This is kind of a long story, but I need some guidance on the situation I've found myself in.

I have a new 2 acre pond built last fall. The DNR stocked it with 500 bluegill (1-3") and we added about 1000 fathead minnows in October 09. On June 20th this year they followed up with 140 largemouth (1") and 200 channel cat (4-6").

We are out there on weekends, and I noticed a few bluegill spawning on a gravel area we built during the last full moon, maybe 10-20 4 inchers. I've also noticed ALOT of bass in the 4-9" range. It seemed like a lot more than 140 were swimming around in the pond. This past weekend I started casting a small beetle spin around on ultralight to try and get a better idea of numbers. I was catching a small bass almost every cast, when after about 10 minutes I caught a 3 pounder. My heart sank, and I pulled out my bass gear and removed 5 bass total in the 1.5-3lb range that morning.

My only guess is some adult bass swam out the 7" diameter drain pipe on my older upper pond during a brief period of high water this past March (see picture here - http://buildertrend.net/btPhotos/mTWRKa52.jpg) . I didn't think bass were really attracted to current, but obviously I was wrong. The 3lb bass also had his dorsal find rubbed off, perhaps from the long trip down the pipe?

So now things are starting to make sense. I haven't seen an explosion in bluegill like I expected this summer, and there are lots of bass. I tried a nightcrawler on a bobber for an hour or so last weekend, in some good spots, and caught no bluegill. My take is the handful of adult bass that entered the pond this March spawned successfully, and their fry had virtually no predators so a majority made it. I couldn't tell because it just looked like I was seeing the year class of bass we had stocked. There are so few adult bass in the pond that I never saw one. To top it off, those bass no-doubt spent the summer chowing down on a bunch of the bluegill in the 3-4" range from last falls stocking.

Now what? Can I recover this out of balance situation by catching a bunch of adult bluegill from surrounding waters and adding them? If so, how many would you guys suggest? Or am I better off buying a bunch of 3" 'ers from a hatchery and just waiting another year for larger bluegill? Next year should I have a big fish fry on 10-12" bass to try and remove some, or will the pond balance itself out with adequate forage added?

Thanks for your help, and for sticking out this long post!!