has an article about if fish grow during the winter, but the author talks about New York ponds and their temperature profiles. From that article, one would read that LMB have a very short and finite growth period in NY ponds due to fewer 'warm' days.

If you buy into that, then LMB may not be the optimal predator fish for your pond, but considering the actions you took in adding BG and culling LMB, I would want to see what results you get from that. I'd keep culling LMB, and be feeding the BG heavily.

And then see what happens.

Thanks for the replies. Couple follow up questions:

1. Is it possible to over-cull the LMB?
2. All the BG I caught this year were fairly large. I assume all the small ones were eaten. Should I add more BG this year? I can easily do that.
3. I’m hesitant to feed the BG, as I’ve heard that it can exacerbate existing weed problems… which we have. Tons of rooted plants all throughout the pond that keep growing no matter what we do. The only thing that works is manual weed removal with cutters and rakes. I’d hate to make that worse by adding a bunch of feed into the mix. Is that a legitimate concern?
4. If LMB are not the ideal predator species, what would be? Any ideas on that?

Thanks!!

1) In dealing with the culling of LMB, one of the considerations is that the actual 'stunted' LMB already existing in the pond will never reach their ultimate potential size due to the lost years of growth when there wasn't enough forage. So, what would be ideal to achieve is maybe one remaining mating pair of LMB that when they spawn, those new LMB have plenty of forage to grow to their potential. I think you may have to wait and see how that works out, but in short, no, you should cull every LMB unless you see one that is more fat, larger or healthier than the others.

2) I would keep adding adult bluegill, but you always have to be wary of moving fish from one pond to another for various reasons such as transfer of parasites, or a different plant, or even legal issues.

3) I understand the concerns about feeding and creating more plant growth. Maybe there's a fine line where you could feed enough that the feed is not wasted, but you will have some excess nutrients from fish poo.

4) In the colder parts of the USA, you could have Smallmouth, Walleye, Yellow Perch, maybe some catfish and maybe some Hybrid Striped Bass. If you were to go with a new predator set up, I would seek to eliminate ALL the LMB in the pond, and that may also mean killing off ALL fish in the pond including all those Bluegill you've stocked.

Sunil, thanks for the reply.

I was under the impression that, due to how shallow my pond is, smallies and walleyes wouldn’t be able to successfully reproduce. Also, there’s no gravel anywhere. It’s all muck on the bottom. Am I correct in my understanding of that?

What do you guys think about adding shiners to the pond as additional forage? Could they get established in a pond that already has LMB present?

Thanks again!!

Dan, Smallmouth would probably find a way to spawn in the pond, but you could add areas of pea gravel to help the process. Walleyes don't have a great track record of spawning in ponds although some members have experienced it. Walleye would be more like a bonus fish, but they may not thrive in the pond.

Depending on the composition of your pond muck, you may be able to slowly reduce the muck by aeration or addition of microbes.


Golden Shiners are a good forage fish, but for things to go the best, the timing of their stocking should be thoughtful. As your pond already has LMB in it, I would doubt that the shiners would 'take over,' but they may not also become an established reproducing population. The downside of shiners is that they are nest egg raiders, and if you've got a lot of shiners, some of the desirable spawns of other fish may be affected. Also, within a few years, some shiners can get too big to be eaten by the largest predator in a given pond which isn't always a negative, but something to be aware of.

For a couple hundred bucks each spring, you can buy quantities of 250,000 Golden Shiner Frye from Andersons Fish Farms. If you've got enough structure in your pond, this can be away to get some foot hold for shiners.

Stocking GSH into a pond and achieving a viable sustaining population with adult LMB can be a challenge. It can be done - I like Sunil's suggestion - overwhelm them with #s.

You can build SMB beds and should be able to get reproduction. See this https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92626#Post92626

Welcome to the PB forum. I've worked with lots of ponds the size of yours and with very similar fishes and current condition. Advice has been pretty good for you so far. Here are some of my comments.

1. Firstly we should find out exactly what weeds you are dealing with. If you don't now positively know the weed name you may have to wait for this until weeds are growing in spring to determine the weed specie/s.

2. Look hard into the possibility of adding grass carp to help control the submerged weeds. I am not familiar with fish laws for NY. One or two grass carp once they are 15"-16" in 1/3 acre can often eat about 2 pickup truck bed loads of weeds per year.

3. It appears the pond started out with just LMB. Although it could have started as NY state older literature suggests LMB & golden shiners(GSH). LMB-GSH combs almost always resort to LMB only and all bass become underfed and small due to lack of food.

4. I think you are on a fairly good plan path especially since you do not own the pond. However remember those bass could be several years old and may not ever live and grow much more than 2" longer even with ample foods.

5. As noted keep removing as many bass as possible. Normally a 1/3 ac pond of stunted 10"-11" bass will contain around 24-32 bass. HOW MANY HAVE YOU REMOVED SO FAR?? Get as many of them out as possible. Live small fish work very good as bait for conditioned hook shy bass. Another catching option is to get some night crawlers break them into 2" pieces and feed them to the remaining hook shy bass. When they learn to eat the worm welfare, then on thin 4lb test line, insert or imbed a small hook in a whole night crawler. No weight, no bobber; just line, small hook and worm. You don't really want to spend a lot of good effort of trying to get these old stunted substandard bass to grow. What you really want to focus on are their offspring who will grow normally despite coming from stunted parents. One pair of bass will produce more than enough fry to populate even a 2 acre pond. New offspring bass at low density with abundant food present should be able to achieve 11" to maybe 12" after two years.

6. For an existing stunted LMB population IMO I would not add GSH because the remaining bass will quickly eat every shiner added unless you add 7"-8" long ones and your weeds remain at nuisance abundance to where the shiners have lots of hiding places. A 11" bass can easily eat 200 shiners a year and why spend money on substandard, low benefit producing bass? Remember a shiner brooders have to live a whole year until the next spawning season. Often that does not happen in a bass dominated pond. The wise option is to promote presence of large BG who can survive year to year and produce lots of offspring in presence of a normal bass population.

7. Too many weeds, as in more than covering 30% bottom area and increasing, tend to cause reduced growth of both LMB and BG. Studies show 20%-25% weed coverage habitat favors best growth and production of both BG & LMB. Manage weeds for no more than 20-25% growing on the pond bottom.

8. Getting the LMB and balanced BG will take time as in 2-4 years as compared to completely renovating the pond fishery and starting over next year.

9. Another faster bigger bass option is to remove lots of bass and then buy 8 to 10 6"-8" pellet raised bass who will quickly produce fast growing larger bass of 14"-16" in just 2 yrs. Meanwhile you should continue trying to remove old small bass until you see young 4"-6" new bass show up.

10. Keep adding larger BG. More of the smaller add stock BG of 3.5"-4" will survive as the number of old stunted bass are depleted. IMO try to make sure that all the BG you add to the pond are true pure strain BG. Hybrid BG or green sunfish at this point will have more negative than positive benefits. A Goal - Ideally you want around 20 adult BG for every bass present to produce a fairly good BG-LMB northern pond balance.

11. Once you achieve a better fish balance where you start see yearling 4"-6" bass and BG are spawning with 1"-2" BG showing up and always some of them present then you can start managing / harvesting the fishery to toward one of three BG-LMB balances. 1. trophy BG, 2. more larger bass 13" to 17" bass, or 3. a mixed fish sizes of a general fishing pond

12. If you can get a "handle" on weed control,,,, by all means pellet feed those BG. The added nutrients from 7-10 cups of fish food per week will not cause excessive weed growth. Remember when you have submerged weeds growing normally the pond will not have lots of nuisance filamentous algae(FA) aka green pond scum. Submerged weeds compete heavily with FA for nutrients and keeping it minimal. FA is abundant when submerged weeds are low or absent. BG with regular full bellies of high protein food will produce optimum growth and optimal BG spawn results. If you can obtain a few pellet eating bass, you and they will also get huge benefits of growth and angler fun from the high protein pellet feeding.

13. Until you completely renovate the fishery, I would not spend any time, money and effort on adding smallmouth. SMB and LMB definitely do not play well together in small ponds. Smallies always suffer most with this combination. SMB also do not like eating BG. Also leave out perch. LMB will prevent perch from really thriving in small ponds often to the point of eliminating YP after several years unless lots of submerged weeds are present as abundant dense growth habitat.. SMB work well with YP. LMB work well with BG. Always remember those facts.

Bill, that was an incredibly helpful post. Thank you so much!! I'll be re-reading this 100 times to make sure I get every nugget of wisdom haha.

To answer your questions:

1 & 7. The weed in question is "pondweed". We had a guy from the soil and water district come and that's what he told me. We don't have any filamentous algae problems, but the pondweed grows from about 80% of the floor of the pond. It's a lot.

2. I put 3 grass carp in there last year. They didn't seem to do much, but hopefully their appetite kicks into gear this year. I may add a few more in. I got a permit for up to 8.

5. I've probably removed... 25-30 bass so far. Those are of all sizes. My largest was 18" long... but skinny as a rail. I'm guess that's one that was thrown in there by a friend last year... and subsequently began to starve. Pretty gross looking fish actually. Anyways, of the 25, most were in the 8-12" range and underweight.

Here are a couple follow up questions of my own:

1. My plan is to continue trying to pull every bass out of there, to "reset" the pond with healthy bass (maybe pellet fed). At what point can I be sure that I've removed "enough" of the bass? I did a lot of fishing with minnows towards the end of the summer and caught a bunch of them on those... but towards the end of the year I wasn't catching anything. Do you think I've caught them all out? I want to remove as many as I can, so that I can start fresh.

2. When is the best time of the year to remove weeds? I'd hate to pull weeds out while either my bass or bluegills are spawning, and so disrupt the process. Should I try to rake before the spawn, or wait until after? And when exactly would the key spawning time start?

3. The water in my pond has no "green tint" to it. It's blueish and sometimes brownish, but never green. Should I be fertilizing? And if so, what time of year would I do that to help the zooplankton growth, without putting the weed growth on overdrive?

Thanks all.

Dan:

There are a few different "pondweeds". If they are of the genus Potamogeton, then the treatment is the same. If they are a different "pondweed" then the treatment may vary.

Go here, TAMU Aquaplant look at the different pictures of the "pondweeds" and let us know what one it is.

As for how many bass to remove, if you want to start over remove every one you catch. By leaning any in there, they can eat the small ones that you stock. The problem with that is if there are any hook shy bass in there, you won't catch them.

Since the pond is so small, find someone in your area that is a licensed aquatic herbicide applicator and have them Rotenone the pond. That will push the reset button and you can start from scratch fish wise. You have to have a license to purchase Rotenone.

Regarding the pondweed, I was told it was American Pondweed. I checked the photos and that does look like it. There's something else in there too that's more... slimy that comes up with the hook sometimes if you go too deep. It doesn't look like any of the algae in the photos, so I'm not sure exactly what that is. Any help would be great.

Also, I've been thinking over the recommendation to stock GSH fry by the bulk. I think I might want to try that. What time of year would be the best time to put those fry into my pond? Is it a certain water temp I'm shooting for, or should I base it on some other factor?

Thanks.

Dan, the Golden Shiner Frye are only available around the April time frame from Anderson's.

If you want them, you really need to put the order in soon, and then you'll be on the list and they'll overnight them to you.

Dan -
1,2&7 PONDWEEDS There are quite a few species of pondweeds but usually just a few common local ones. IMO you really should know the species to determine how best to deal with your particular one or two. Grass carp(GC) like some weeds better than others and some weeds are more sensitive to chemicals than others. Know your weed is important. Definitely wait until end of 2023 before adding more GC because too many will do more a lot more harm than good. Let yours mature to see what they can do to your particular weed problem. You mention that you think you have mainly American Pondweed. This one normally only grows in shallow water and not much in water over 6ft deep unless the water is very clear. We need to see close up clear pictures of the green slimy "weed". There are very few true weed species that fit slimy definition.

5. Bass Remaining. After removing 30 bass you should be close to only a few left. You only need to have one pair to make all your efforts about wasted. Do everything creative to see what bass you have remaining. Since you have adult BG in the pond the worm baiting trick may not work well. BG really like 2” pieces of worm. You will probably have to resort to using minnows from a bait shop or local fish farm. Use this time of remaining winter to develop a plan for spring to hold minnows in a tank, kiddy pool, or net cage in the pond. Daily add a few minnows. Bass will be very hungry after ice out and in preparation for spawning in May. Any remaining bass will quickly learn and show you how many remain. Your water should be clear to see bass a few weeks after ice out. They will be eager daily for your minnows as their favorite food. Condition the remaining bass to eat the minnows for about a week or two even if it costs you $10-$20. The bass should quickly learn to attack the minnows as soon as they are tossed into the pond. It is money well spent getting out the last few bass who can cause you numerous headaches and expense if they are able to spawn this spring. When you have bass eagerly attacking minnows then as you add a couple or few minnows hook one up using your light line and tiny BG hook. Let the bass swallow the bait for a positive hook up. I doubt very much that even the smartest bass will ignore your offerings of free live minnows.
Killing the pond with rotenone as ‘esshup’ suggested will cost you several hundred dollars. So a few dollars minnow training a few bass is a cheap option.

YOUR QUESTIONS
1. “At what point can I be sure that I've removed "enough" of the bass?” I would keep trying to take out bass as long as you see some bass eating your welfare minnows. For the last few bass you will have to try your best to hide the smallest hook you can find. Worst case there will be one bass or one pair of bass in the pond. One remaining bass is a lot better than one male and one female who will complicate your problem as soon as they spawn. Then IMO you will have to live with those youngsters who will likely grow normally as long as they live providing they get lots of FOOD. You might get Las Vegas lucky and the last two bass are both male or both female. I am never that lucky. Ideally you want to make a concerted effort to restock pellet trained bass. All the well fed pellet trained bass will provide numerous 16”-18” plump bass who will do well to achieve your fishery goals. The pellet fed bass will provide 3 times more bass poundage of bigger bass in your 1/3 ac pond compared to natural fed LMB.

2. WEED REMOVAL. A. “When is the best time of the year to remove weeds?” Best time for weed removal will strongly depend on what weed specie it is. Different pondweed species can have noticeably different growth cycles. Know the weed specie and then this can be best answered. My guess is your main pond weed is called ‘small pondweed’ (Potomageton pusillus) which has a couple varieties and is a very common weed in ponds. The other real common pond weed is curly leaf pond weed (Potomageton crispus).. These two species have very different growth cycles and habits.

B. “Should I try to rake before the spawn, or wait until after?” Generally but not always you can rake and manually remove weeds pre and post spawn. However not all pondweed species have the same growth cycle. Some are cool season and some are warm season species. Know the weed specie involved then this can be best answered. Bass spawn and egg hatch should be compete by May 24.
C. “And when exactly would the key spawning time start?” LMB in BG-LMB combo will spawn first and in your area will begin close to May 10. Male nest building starts at temp of 60F and egg laying starts at 62-65F. BG spawn next and spawning begins at temps of real close to 67F. Monitor your water temps and then you will know exactly the timing.

3. A.“ Water is blueish and sometimes brownish, but never green”. For general water plankton production I like to use the Secchi disk measurement. I your case just get a white Cool Whip lid and nail or screw it to a broom stick or pole. I clear water attach it to a cord. Because your pond has ample weed growth the water should generally be clear with visibilities of 3-5+ft. With weed growth, blueish water tells me the water is relatively clear, and brownish suggests either silty after runoff or maybe a form of plankton bloom. Brownish water can also come from tannins in the water from tree leaf leachate.

B. Should I be fertilizing? And if so, what time of year would I do that to help the zooplankton growth, without putting the weed growth on overdrive?”

In NY, never fertilize unless you own a fish farm. If you feed high protein pellets then this extra fish manure will provide more than enough nutrients to stimulate plant growth hopefully much of it is composed of plankton not rooted weeds. The submerged weeds are robbing water nutrients from the plankton; whichever is most abundant wins the nutrient battle. The fewer weeds in the pond the more plankton that will be in the water as evidenced by water clarity using the white disk measurement. As the grass carp grow and eat lots of weeds, the weeds will usually be converted to lots of grass carp(GC) manure which will help create nutrients for more plankton due to fewer rooted weeds. DO NOT ADD FERTILIZER. Ideally your want 5% to 20% of the bottom to have some weed species. You don’t want the GC to eat all the weeds. You want the GC to THIN the weeds NOT eliminate them. Some weeds (5%-15%) are ALWAYS VERY BENEFICIAL for various ecological reasons. I tell pondowners to remove 20-30% of the weeds, have the GC to eat 40-50% and let 15-20% be present to compete against filamentous. You know when too many submerged weeds are removed when you start getting filamentous stringy algae problems. Lots of filamentous algae means not enough submerged weeds and too many nutrients are present.

If you can remove most all the bass or hopefully all or all but one bass,,, the shiner fry from Anderson is a good option. 10" bass will mosty ignore the shiners until they grow to 1+". April is a little early for the American pondweed to provide good weed refuge for the shiner fry that manage to survive BG predation. It will help a lot if you get GSH fry, that you start feeding them about 1/8 -1/4 cup every day or two of ground powder type fish food when the fry are 1/2" long clear up to when they are 2"-3" long. Grind the fish food in an old garage sale blender.
.

Wow, I'm blown away by how helpful the mods on this forum are. Seriously, thank you so much. I just signed up for the PB magazine because I want to support what you guys are doing here.

That said, I have more questions based on Bill's post:

Feeding - my only experience with feeding fish is feeding my pet goldfish as a kid. Let's say I wanted to go all in on the idea of feeding all my fish (LMB, BG, and GSH fry):
- Do they all eat the same food? If so, what is it?
- If I have around 400 mature BG and a dozen mature LMB, how much would I feed?
- I don't have a dock to put a feeder on, so I would likely just throw the food in by hand. How often would I want to do this?
- And what part of the pond would I throw the food into? From our fishing this year, we've learned that the bass tend to hang out in the shallower areas, whereas the bluegills tend to hang out on the deeper side by the fountain.
- To feed the GSH fry powdered food, would I throw that into the shallow areas? Or sprinkle it all around the outside of the pond?

Weeds
- That "small pondweed" looks very familiar. I'm sure that we have some of that in the pond.\
- There is also something that grows small leaves on the surface too. Maybe that's the american pondweed also?

Water clarity
- In the early spring, the water clarity is definitely over 3'. The property owner (who also has a house on the property) likes to put blue dye into the water early summer... despite me asking him not to. I think if I pushed harder, he might be willing to stop doing that. What do you guys think about the blue dye? He adds it to try and kill the plants (which doesn't work) and to make it look "prettier." Is it harming the fishery significantly enough for me to make a stink about it? Or should I just let it go?
- With the blue dye in the pond, visibility shrinks to a foot or so.
- The brown tinge could definitely come from runoff. There's a french drain that connects the pond to a roadside ditch... 150 yards or so away. Some days the stuff coming out of that drain is... very brown/orange looking. Like a bright rust color. There are also tons of leaves in the area due to woods nearby. So it's probably both.
- I'd say the natural color of the pond is fairly clear with a brownish tinge.

Minnows
- I'm happy to feed my bass some fathead minnows for a few weeks to train them. I have a bait farm nearby that is reasonably priced. How long would the minnows live in a kiddie pool? I could aerate it, but would the ammonia buildup kill them or anything? I currently don't have a mesh/netted place for them to live in the pond and would have to keep them in a pool or bucket in the garage.

Retonone
- My wife would never let me do this haha. I'm going to have to fix the current situation with a hook and line.

Again gentlemen, thank you so much!

Dan welcome to PB posting and thanks for the support. Lots of good questions and answers. There is a lot to learn, and the archives have a world of info. Take a look while you wait on answers specific to your place.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=22&page=1

I will work on your questions one topic at a time. Simple questions requiring detailed answers. Be sure to see added note and link at the bottom.
Feeding Pond Fish,
""Do they all eat the same food? If so, what is it?
- If I have around 400 mature BG and a dozen mature LMB, how much would I feed?
- I don't have a dock to put a feeder on, so I would likely just throw the food in by hand. How often would I want to do this?
- And what part of the pond would I throw the food into? From our fishing this year, we've learned that the bass tend to hang out in the shallower areas, whereas the bluegills tend to hang out on the deeper side by the fountain.
- To feed the GSH fry powdered food, would I throw that into the shallow areas?"""


Numerous previous discussions here have dealt with fish feeding. Using the forum search feature or search engine will provide lots of discussion about pond fish fish feeding. try Pond Boss Forum fish feeding also look up fish feeding ring
For newbees and those first starting pellet feeding and especially if they do not have a dock, I suggest they build a feeding ring. An easy ring is either 1" to 1.25" black poly plastic pipe made into a circle similar to a hula hoop with 3+ft in dia. A hula-hoop could work but the diameter is a little small. Another thing that I have used is 1" dia thin wall PVC pipe formed into a square or rectangle. A 10 ft pvc will make a 2x4ft rectangle. Use any shape to contain the pellets so they do not float to shore uneaten and decay to release wasted excess nutrients. Good fish food is not cheap do not waste it. The ring holds pellets in one spot, and if uneaten the pellets will soften and still be readily accessible, and then even small fish can eat a large softened pellet. For pellets held offshore fish will eventually find and learn the feeding area. Minnows usually find the pellets first and they attract the larger fish who may or may not eat pellets. IMO feeding rings should have a wind baffle. Feeding larger fish and wind waves will splash lots or most of the pellets out of the ring. A wind baffle is some sort of plastic sheeting 6" to 8" wide and the length of the circumference of the feeding ring. Wire tie this to the inside of the feeding ring. Tether or anchor the ring off shore to a spot hand tossed pellets will land in the ring.

I ALWAYS use a high protein food with at least 40% protein. You want your fish to grow which is why you are feeding them. IMO all fish will benefit from this high protein food. Also the better the quality of ingredients in the food the more digestible it is and less waste in the water - very important for maintaining water quality. Very good brand names are Purina AquaMax and SportFish(has multisize pellets), Zeigler, Skretting and to your door delivered Optimal brand pellets as suggested by esshup in his note below . Start with the food where you buy your fish because those fish are hopefully used to eating the brand and size of pellet.

Place the feeding ring somewhere convenient. Unless that area is a swimming area. I suggest feeding in an area away from or adjacent to the beech. BG tend to stay away from the bass the same as rabbits tend to stay away from foxes. BG & LMB will gather together at feeding periods although unless LMB are pellet trained the bass will be there to eat the small "rabbits".

General rule is place as much food in the ring as the fish will eat in 10 -15 minutes or less. Wild LMB very rarely will eat pellets unless specially trained to do it. 400 adult BG when adapted to pellets will eat around 3-6 pellets each depending on size of the pellet. Purina Sportfish has 3 pellet sizes in the bag. .Adult BG will eat a 1/4" pellet. Google Pond boss forum pellet optimum size

Fish will tell you when they are full because their feeding aggressiveness will noticeably decrease as they get full. Note you do not need to feed to satiation unless you are trying to achieve optimum growth rates. When I feed I have a set amount to feed each day. I add the pellets as they are eaten. Often the fish will eat more if I keep adding food although I feed the allotted amount. Experiment to what works for your pond and number of fish. Obviously more fish will eat more food.

For shiners I would add the powdered food in and around the feeding ring. Or just toss it from shore in another location where you see the shiner fry congregated.. They will eventually find it. You can build a PVC pole with a small container on the end. Then use that to place the ground food in the ring before or after the other fish have fed. Some will want to feed the fry in a different area. My minnows feed among the perch and big turtle. Adult shiners will feed among all the other fish.
Fish will eat what ever suits them and is available.

As I looked back into our Forum Heading of Common Pond Q& A Archives here is all you would want to know and more about feeding your fish. Enjoy.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=400215#Post400215

I need a break until next time.

Weed Topic.
"Weeds
- That "small pondweed" looks very familiar. I'm sure that we have some of that in the pond.
- There is also something that grows small leaves on the surface too. Maybe that's the american pondweed also?"

Small pond weed is readily eaten and can be easily controlled by grass carp(GC) and/or tilapia.
American pondweed (AP) is also called longleaf pondweed. It is easily recognizable because it will have elongated willow shaped leaves that float on the surface and some leaves underwater that are on the stem. GC will eat AP but I don't think tilapia will eat AP because it has a too coarse of texture unless it is the only plant available. AP in summer will produce a seed head above the surface.

Water Clarity
""What do you guys think about the blue dye? He adds it to try and kill the plants (which doesn't work) and to make it look "prettier." Is it harming the fishery significantly enough for me to make a stink about it? Or should I just let it go?"

Here is a very good 2.3 page forum discussion about pond dye. It should answer all your questions. As Bob Lusk says in the link dye is not a herbicide and does not act as a toxin and kill plants. It reduces sunlight penetration which in turn slows plant growth. Dye limits plant growth in the deeper water because less light as red and orange wavelengths reaches the bottom. Green plants utilize mostly red and orange wavelengths for growth via photosynthesis.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=461334#Post461334

Basically dye is designed to slow or reduce most all plant growth that are green (chlorophyll based). Bluegreen algae is not chlorophyll based. Phytoplankton are mainly green plants so they are reduced or hindered when dye is used. I usually say the dye will reduce the plankton both phyto and zoo by about 1/2 which I think in turn reduces the fish biomass naturally produced in the pond by about 1/2. You can compensate for less fish biomass from dye by feeding the fish pellets. Using dye or make-up to make the the pond or pig prettier is a matter of opinion.

Topic - Minnows
""I'm happy to feed my bass some fathead minnows for a few weeks to train them. I have a bait farm nearby that is reasonably priced. How long would the minnows live in a kiddie pool? I could aerate it, but would the ammonia buildup kill them or anything? I currently don't have a mesh/netted place for them to live in the pond and would have to keep them in a pool or bucket in the garage.""

How well the minnows live in a kiddie pool or bucket will all depend on how well you maintain good water quality and size of the container. The two main harmful water quality factors are dissolved oxygen(DO) and as you mention ammonia (NH4). A bubbler will help maintain good DO. DO with a bubbler aerator should not be a big factor unless you have lots of minnows per gallon of water. Some aquatic plants or filamentous algae in the pool should absorb ammonia and keep the ammonia at acceptable concentration. Regular water dilutions or exchanges with fresh pond water will help to maintain good water quality and reduce ammonia.

The other good option is do not overcrowd the minnows in the small pool or use a bigger pool. 3 or 4 dozen FHMinnows should be plenty to train the bass to eat your welfare training baits. If you need more, go buy more from a bait shop or trap or catch some small fish from a pond or ditch/creek as in the video below. Creek chubs are common in most small Midwest creeks and large drainage ditches. Note that the one larger "bluegill" that he caught was actually a green sunfish. 4 minnows a day X 12 days = 4 dozen minnows. Those kids even had the white heron or egret trained to eat BG!

This is how I would welfare train the bass to eat your minnows. You can also use small 1.5"-2.5" BG that you catch from a local pond. For every small fish you add to the pond I would trim off the tail or a couple of side or belly fins. Make them very vulnerable to the bass eating them. The bass will quickly respond to the free meals.

When you have only one or two bass remaining do this good option for real hook shy bass. After the bass are eating your minnows and are used to you standing there feeding them go get some small 2" BG or some local creek chubs that you can trap or catch with small hook and worm. Hold or store them as you did the minnows. Then each day for a few days trim the tails and add 2 -4 BG to the bass. After a couple days then rig each one as a minnow or small sunfish on the end of a line as in the following link. Notice closely how he attaches the fish to the line on his pole. Variations to this barbless hook rig hook-up can be created depending on individual conditions.


When bass are readily accepting and are pulling BG off your line, and when you are ready to remove the last bass embed a hook in the BG. Be sure to allow the bass to firmly swallow the BG before 'setting the hook' to insure catching it. Don't waste all your valuable money and time by having the bass spit up the BG. This results in strong negative reinforcement to the bass that you are not their friend.

I have seen LMB get so hook shy that when they see a human standing on the bank with a stick (fishpole) they turn and swim away. A human standing on the bank waving a stick is a signal to the bass there is TROUBLE in paradise and they should be very wary and cautious. I have had to lay flat on the ground to make me appear low profile to catch hook shy bass.

Good points Bill. I would add Optimal Fish Food to the list of feeds, and he can go to their website and order food to be delivered to him instead of driving to get it.

When he goes to feed the minnows to the bass, I think he should carry a fishing rod and wave it/hold it like he is fishing with it when he's feeding the minnows. That way the Bass won't get shy when he does go to catch them - no added pole to the picture.

I have a platform at the edge of the pond that has the Texas Hunter fish feeder on it. If the water in the pond is relatively high, I used to be able to use a fishing rod and hold a bluegill near the surface of the water on the end of a #10 hook when the bass were cruising in the floating fish food looking for small fish to pick off. Over the course of 1 summer I had them trained so they'd actually jump out of the water to get the BG that I was lowering to the water for them to eat.

Cody Note: Good informative helpful ideas.

Wow guys, again... thank you so much!!

Lots to ponder/review here. I really appreciate it.

Anytime. As a side note, I had one LMB that I caught that was 18 1/2" long and weighed 5#, 15 ounces. A combination of pellets and Bluegills.

Dan, Lusk said a longtime ago that only bluegills can spawn enough to feed bass and only bass can control the huge spawns of bluegills. But, these have to be in the correct numbers/proportions. That’s what we call a balanced pond.

I have found that a properly stocked, in balance, pond lasts for about ten minutes without a lot of monitoring, working and feeding. Oh yeah, add cash infusions.

Should we throw the cash straight into the pond, or get informed on the forum and by subscribing to Pond Boss Magazine and get a much bigger bang for our buck?

Everyone should contemplate the cost of a subscription and compare that to saving yourself one $4,000 mistake on your pond. That makes the magazine a fantastic ROI!

So effectively a 6 lb. Largemouth at 18.5" length......that is a HOG!!!

Yeah, I gotta be honest, I'm feeling a little daunted at the moment. I'm very much willing to put in the work on my pond... but the most and more I read from the forums here, the less optimistic I feel haha. Seems like finding a LMB/BG balance in my pond might be a pipe dream.

Should I switch to perch and HSB or something? I like perch and HSB seem fun. Would that be an easier balance to find?

Or YP only? Or RES and YP?

I dunno. What do you guys think? It is worth trying to keep going on the BG/LMB path I'm on right now?

Absolutely correct. It was about 3" thick.

That doesn't make fish fillets, it makes fish steaks!

Hey guys, I don't know if anyone saw this post, but I'm wondering what my odds are of actually being successful in balancing BG and LMB in a small pond like this. Feeling a bit uncertain of my plan at this point.

Now's the time to decide. I'm already planning on trying to pull out the rest of my LMB this spring. Do I replace them with new, healthy LMB? Or do I take this chance to switch to YP/HSB or some other mix? Here are my thoughts:
1. I really like eating perch. They're tasty and fillet easily. They're pretty aggressive feeders too, which is fun for catching. Only downside is that they're not very big/exciting. And I'm not sure how well they would reproduce in my small pond.
2. Been reading about HSB. They sound really fun to fish for, and they certainly would solve the "overpopulation" issue. And if I removed all my LMB, I could stock 8-10" HSB... if I could find some up here. Would they do ok in a small northern pond?

Maybe I could mix perch and HSB into the bluegill pond I have now and have a diverse, healthy fishery for a while?

If HSB are off the table due to climate or pond size, I do live really close to Lake Ontario and (with some work) I can catch pretty much any species I want to stock with and start over.

Thoughts? My priorities are:
1. Healthy fish
2. Some large fish for fun angling
3. Easy maintenance

Am I giving up on the idea of a BG/LMB pond too quickly?

How are you planning to completely remove LMB from the pond? Completely kill off all fish?

I love the HSB idea. The trick is that shipping across state lines can be tricky even if they are legal in your state. They really would be a cool add on predator with advantages (no reproduction, gape size small so you don't eat your desirable fish above a certain size, great fighting, I have no idea how they taste) They cannot be safely caught or handled in very warm water temps but not sure that will ever be an issue in our northern ponds.

I don't think you have to give up on LMB/BG as the primary mix in your ponds.

With the options of HSB and SMB, you have some fish that do OK in cooler waters and coexist with LMB.

There are no absolutes when dealing with ponds. You may have a balance one year, or season, and that could change next year or next season.

Don't be discouraged. The journey is worth all the effort.

Ok I’ll stick with the plan. Give it a couple years and see how we’re doing.

With that said, would adding some perch into the mix as an additional forage fish for the bass be helpful? Or would they just compete with the bass for food?

The Yellow Perch would serve as both prey and predator.

If it was me, I'd add them too, but you may need some adult sizes to keep them alive.

^^^ What Sunil said. You can grow some pretty large Perch if you feed. What size perch are you accustomed to catching and eating?

Esshup, I’m used to eating perch over 10” or so. We catch smaller ones all the time, but i prefer to throw the smaller ones into my pond as snacks for my bass. Maybe I should try to catch some bigger ones and put them into the pond as breeding stock.

Dan, my first pond(I still have it) was barren when I bought the land. I stocked it with fatheads, bluegills, channel cats and bass. Nobody told me that it wouldn’t work. Well, it did, for about 5 or 6 years. I had good bass and pretty dang good cats. But, the predator/prey relationship got out of balance. The minnows spawned and over spawned. I was ignorant about balance and wound up with an oxygen crash that wiped out dang near everything.

Then, the Texas summer sunshine dried it out. When rains came, I restocked with channel cats and small bluegills. That’s worked ok. Somehow, my bluegills became green sunfish which have very limited spawns. That’s. Or a bad thing.

The cats did pretty well but with limited or no effective spawns. Remember that, in a properly stocked pond, 99% of the eggs ever laid, hatched, etc get eaten before their first birthday. Mama Nature at work and she’s a mean bitch. However, this year I see no cats feeding after everything froze over. I’ll have to restock.

BTW, this pond is a mile from the house so it doesn’t get a lot ofTLC.

One further question:

Been reading the forums here like a madman while on vacation. I keep hearing people talk about harvesting their bluegills… which seems counter productive for someone in my situation.

At my stage of the game, when I’m trying to grow a healthy forage base in my pond, should I be removing bluegills of a certain size? Seems like I should be adding as many bluegills, shiners, perch, etc as possible to my pond… not removing any.

Am I missing something? Should I be harvesting bluegills at this stage of the game?

Thanks all.

Bluegills can overpopulate in a pond, so taking some out to eat once the population is established isn't a bad thing.

Down here, growing Yellow Perch to 14"+ isn't that hard if you feed them. 15"+ takes a bit more time. 16'+ is rare, but doable with good genetics.

Dan, a bluegill is sexually mature at 3 to 4 inches. And they spawn multiple times per year. I don’t believe in removing any the first year but after that you won’t hurt anything by eating some.

I figure if I don't enjoy eating a few BG, something else will. afterall I claim to be the main predator of my pond. and to me, BG eat a little better then LMB that have been eating BG. jmo