Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New owner of a not-new pond

I bought a property with a small pond this past June, I estimate about .7 acres. I am not sure how old the pond is. Probably about 15 years. I am starting from 0 in my knowledge of pond management. Just reading through posts on this forum has been a tremendous help.


About the pond: It is surrounded by trees, and there are even saplings growing on the dam. The fish seem to be BG, LMB, and CC. I’ll use bluegill and brim interchangeably below; that’s what I grew up calling them. The pond is about 8 feet deep at the dam end, with a gazebo over the shallow end, 4-5 feet deep in the middle. Entirely rain-fed. This is in central North Carolina, so the ambient temperature gets up into the 90s in the summer; I don’t know about the water temperature; I need to get a thermometer. Surprisingly, the water level stays pretty consistent (though I was just moving in in the summer, so haven’t observed the pond for an entire year yet). I’m thinking there must be a lot of runoff from the surrounding area.



Visibility: It seems to vary a lot. Just observing from the gazebo, in June it seemed surprisingly clear, other times nearly opaque. I’ve only recently learned about Secchi disks, so unfortunately don’t have measurements to give you yet. Will update when I’ve got more information.

The water seems muddy; no surprise given the carps, but if I scoop out a bucket and let it settle, the water clears.

There are beds in the shallow end, and I could see what I assume are bluegill fry swimming around the shallows in September.

In July and August we had some algae blooms, which I controlled with copper algaecides. The bottom is soft with leaves and muck. There don’t seem to be many fish, or they don’t bite easily. If I fish for an hour, I can catch a single brim or a bass on a good day. I’m doing catch and release for now. I sometimes see a film on top of the water, like an oil spill. When the aerator is running, the film goes away. Picture of the alga bloom below


Lots of frogs. I’ve heard there are crayfish, but haven’t seen them and don’t know how to look for them. We've seen a few migrating mallards fly in in the evening, and take off in the morning. I caught an alligator snapping turtle once when bobber-fishing for brim (he got off).

Here's a bluegill we caught. It's a bit larger than the typical BG we've seen.


And here's a LMB. About average for this pond.


My goals:

• I want the pond to be a fishing pond. I don’t care about trophy fish but would want to maximize the number of bass and bluegill. For me, small bass are just as much fun to catch as large ones. If I were starting the pond from new, I wouldn’t have the carp but they’re there. On a really good day, I can wake up, make my coffee, walk down to the gazebo, and catch a bass before my coffee gets cold. I want more of those days.
• Aesthetics. I want the pond to pleasant to walk around and boat on. I don’t like the mucky bottom, at least not near the shore in the shallow end. I’d like to be able to put in a canoe and not be sinking into a foot of muck or smelling funky smells while doing so.
• Self-sustaining: I don’t mind putting any amount of work into the pond for now, but I want to at least feel like I’m working toward a self-sustaining ecosystem, not dependent on feed, fertilizers, or constant restocking. I’m open to having my mind changed here; if you find that feeding, fertilizing, or stocking is a vital part of having the kind of pond I want to have, let me know.
• Not starting over: I’m open to changing my mind about my approach on most things, but I have no budget to drain and dredge the pond, and no desire to kill the fish and repopulate. When it fills up with sediment and turns into a mudhole, I’ll change my tune, but I think we’re a ways off from that.

My ideas:
Here are some ideas I have for improving my pond to meet the above goals. I’d appreciate any feedback; what seems workable, what seems counterproductive, what's more relevant to my stated goals, and what isn't, what additional information I need to make decisions, etc.

Aeration: I have a bubble aerator, which I’m now not sure was a great investment, given the shallowness of the pond. Right now, the aerator’s in the middle of the pond, because I didn’t get enough tube to take it out to the dam end of the pond where it needs to be. The pump is in my outbuilding and I’ve run pneumatic tubing down to the pond. It shouldn’t be too hard to run that out to the deep end once I get more weighted tubing. My hope for the aerator is that it will protect against fish kills, and that the agitation of the water will help in my efforts to de-muckify the bottom. I’m planning to be really cautious about how long I run it at first, since I don’t know how old the pond is or how much toxic stuff might be stirred up when I start it.

Physical removal of organic matter: I’ve been skimming the top of the water for leaves. I’ve also been raking up muck from the shallow end and carting it off in a wheelbarrow. It’s . . . Sisyphean. That’s the word. Sisyphean. I'm skeptical of the efficacy of commercial muck-reducing products; I'd be interested in hearing Next summer, I’ll see if my skimmer helps with Algae so I can depend less on algaecide.

Remove all saplings from the dam: Seems like this is a must, right? Trees shouldn’t be growing on the dam.

Remove some trees from the side of the pond. The leaves from the trees are a pain to deal with, but I have to say I like the shade and the cozy feeling of being surrounded by trees out on the pond. Right now I’m just opening up a few spots to fish from. Open to ideas here.

Add structure. I don’t think there is much structure in the pond, so I’ve made a small brick pile, and I’m working on some home-made structures. I figure artificial PVC-pipe-and-rubber-tube type structures are better than trees for me, since I don’t think this pond needs any more organic material. I’m thinking a mixture of complex structures to help the baby fish survive and simple structures as fish attractors.

Harvest the carps. I know zilch about carp fishing, but I guess I need to learn to catch and cook them if I don’t want them crowding out my bass and brim.

Add some plants on the shore. I’m thinking some arrowhead (duck potato) or similar plant could be good for the shallow end. My theory is they’d compete with the algae for nutrients. Not sure how valid that is.

Stock some more bass and bluegill. Once I’ve got some structure and the aerator going, I was thinking I'd maybe add some fish. No idea what I’m doing here. Could really use some advice about how to even go about deciding on this. If I’ve got the environment set up correctly, is there any point in stocking additional fish? Would I be just as well off going down to the lake (2 miles away) catching some LMB and BG and transferring them to my pond?

Figure out a cadence for harvesting bass and bluegill. Again, my goal is to have the maximum number of bass and bluegill, not trying for trophy fish. I like eating fish, but my main goal is catching them for fun. For my own enjoyment, I would just catch and release, but I gather that harvesting some of the fish is necessary for managing the pond. So, is there some rule as to how often to catch them, how many to take, etc, to ensure the maximum number are there at any given time? My limited knowledge is: maybe catch and keep the big ones, since size and quantity are inversely related.

Gravel and/or sand for the shallow end. I’m thinking I could get some cedar planks or cinder blocks, some kind of old carpet or geotextile, gravel, and sand, and make a sort of multi-level terrace in the shallow end. Sand at level 1 for a kind of beach, then a couple of lower levels of gravel for BG beds. They’re making beds in the muck bottom now, but maybe the gravel plus the complex structure would help more of them survive, and anyway would give us a muck-free area to put the canoe in. I take it I shouldn’t worry about bass beds too much.