Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Poor preachers pond

I would like to expand a previous question so I thought I would start a new subject. I asked the question about having sunfish in the pond and got great advice. But I got to thinking how many people have a pond but not much money?... I I am a pastor and My wife is a Christian school teacher and we have basically 2 teenagers... A lot of different places for our money to go other than to our pond and our Little farm... So I thought I might start a little journal here Trying to reach my pond goals on a limited budget... If nothing less I get to look back and see how I did..

I'll try to add some different shots of the pond as we go

Another

The pond lays in a triangle with the dam being on the North side... Google Earth says 2 acres although it appears bigger to me.... The goal here is to have a fishabke population of crappie and blue Gill.... As well as having bass Although a trophy is not necessary

I'm going to try to post a couple pictures of the vegetation that is presently in the pile

More

There is absolutely no structure that we have found... The older gentleman who is our neighbor says there is no structure In the pond whatsoever and he has fished it for years... There is several dead trees falling down by the pond as well as cedars that we are going to cut out of the pasture... Should I just throw the trees into the pond ?

These are the size ceders we have

These are examples of what It's presently on the pond... Very few crappie but what we catch are very good generally

If I'm asking for advice of what we can do for free !... Then I'd like to document if it works

Do you know how to "hinge cut" a tree? You can drop some trees in the water that way and the hinge to the stump should keep the tree anchored in place. (Sometimes the tree will even keep growing.)

Cedars in your fields always involve some money or labor to clear. You can burn, mow, or hand cut. Don't know which fits your property size and available equipment. However, they sure are nice, free structure for your pond. You probably need to connect them and sink them with some type of anchor. Otherwise they may move around in your pond.

They do degrade over time. However, I like that property - it changes the nature of the structure each year from very dense to progressively fluffier. Add a few cedars every year and your panfish will have wide selection of cover densities to choose their favorite.

You should also probably go the the Common Pond Q&A sub-forum. The second sticky post is on structure and cover. Lots of excellent advice, including many budget-friendly options.

Not only will the cover in your pond help the survival rate of your panfish, it will also "concentrate" them in certain areas, and that makes them much easier to find and catch!

P.S. Praying for rain is also a frequent topic on Pond Boss. Having a preacher in the forum with "connections" will surely help in that regard!

The cedars are getting cut anyway to keep the pastures clean..... I just want to make sure those were big enough to use

Looked like there was some pond plants (American pondweed?) established in the pond and that helps the fish. Cedars upright vs laying on the pond bottom will last much longer. Wire, Rebar and Cinderblocks were great for Cedar mounts. If you are in the midwest....hedge trees are probably some of the longest lasting as far as trees submerged in water (Hardwoods are better than softwoods).

Appears as though you already have a standing population of Crappie, BG and LMB. Best advice I could offer here is to measure some lengths and weights of your fish population for relative weights and post them here on the forum. The pros (of which I'm not one) can really hone in on what the relative weights mean and give sound advice on what if anything needs to be done.

Nice little body of water you have out there. Looking forward to seeing how you do.

If money is light, then you can put the time in and reap some good benefits.

Placing structure in the pond is helpful for several aspects.

If too small, then just bundle them together as Boondoggle says.

Frequently, I start to note "too many cedars" in some spot at our farm and just throw the chainsaw in the truck for the next time I go that way. However, once I start cutting them, there are always more than I thought!

First chance to post a bass...does he look stunted or abnormal?

Again

Summertime and living is easy

Happen to measure and weigh that fish?

I did not... It's not really that big of fish.... For some reason the board makes me really downsize pictures to post them.... I just wondered about the overall look of it

I'm no pro at this but will try to chime in on what I think.

Marked up the pic a little bit and re-attached.

Looks like the fish is hungry to me. If it was full the stomach would be more pronounced. However, this could also be a female that has recently spawned and is working to recover.

The tail is interesting to me. Looks to be some sort of indention at the 2/3 mark of the fish and the tail itself looks thin.

Tough to tell with scaling and cropping needed to get to 2mg max files but that's my take.

This is why the length and weights of fish are so important. Both males and female LMB are at their worst RW right after spawn. The male builds and guards the nest while female deposits her eggs. Making the babies is work for them.

With that in mind, below is a link to a Relative Weight Chart that was posted on the forum previously.

Keep in mind that it doesn't have a curve for time of year for the fish so you have to guess a little bit.

15" bass on average would weigh 1.8 lbs. Likely wouldn't hit this number just after spawning and conversely might be heavier than this going into fall after both recovering from spawn and stocking up for winter.

Without the length and weight it's all subjective guessing.

Based on one picture without the length and weight or BoW location knowledge. I would be trying to catch more fish for comparison and suspect stunting for sure with a possible bonus deformity at the 2/3 mark on the body to tail.

If you catch multiple fish that seem to be pretty lean, I would switch gears and fish or trap the sunfish specifically to confirm. May be missing year classes of the food source needed to maintain the weight of the fish.

I believe that is a previously injured bass. I think there was even a forum discussion of the cause of that type of injury, because it is not unique. (No idea what search terms would find that post?)

I would therefore not judge the health of your bass population based on that fish.

Keep fishing. (Sorry to add that to your chore list!)

I think that LMB is just severely undernourished.

VERY under nourished/stunted. Get a ruler and a scale. Weigh/measure the bass and look at a relative weight chart. You will be surprised at how much they should weigh for their length. .