Just keep waiting on some warmer weather? What got me concerned today is the success some ponds around me were having.
Here's a little anecdotal story for you.....
My neighborhood retention pond is 1/4 acre, 8' deep when at full pool, which is maybe less than half the time. The pond is full of bluegill, bass, golden shiners, some yellow perch, a few HSB and a few Channel Cats & Blue Cats. When the water temp got to be close to 50 F back in early March, my fish started feeding lightly. It took almost 45 minutes before I saw the first fish feeding (water clarity was maybe 5-6"). In the past few weeks, with ambient temps from below freezing to over 65F, the fish would still feed and it only takes a few minutes before you see them.
A friend less than 1/4 mile away filled up a new, virgin pond, maybe 1/5 to 1/6 of an acre. In August/September of 2021, we put in (27) adult bluegill into that pond along with a few dozen fathead minnows bought from a bait shop. Those bluegill were seen in the pond feeding throughout the Fall of 2021. In January '22, we were putting X-Mas trees in and observed some kind of small frye which I believe to have been fathead minnows, yet these frye were maybe less than 1/4" long which makes me wonder when they were actually born. In the last (3) weeks, we added (11) more adult bluegill and 20 lbs. of fathead minnows.
Now, in the past 4 weeks in the new pond, the owners were not seeing any fish at all, when they fed feed or when they just observed. This baffled me because everyone one of those (38) bluegill were feed hogs, and (11) of them were feeding in my pond before putting them in the new pond. Last Friday night, I finally saw bluegill in that pond. They were very lightly hitting feed, and moving pretty slow. It took at least 45 minutes of careful observation before I saw the first fish. If I hadn't been wearing polarized sunglasses, I would have never seen any fish.
My point is that my expectations to see actual fish in the new pond were probably misguided by comparing the new pond to our existing pond. The existing pond probably has close to 750-1000 bluegill in it over 1/4 acre, plus all the other fish, whereas the new pond has (38) fish in it over maybe 1/5 to 1/6 acre. That is quite a difference.
My initial plans for my neighbor's new pond was to let all the bluegill and fatheads feed for all Summer '22, and then put in SMB and YP, and a handful of HSB around September/October '22. I may reconsider that now as I may need one more year for those (38) bluegill to really fill up the pond with their progeny.
Finally, I did note that there was a variance in semantics between the new pond owners and myself, and when I asked them questions about what they observed, the answers they were giving me weren't really what I was asking. Essentially, I had to go to the pond myself and observe last Friday, and if I hadn't, we'd still believe them that there were no fish to be seen.
