Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Newbie looking for guidance for an unmanaged pond

Hi All; Good afternoon from south-central Minnesota. I just came across this forum a few days ago while researching ideas for our pond. I’ve been impressed by the experience and knowledge while reading/researching here, also subscribed to PB. I’m hoping that you can provide a little guidance as I explore managing this pond. Guess I’ll jump right into it. I hope that you forgive this lengthy post out of the gate.

The primary question that I am coming to is “what can/should I do to improve this pond”. The background… I own a piece of a 12 acre unmanaged pond which crosses 3 other property owners with no public access. It is about 6’ deep at the deepest spot. It has a short <2’ dam/road crossing at the outlet end with no known drain pipe. I’m not sure how much of this body of water has been manipulated in the distant past. It appears the road crossing could have been raised the 2’ to make it passable rather than an intentional attempt at a dam. The pond has water flowing at the inlet end, runs the length and over-tops the road crossing as the outlet. This area is in a valley/flood plain off a significant Minnesota river. In the 10 years I have been here the river has flooded through the pond a couple of times. I’d say the pond has a flooding occurrence once every 5 years. For the most part I hadn’t been looking at the details of this pond until last summer when I got interested in developing it as a fishing hole. I suspected to only find carp and a few bullhead. I tried some fishing/trapping last fall/winter and was astounded at what was in there. GSF, LMB up to 15”, BH, short-nosed gar, BG up to 6", YP up to 10”, Big mouth buffalo, CGC, NP @ 21”, redhorse and I just found a 8” GSD today. Also not knowing any better, last summer I stock 100 BCP & 100 HBG.

Before finding this number of mature(ish) fish I was concerned about winter-kill with the shallow depth so started dissolved oxygen monitoring late last summer. DO ranged from 6.5 ppm @ 8:30 AM to over 10 ppm a few weeks later. There was no significant algae bloom last summer. Currently late winter with significant ice cover DO is still over 10 ppm as best I can tell. pH was around 8.0 give or take. There is still a good outflow happening late winter. We’ve had droughty conditions for the last 3 years with no significant decrease in full pool which tells me this pond is normally spring fed. This pond sees only occasional fishing pressure when one of the neighbor's kids/friends visit.

My assumptions… the variety of fish in the pond have come from the river when it flooded in years past. It hasn’t flooded in the past 4 years so the current fish population is mostly naturally reproducing and growing i.e. the current large fish didn’t originate from the river. It is primarily spring fed. There has been limited winter and summer kill due to oxygen deprivation as evidenced by the fish ages over the last few years. There apparently is a good forage base for the predators.

My goal with pond is to provide reliable meat producing sources which are not necessarily species specific but primarily BG, BCP, YP and LMB. Oh and the LMB are a blast to catch on a lazy afternoon.

My thoughts to improve this pond… excavate a hole down to 12’ with a long-reach backhoe, add some additional structure around the pond and get rid of as many of the rough fish as I can.

The variety, size and quantity of fish in this pond tells me mother nature is doing just fine on her own. Now back to the original question... what can/should I do to improve this pond?

I’ll stop there since this is lengthy as an intro.

Wow, nice lake and great conditions. From my experience a lake with lots of little or smaller fish improves with removing fish from it, they get bigger as you remove them basically. Spring fed is great but that wont introduce DO unless the spring comes in from the side of a hill if you know what I mean. Your water source might hyporheic http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/water/field/hyporheic_zones.html it's hard to say without seeing how close the river is to your lake/pond. Depth is tricky when digging in water, as you dig lake sediment and garbage will fill in the area that you dig in short order so if you want a 12 foot hole youll have to dig and dig much deeper. If you have a way to drain it that is best. I know this from experience from digging in an area of my lake that literally filled in after excavating it in low water conditions - sediments and debris in a semi suspended state will seek the lowest levels...and this also created an environment for weeds to flourish like mad.

I bet if you thinned the herd in that pond theyd start to grow very well and youd get the "meat" that you want.

Cheers and send more pics!


Louie

Louie;

Thanks for the feedback. I understand your comment about the "babbling brook" coming off a hill. There is some water that comes from a slough on the inlet side that has a steady flow but I'm not sure if its enough to oxygenate the water. I'd guess much of the lake is being refilled by seeping springs from the shore or from the bottom of the pond. The DO then must be coming from some remaining algae. At any rate it's apparently present which does answer part of my question.

Your comment about removing smaller fish brings me to another question I haven't explored yet... how many of a given species can I harvest without negatively impacting reproduction? I haven't explored this yet and am sure there are many references that help answer that question. I have defaulted for the time being to returning all of the game fish BG, YP, LMB to the pond for being unsure of affecting the breeding population. I'm open to removing some as I gain confidence that I'm not going to mess the balance up somehow.

Regarding the hyporheic theory... I'll have to look through your link to understand more. My first impression is that the pond is higher in elevation than the river (SWAG +10' maybe) so that should create an outflow of water from the pond to the river rather than the reverse. The river is perhaps 1/4 mile at it's closest spot.

Thanks for the insight on the excavation. There already is a 6" layer of black muck across much of the basin that I've been wondering if is a problem. I wouldn't want all of that to end up in the 12' excavation. More to ponder.

BTW... the weird ring/rash around the gill plates of the NP is where he stuck his head in my trap & got caught, I did end up eating him since he was just about done for.

Best regards

It sounds like you co-own the lake. Hopefully the other owners become enthusiastic like you about improving the fishery.

I'm not an expert, but I'm sure you'll get some great suggestions from the more experienced folks here.

There are a couple of ways I can think of to figure out what species are present and estimate their populations. The most effective method I know is electrofishing. A local pond management company quoted me $1500 for my 2 acre pond. It also should include recommendations for everything you've asked questions about and more.

Another way is to sample by fishing, using nets and traps, (which it sounds like you have used) then weighing and measuring each gamefish species. You can compare them to the standard weight charts to get an idea. If you're interested, send me a private message with your email address, and I can share a copy of the relative weight Excel sheet.

There's also a good resource guide you'll get with your subscription, and there are some available on the site. Plus, you can always Google pond management companies to find one near you.

Good luck,

Great Pictures
Bill S.

Nice looking pike!. Im more of a bucket biologist, we dont have access to electrofishing or people knowledgeable about these things in our area. The USA is years ahead of us as far as pond management goes. Your system does seem in balance and a good fishery, I bet if you start removing some bass youll start to get bigger bass but the experts will chime in on them.

Being above the river there wouldnt be inflow like to say, so the photosynthesis in the winter must be helping you, Im at 3 feet of ice right now with 6 inches of snowcover - maybe more this morning but it should be starting to melt this week hopefully.

At my northern trout camp one of our lakes would produce about 100 laker trout in about 2 hours...was insane fishing but they were all hammer handle size. We went on a catching frenzy and really took a lot out, that fishery is amazing now with 5 and 7 pounders as well as smaller ones...really nice fishing. You system looks pretty darn healthy Id say fish it and observe over the course of a couple or three years, and being 12 acres itll be a lot of work to screw it up by just fishing it the odd time with your buddies.

Have fun! And your lake looks similar to mine just wider..mine is 6 acres, average 7 feet with depths of 12 feet. Right now with 3 feet of ice imagine how small their living space has become - crazy eh.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!!

I like the idea of trying to create some deeper areas either by long-boom back hoe, or trying to raise the outlets, or both.

Being subjected to flooding from a river, every few years, makes management more challenging. But the idea of not truly knowing what's on the end of your line is a good counter balance to the management issue.

Thanks for the suggestion about sampling. It's gotten me thinking now. I'll PM you as you suggested.