I'd love to build and manage my own pond. The closet I have come to date, was a brother-in-law building a very small (may be a 1/4 acre) spring fed pond. However, that did not stop me from having a blast. First step was to get some cover in the pond!! I recuited a bunch of tree top and sunk them tied to cinder blocks, and then when and pulled some "weeds" at the local reservoir and I was good to go from that perspective. Because of the small size, I only started with an original stocking of 7 largemouth, and 4 pairs of sunfish. They successfully spawned, and then I would periodically put in a couple new fish from time to time to mix up the genetics. To add a little forage base, I went to a local stream and caught a bunch of crayfish and put them in the pond as well. I added a few bullhead over time as well. A HUGE thing to note, is the importance of not letting the sunfish population get out of control. Invite and let people catch and keep as many sunfish as possible. If that is not a desireable option, find a way to put a dent in the population from time to time. I would occassionally catch 30-40 and chuck them for coon bait, or if legal in your area, get a seine and seine a bunch out and burry them or use them as fertilizer! In no time, we were catching 8+ inch sunfish and bass nice size bass. Finding the water to maintain a quality pond is often difficult. Our state, to which I enforce such, it is difficult and expensive to build an "on-line" pond, and you can not build/construct a pond in wetlands. So, you are often left tring to obtain a general permit for the intake and outtake. So, at best, I find myself giving more advice to people than I do of planning my own pond!

No, I did not stock the brother-in-laws pond with chubsuckers!! Though I would have loved the opportunity to have done so. However, this is even a fine line there of trying to get enough of them to grow to a size to avoid predation from most of the top end predators (largemouth) or then won't be around for long!! That journal article of mine, even has optimal sizes listed in it?

Ron Eberts, Jr.