Please forgive this long post but the more information I read here, the more I hear the advisors ask for more details and I am in need of your advice. I am a "new" pond owner having recently purchased a piece of property that borders mine and have found your site in the hopes of gaining some knowledge on how to improve our fishery. Sadly, even though we live within a half hour of one of the premier pond consultants in our part of the country, today I found out my youngest son needs braces. My budget for his consultation is now gone and I must do it on my own. Which brings me here….
We live in rural North Georgia on a road that has more cattle and horses than people….and numerous very good ponds to fish. Having access to most of these we have been a bit spoiled, but when the opportunity came for us to buy the 10 acres joining us for both pasture and an approx. .65 acre pond, we jumped on it. Nothing like fishing your own water, at least what we have caught so far has meant more to us than the bigger fish from our neighbor's ponds. The previous owners bought it as an investment 6 years ago right before we bought our land and built our log cabin and as such really didn't do much to improve it's fishing. Thankfully for us, the market tanked and they sold it to us for a very good price. At one point, they had someone come in with a back hoe and dig out as far as they could reach around the edges which helped remove some of the silt/sludge accumulated over the years but still it's probably 5' deep at it's deepest. From the best of the knowledge of those who've lived here for many years it has been here for as long as anyone can remember, at least 20 years. It's spring fed as well as runoff from a creek that runs through our hardwood forest of 27 acres. It did go almost completely dry during a severe drought 4 years ago but since then has remained a constant water flow both incoming and outgoing and is remarkably cool even during our hot southern summers (today air temps were mid 90's and the surface water temp was around 77 degrees at 6pm).
Some pics for reference:
Our primary goal is an eventual trophy bluegill fishery, specifically because we are a family of fly fishing nuts. From what I've been able to determine that can be done with a pond this small. Currently we have too many small bream (2-5") with maybe 15% over 6" and maybe another 10% above that. 90% of these are bluegills that were not stocked by humans since the drought, with a few GSN's (a couple of these are the biggest bream in the pond with only a couple small ones caught since April when we purchased it. What few bass we have moved in are very fat. I know of 3 that are 5-7#'s and probably 5-7 from under 1-3 #'s, best guess. I have seen no really small bass that I have seen. We have a school of 4-5 common carp between 2-4#'s, I have no idea where they came from. We have caught 2 Crappie and now realize from reading here any of those we catch from this point on will meet the fillet knife.
So that goal given, I need help prioritizing my actions. I think I need to improve the habitat before I work on the stock situation, but willing to hear your input on that also. I will start what I am sure is a lengthy series of questions limited to two areas: weeds, depth or both simultaneously and how. I think our biggest problem, besides it being shallow, is the weed infestation we currently have.
Can anyone positively help me identify this weed and in a pond this small, can we use chemical help without causing fish kill or detrimental effects by adding more nutrient matter with dead plants to the already obviously very rich substrate.
Should I build something to block the water flow to deepen the pond first, or deal with the weeds before doing so….or simultaneously? We have attempted some mechanical removal but I not only is it an unbelievably difficult task to do by hand but my time spent at work, and our desire to fish/hunt on the weekends has made the possibility of total mechanical removal a very daunting task. We spent an entire Saturday with myself, my wife and my 15 yr and 11 yr old sons and were only able to clear an area maybe 10'x20'…which not only muddied the water for a week and gave me great concerns over stirring up the bottom muck. It also filled in within in a few weeks. The deeper areas do not have nearly as many weeds, hence my hope that maybe increasing the depth will help me some but don't want to do that if it's counterproductive to removal. I have 2-3 dumptruck piles of topsoil from previous projects here on the farm but would I be wasting it putting it directly in the outflow?
I don't really have the money to invest in rock right now, but can certainly come up with countless large dead/dry pieces of timber for reinforcement if that will help. Thoughts on the possibility of a budget dam?
Again, sorry if this is too long but I thought more info is better than too little at this point. Please correct me if this needs to be split to multiple posts to multiple sub-forums. Any help and or advice would be greatly appreciated.
JC
