Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Missing Bluegill During Early Spawn?

First and foremost, I am sure that I will be told that there is nothing to worry about and I am simply being dramatic. However, I have been bothered for the last week and am hoping for someone to tell me just that.

As some of you may know, this is my first spring with my new pond. Stocked in fall of 2022. Bluegill, FHM, and Channel Catfish (I know, I made a mistake and am working on fixing the catfish). Roughly a 1 acre pond that I am focusing on significantly larger than average (but catchable) Largemouth Bass. I plan to stock LMB this fall. I also have plans to stock more forage fish in the next several weeks to diversify my forage bass upon suggestions from here. So long story short, no current predator fish in the pond.

Up until about 2 weeks ago I fed the fish on a regular basis and saw 100s of BG coming up to eat. It was an exciting and satisfying experience. Of course my Catfish came up as well, but the vast majority of feeding was BG. They were clearly visible in both shallow and deep water.

2 weeks ago we had a cold front run in. We went from roughly 70 degree weather back into the 40s and 50s. Fish stopped eating. No big deal, I expected that with lower water temps.

Last week the temps jumped into the high 70s and low 80s. Just about perfect for spawning BG. I am excited about the prospect.

I was out of town for a period and was unable to observe daily feeding as I normally do.

Monday I come back into town and feed as usual. Completely ignored. Almost nothing comes to eat. Few days more, 70+ degree temps, no significant feeding from either BG or Catfish. First thought is that I got ravaged by waterfowl while I was gone. I am pretty close to the Quivira Refuge and see ducks, geese, and crane on my pond daily. I thought maybe they went on rampage and destroyed my fish population. Of course, I get on Pond Boss and do some searching. Only to find out that it is really only Cormorants that I need to worry about and standard waterfowl aren't an issue. I spend a few days with bird identification and feel confident that I dont have Cormorants at this point. I feel good that my BG are probably still alive and well in the pond. Maybe they are just not actively eating as they are focused on the spawn.

I got out to the pond this evening and feed as usual. I get MASSIVE feeding across the pond. The only issue? Its all Channel Catfish eating (again, I am working on removing these) there are no BG visible feeding that i can find. Unfortunately, this makes me concerned about my BG population again, so I decided to post here.

I have seen some fry in the pond this week. Not the black clouds of fish I am told I should expect during normal spawn, but a couple here and there. Enough to tell me that at least some fish are spawning as I stocked ZERO fry in 2022. I figure it is early on in the process and things will progress from there. So I use the search function on Pond Boss as well as Google to see if it is normal for BG to not come up to eat during the early spawn. Of course, nothing comes up.

Hence, I come to here. 80% of my brain is telling me that somehow all of my BG are gone and my Catfish have taken over the pond, The other 20% of my brain that is more logical is telling me that my BG are sitting on nests and that is the reason they are not coming up to eat. In a week or 2, they will be back to business as usual and I will continue to focus on removing Catfish from the pond,

I am hoping to get some insight from individuals who are more experienced than I to tell me which thought pattern is more likely. I welcome any questions and/or insight!

I have noticed that adult BG disappear from pellet feeding time when they are spawning. What is your water temperature? If 72 deg F or higher, BG spawning is likely.

P.S. You are not being TOO dramatic.

Not an expert on weather related pond disasters. (The watersheds for my ponds are very small.)

However, I don't believe a few days of cold AIR temperatures can generally damage a fish population. It certainly can change fish behavior.

The stories I have read on Pond Boss concerning spring fish kills have almost always referred to warming ponds that were hit with a very cold 1.5"+ rain in the water shed. That can be a shocking change to a fish population.

Thanks for the replies.

I find it unlikely it was a weather related event. As you mentioned Rod, it was only cold for a few days and definitely not cold enough to drastically lower water temps. I figure its either outside predators or them focused on the spawn.

@theo, the surface temperature at least is 72 degrees plus. Right now I just have a pool type thermometer in the pond, so I cannot specifically say what temps are in deeper water. I plan to get a real thermometer in the future, I was in Ace Hardware and picked one up on a whim.

Get a cheap indoor/outdoor thermometer that is a cable/wire type. Take water temp at 24" and 36". BG will spawn around the full moon when water temps are 68-75 degrees, BUT if they are younger fish, they might not be mature enough. How big are the fish now? (length wise) Do you have sandy or pea gravel areas for them to spawn on? Have you tried to catch some to see if the males are colored up in spawning colors? Any gravid females?

Here in Northern Indiana, the BG spawn when the cottonwoods are setting their seeds, the LMB are spawning when the Lilacs are blooming. What's blooming in your area now?

For Scott...

What's blooming in your area now?
Onions...

I think your BG are fine.. We'll take a look maybe next week!

@esshup, Thanks for the advice on the thermometer. I will hop on Amazon and find one that will work.

I stocked 4-6in BG back in 2022 and then another 100 6-8in BG about a month ago. It is my understanding that 5in is considered Adult, so I would assume that almost all of my BG are of spawning age.

I have not attempted to catch any of the BG as of yet, most of my efforts have been spent on pulling out as many CC as I could before they start spawning. I am actually planning to run a couple trout lines with hotdogs this afternoon to try and further that progress.

I did setup a large pea gravel area for the BG to use for spawning. I have checked that area, however I only have about 6-10in of visibility in my water so I cant tell if they are really using the area or not. Its probably a 12x12 area or so. They are not within the first couple of inches of water at least.

Google Lens tells me the below picture is American Searocket. This is what is currently blooming at the pond. I dont have anything else other than grass and trees growing right now!



@Snipe, looking forward to your visit and adding some additional forage base!

I wouldn’t worry about a catfish spawn. According to Lusk, of all the fish eggs laid, only a few make it to adulthood. They get eaten. And cats are the most vulnerable. They go everywhere in a school, are slow and very few get large enough to spawn.

Dave,

So that now interests me quite a bit!

I have been scrambling to try and pull the catfish out of the pond as quickly as possible as I assumed they would spawn in large numbers. If that is not the case, I would change my strategy.

Obviously I want to remove CC from my pond, but if I dont have to worry about them reproducing, I would enjoy the process more and catch them over the next several months with rod and reel as opposed to trout lines and such. As I dont have any LMB in the pond yet, this would allow me to enjoy fishing for eating size fish (I stocked 10-12in catfish) and then I could focus on removing them before they get too big and compete with the LMB when I stock them later this fall.

Is there a post or article I can refer to about CC spawning in small (1 acre) ponds?

I would much rather enjoy the harvesting process if I knew I didint have to worry about reproduction!

SSJ,

Here is a lengthy thread from Pond Boss when I asked a bunch of questions for a CC pond in Kansas.

It wanders around (a lot), but contains a ton of really good information.


Channel Catfish Thread

One thing relevant to you (starting on page 2) is that some people have had zero CC reproduction in their ponds when their was zero spawning habitat, and some people DID have reproduction where the catfish hollowed out a hole in the bank and made their own spawning habitat!

Hope that one helps a little. You might want to pop the top on a beer before you start that long thread!

CC are cavity nesters, so unless you have cavities for them to lay their eggs in and the male to guard, they won't reproduce in a pond. BUT, if your catch one and release it, you may never catch it again - they learn that quickly and are that smart. A cavity could be a metal milking jug, 30-55 gallon barrel, culvert pipe, hollowed out hole in a steep clay bank, large crevice where concrete rubble was placed, etc., etc. They need a place large enough to swim into and to turn around in to face outward.

I have found if you buy cheap hotdogs and cut into 1" pieces and feed your cats on a regular basis they will get very used to eating them. When you want to harvest some toss a few pieces out and then put one on a hook with no weight and toss it to the same area they will take it readily. This also will help if you want to release some and catch it later I have landed the same fish multiple times.

As a follow up to this thread, I still haven't seen my normal number of Bluegill in the pond. With that said, the Catfish are absolutely decimating the feed (Not a problem for me, just an observation). I decided to go ahead and test the water a few times earlier this week and late last week and everything came back normal per the testing kit. PH, Ammonia, Nitrate and Phosphate were all in line. I tested different places in the pond over different days just to be sure.

I would assume it is unlikely that I had a fish kill as the larger catfish all seem to be alive and well. I would think that if there was an oxygen issue, the larger fish would die first as they require more oxygen than the smaller fish.

As previously mentioned, I dont have a high level of clarity in my pond so it is possible the BG are all a couple of feet down and I just cant see them. I try to observe the pond at least for 1 of my feedings per day (evening feeding) and they dont appear to be coming to the feed area in numbers. With that said, I dont have enough experience to know if they are potentially shying away because of the catfish and eating feed once it later sinks or drifts further away.

Water temperature is definitely about 70 degrees at this point.

I also am not seeing the "huge clouds" of FHM that I am told I should be seeing at this point either. I stocked roughly 50lbs of FHM in Fall of 2022 and it is my understanding that they should be spawning already and "covering" my pond. I have seen a few FHM here and there, but nothing of note.

The next full moon is this weekend. From my reading, BG like to spawn during a full moon so I plan to keep an eye out over the next week or 2.

Its likely there is nothing wrong at all and I am just not seeing the BG as they are deeper than the visibility of my pond. However, from seeing 100s of BG in the shallows of my pond to seeing a couple per week, it is a cause for concern for me.

As a side note, I will be stocking some Golden Shiners this week per Bill Codys recommendation. 5lbs of 5in Brooders. I also decided to take the gamble and see if PK (Ghost) Shrimp will survive in my pond. From my reading, a couple of people have had great success with them while others have them die off pretty quickly. I was willing to spend the few hundred dollars to give it a shot. I will be sure to report back. I don`t expect to receive the PK Shrimp for about 2 more weeks.

Originally I was going to wait to see how things developed with my non visible BG, however after testing the water and the results coming back as normal, I figure there is no real reason to wait and I will just keep an eye out for the BG.

Well I just put grass shrimp in my minnow pond that just has fhm and a few very small RES acclimated them for an extended time( five hours) released them and they swam out of the bucket. The next day I checked the shallow water but didn't see any dead ones. Hopefully they will survive and procreate

To sample your BG spawn, just get a $10 - $12 minnow trap. Put some of your fish food inside a mesh bag, put it inside, tie a string on, and toss it into 2' of water. Let it sit overnight and pull it in. I was seeing 2" BG last August after stocking 3-6" adults in April.

Also, my fatheads from last April look to be all gone, at one time I had millions, but I have a heavy predator base.

Eastland, I like your idea about the bait trap to check on the BG, I i didint even consider that! I just ordered one from Amazon and will deploy as soon as it arrives. Thanks!