Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations 5 year pond review

First post on this forum. 0.6 acre pond built 2018. Central KY. White clay based, 2 acres forested runoff, poor soil. Stocked fingerlings in spring 2019 100 BG, 50 HBG, 50 Redear. Stocked 25 4 - 5" LMB in Fall 2019. I have used liquid fertilizers and ag-lime to try to keep the pH and fertility. Last year fertilization caused some excessive algae blooms, so this year I have backed off of the fertilizer. I had never paid much attention to the relative weight charts until this year. My gut was telling me the BG were taking too long to grow to keeper size and the bass were too skinny. We have harvested the bulk of the hybrids we think as we only occasionally catch one. We only kept fish that were gut hooked up to this year. This year we plan to take 100 BG and 20 of the larger bass 14in.+ out to try and optimize for trophy BG and healthy bass. Any fatheads we introduce these days are gone within a month. In 2020 we had lots of tadpoles. They are non-existent today. I assume this is the bass eating EVERYTHING it can. So this year we are measuring and logging all fish we catch, other than yearlings. We have a average of 110% relative weight on BG and 90% on bass. But the largest BG we catch are 7.75 - 8 in. I would have assumed we would have larger BG after 5 years. The fact that they are 110% relative weight makes me think that I have a healthy population, just not large. Therefore I have begun supplemental feeding with Optimal BG. 1 sec. twice per day right now. There is food left over after 10 minutes at this point (3 weeks of feeding). I would be open for comments and suggestions on going forward.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!!

I think the addition of a feeding program will vastly increase the things you can achieve with your pond. If you can get the LMB onto to feed, they will start eating the 1" diameter feed. Then you can grow them to over 5lbs.

I do see that larger LMB is not your goal, but you may not have realized what could be done with them via feeding.

If your BG did not have supplemental feed for three years, then be patient. They need to learn that they now have an excellent, but new, food source. Some of the fish will never learn to take feed.

Did you add any fluffy cover/structure to the pond while your were building it? Sometimes a heavy clay pond basin will take many years to develop any significant growth of rooted plants.

I like that the BG are at 110% RW. However, if there was no fluffy cover available for your BG and RES to hide in, then your bass may have eaten a lot of your largest forage sunfish as soon as their gape was large enough. Without large, sexually mature BG cranking out lots of babies, there may be a lack of forage for your bass and that is why they are so skinny.

Keep taking good care of your BG. That is probably the best way to take care of your bass.

Are you also catching SMALL bass that are at 90% or less RW? If so, then you might actually need to cull some small bass. If not, then your bass may have overshot their forage supplies.

Keep sampling your fish populations and reporting them on Pond Boss. There are many experts (not me) on the forum that are very good at improving populations in a pond and can give you excellent advice IF you give them good data!

Good luck on getting your pond up to the big BG and big LMB stage.

Sunil - thanks for the response.

FishinRod - I was unable to follow through with my pond structure plans due to the extremely early wet fall in 2019. The week we closed up the dam, the pond was a quagmire of slick white clay. In hindsight, I would have prepared the gravel bank and structure far ahead of time. Mother nature did not cooperate. I have since added the tops of Eastern Red Cedar to the pond banks. More cedar is going in soon. Most of the 10" and under LMB are measuring out at 85-90% RW. This does concern me. But it seems my bass are always skinny in the spring and that by fall they look more healthy. I will continue to document and will review again in the fall, after several months of supplemental feeding.

Keep feeding, they will take a while to realize that they have free food that doesn't try to escape.

I like the cedars going in. I have seen several videos with LOTS of BG hanging out in the cedar cover.

Those cedars will deteriorate over time in your pond. (There is a drawing of those changes over time in some Pond Boss thread.) The tiny BG like the very dense cover. The larger BG and bass like them as the decay down to the trunk and main branches.

If you clear cedars from your fields, then I would keep putting in a few new ones every year.


P.S. Slick white clay does suck! I am just glad you got the pond finished before the rains came, since that stuff is miserable for operating heavy equipment.

I don't know if it is better to add to my original post or create a new one, so I'm just adding to. It has been 2 1/2 months since I started feeding Optimal BG 1 sec twice per day. It seems they are eating all the food each feeding. I am increasing to 2 sec. per day to see if they will tolerate that. I will need to know at what water temperature to cease feeding this fall. My observations after 2 1/2 months. Coinciding with the peak spawn petering out, it has become harder to catch the larger bluegill. No problem with the runts. Once the larger bluegill and shellcrackers left the nests, catching the 7" or larger has been frustrating. I presume the feeding is inhibiting the catch. I continue to catch plenty of bass in the 10 - 12" range. 90% relative weight. Very few 14" or larger bass have been caught since the first of May. Water has good color and I have not added fertilizer. Lots of BG and LMB minnows in the shallows every day so I think I had a successful spawn. Just needing to catch more of the larger BG and LMB to chart their weights.

Adding to the existing post does help to show progress over time and let people review where you started and where you are at now. Personally, I like it. Good news the BG are hitting the food. Won't take them long and they go from BG to Piranha when the feeder goes off. Seemed like that change in feeding happened for us almost overnight. While at the pond last night watching the feeder go off we were seeing wakes of fish headed to the feeder 3-5mins before the scheduled "feeding frenzy".

On water temps...I hear it varies a little bit. Some of the guys were seeing feeding in the 40's and 50's, for me we didn't see much activity until around 60. Here's my bet. As the fish become more trained to the food, they will hang out in the feeding zone. You will be able to throw a handful of food almost anytime to the residents and as the water temps cool this fall they will feed less. That is your signal to either cut down or stop feeding. Might even be a little time in there with a nice week after a cold front to toss them a handful later in the fall (if your weather is anything like what we get in KS). My plan is to keep those bellies full as long as we have takers.

Like Boonie says, views on when to stop feeding are evolving.

In a pond where feed is a large part of the fishes diet, I think you can get them to feed when the water temps are in the high 40's. And in milder 'winters,' I had fish hitting feed in November and even early December in Western PA.

The other end of the coin is whether or not those fish taking feed in the cooler temperatures are properly digesting that feed. On that aspect, I take the simple outlook that if a fish bothers to eat the feed, then they should be able to process it.

Whatever the actual case, the tell-tale signs are simply if the fish feed or not, and when they stop, that's a good time to stop feeding.

This is an update to my original post "5 yr. pond review". I fed optimal bluegill for four months. I did not fertilize the pond when I started the feeding program. In August I increased from 1 sec. twice per day to 2 sec. twice/day. Soon after, I noticed an increase in pondweed growing from the bottom. I do not know if this was due to excess feed dissolving or if it was the lack of fertilization and the increased water clarity that caused this bloom. First of September, I dropped back to 1 sec. twice / day. By late September the amount of pondweed was unacceptable. During the four months that I fed, there was a noticeable increase in the weight of the BG I was catching. I went from an average 110% relative weight to 120%. I have been culling any BG that appear skinny as I am sure I reached the natural carrying capacity of the pond and had several good spawns. Larger LMB are quite healthy, in the 95% relative weight range, but the 9" to 12" LMB are all a little on the skinny side with an average of 85% relative weight. Overall I am pleased with the feeding program and the health of the BG and RES. I hope to be able to add some aeration in the spring and plan to resume the fertilization to decrease water clarity and slow down the bottom growth a little. FYI, the 1 sec. twice/day equated to about 1 pound of feed per day in this 6/10 acre lake.

Spring arrives, started feeding at 56 degree changing from Optimal BG to Purina MVP. Temp was 62 on 3/30. Winter did not seem to kill the pondweed like I hoped and the water is very clear. I had discontinued fertilization when I started the feeding program and the pondweed took over. it does not affect the fish, it affects my fishing. I am slowly adding fertilization and dye. I am hoping to add enough color to the water to inhibit bottom growth, while not creating super blooms. I cannot find anything written that says I shouldn't fertilize and dye simultaneously, so I'm slowly doing it. I have purchased an aerator but the inverter and pump was lost by UPS and I'm in the middle of an "investigation". Solar panels are ready, just waiting for the pump. Any words of experience will be greatly appreciated.