Thank you all for the great suggestions, this really helps as you have discussed your thoughts over my question. I appreciate all of your experience and reasoning... Still not sure which direction I'll go, but I do think I like the BCP better than the gills except for the overpopulating issue. But I realize if I'd do a better job with predators that shouldn't be as much of an issue... With the thoughts about CC being slow and not as efficient of predators, would a mix of LMB and CC as predators work? If so dumb question, but how do you determine the LMB sex? On CC's it's easy, but guess I haven't paid attention on the bass...
Is it wise to let the BCP establish for a year before you add larger predators to the pond? So there is YOY spawn already available when the predators arrive? When I originally started my pond I had FHM's that were the first fish to show up in the pond and when the minnows were so numerous that they were swimming upstream and out the overflow, then the predators must have followed them back to my pond... The first thing I caught was GSF that were way bigger than anything I'd ever seen in the wild, then a year later I caught 13-14" crappie, which are really big for this area... Then the crappie spawned and the minnows disappeared and my pond went downhill...
Which brings up another question, I have a water feed supply through a 6" PVC pipe from my irrigation canal and storm run off, it is also connected sort of, to a local lake from the overflow drain. I had carp come into my pond at the end and they really ruined the pond, stirring up a ton of mud and generally making a mess. I don't want carp to get back into my pond again. How is the best way to filter out the fish, without blocking the flow of water and stuff that comes down stream with water flow... I'm afraid if I just put a screen on the pipe it will have problems during snow melt or other storm events where water drains through my swale... I need to filter fish without effecting water flow... Any ideas of a good way to do this? Thanks Jeff
