Hey guys, I'm new to the board. I've got a 3-acre pond in Southern Missippippi that I've been working on for a while. I've done a ton of research on how to manage it, but there's a few nuances to my situation that are hard to find specific answers to. Hopefully some of you can give me some insight. If these should all be separate topics, let me know:


1) I have begun a fertilization program this year, and have had 2 algae blooms so far. The first time, I probably overfertilized, the visibility got to about 6", and the fishing totally shut down until it began to clear up. The second bloom, the fishing slowed down, just not as bad. Can I expect fishing to shutdown/slowdown on the upswing of every algae bloom?

2) My pond is spring-fed, and naturally very clear (6' or more in the summer). Should I still try to reach that 18-24" visibility window, or should I settle for something a little deeper than that? When I did get it to 6" as noted above. it cleared up to 48" in 8 days, so I am wondering if it might be really difficult to maintain that window when the pond really wants to be a lot clearer

3) I have had an unfertilized pond with an overpopulation problem since about 2013. I seem to be getting the bass population under control, and now I have started fertilizing. I have 2 related questions here: 1) How long should I expect to wait to see results of faster growth rates, and 2) At what point should I begin to increase my harvest rates? (For reference, I have been harvesting about 20 lbs/acre/year for the last couple of years to get the population down)