# Trout and other species.



## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

I have about an acre pond thats about 10 years old. maximum depth was about 13' now probably around 11-12 because of sediment. numerous christmas trees have been submerged. Three "shelters" but they are 4-6 cement blocks broken up and piled up. 






We have in there now the regular; channels, LM and a variety of sunfish such as bluegill, redear and some other some hybrids. The channels have gotten pretty big and we added a few monster-sized fish in there for the fun of it. The bass on the other hand.. we had added a few fish pushing 7lbs a couple years ago just to have some monsters in there. This past few years we found them all floating. The rest of the bass are skronny. I think this is because of the amount of predators we have in the pond fighting over the gills. first question is how do we prevent this from happening? I want to take some bass out of the pond. But my brother thinks pellets are the answer. 




I also have some questions about adding some species. I was thinking perch and crappie for the fun of just catching them but I was also wondering if this would be bad the ecosystem already established in the pond. I know the pond has a spring system but it's not very strong. For about 90% of the year there is a good amount of water running out of the drain pipe. Would this system of springs be strong enough for perch to survive? Another fish I want in there is trout. And I know their is no chance of the fish surviving year round. I want to have them for off season fishing and I think Ice fishing would be nice for me and the boys to do when we're bored. Would trout supplement the food supply is also what I was wondering.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

Welcome to the world of ponds questions

I am no expert, I have a 3/4 acre pond that I have had for the last 5 years. It was at the house when we purchased.

A couple of things I have learned.

A aerator system is a very positive addition to a pond, both for providing oxygenated water top to bottom for the fish and reducing sludge and algae growth.

As a general rule If you want big bass you need to keep their numbers low in the pond so as to not eliminate the amount of food available to them. High numbers means skinny bass and limited foodbase. I have only one bass that will eat pellets. You can purchase bass that are pellet trained from the hatchery, but do not expect your current bass to eat pellets

As a general rule if you want big bluegill, leave the bass numbers high and reduce the bluegill population. Again it is a food to fish ratio thing to achieve size structure. You can greatly facilitate this process through feeding pellets. Our biggest gill weighed to date weighed 1.5 lbs

I have some black crappie in the pond, you need to be careful with crappie as they can over populate very quickly and they are minnow, fry eating machines. NEVER put white crappie in a small pond they multiply much too fast, only black crappie as a rule.

Trout would be fun and provide for a great cold water put and take fishery. I am considering some for my pond. If you get some large enough to catch and eat I don't think they would provide much in the way of a food source for the other fish unless you have some really big bass or cats.

I have been removing all of our channel cats for the last few years. They are too large, 12-15 lbs and take too much of the forage base. They are also a pain when feeding pellets to the gills. The cats are easily adaptive to pellet feeding. We have taken around 40 out and have another 5 or 6 to go.

I have no experience with perch.

I have been putting tilapia in the last 3 years. They do a nice job on the algae and are prolific breeders and provide a good forage base for the other fish. They are expensive but seem to have done a really good job the last 3 years.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

I talked to my brother and the pellet idea is still on. We did agree to take a good portion of our catfish out. They average about 24-25'' and some are pushing 30'' and one is no joke close to 40'' now that we put in a few years back at 36''. They will be taken out and moved to friends ponds and a big fish fry. 

We're going to start taking some bass out this coming up summer and place them somewhere else as well. The We don't really want big gills, we want alot of them to feed the bigger fish. Black crappie sound like a good idea as well. 

We also agreed an aerator will be added this coming summer. Will trout be able to survive year round if the water is aerated? There is a spring that is in the pond but I don't know if it's enough to keep the water cool enough. They will be out in next fall for fun anyways. 

Will fathead minnows help grow large bass and feed the rest of the fish? Our goal is to grow some big LM's and keep a all together healthy pond.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

Adding baitfish to a pond can not hurt in anyway but it takes a lot of minnows to make a difference. The best forage for your bass are the gills. You just need to keep the bass population low enough for the food base.

Trout living all year in your pond will be totally dependant on your water temp. If your spring provides cool enough water, maybe. However if you pond I cool enough to support trout year round the growth rates on your bass will most likely be slowed.

When you say you are going ahead with feeding pellets do you mean for the bass? If so I want to hear your results with training an existing bass population to eat pellets. I have not had any success and I have not heard of anyone else having any success either at doing that.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

LilSiman, I agree with what Lundy is saying. You could stock the trout and see if they survive or get a recording thermometer and track surface temps after aeration is added to be sure. I think it would take about 300 GPM of spring water flow in the Northern part of Ohio to keep the temps below the upper 60s in the heat of summer...that's quite bit of water and just an educated guess.

As far North as you are and with as much spring flow as you already have, tilapia may not do well for you as they prefer temps in the 80s for the most part. Monitoring surface temps will help answer this too. There are fairly inexpensive thermometers out there to monitor temps http://www.acurite.com/00739-remote-sensor.html

I doubt a few people could harvest enough bass to hurt a 1 acre pond. Remove all fish that aren't looking fat...this may be every bass you catch the next couple of years but it's for the greater good. Make fillets or fertilizer out of them if you have to. I wouldn't worry too much about saving them and the logistics of moving several hundred pounds of fish simply isn't practical and that's probably what is will take over the next couple of years to improve the fishery.

A big bass isn't really interested in chasing a bunch of minnows around. They expend more energy than they gain. Fatheads really aren't a practical option for an established 1 acre pond. If you have plenty of weeds, you might consider adding some golden shiners but I would wait until bass population are significantly reduced to get the most bang for your buck. Ideally bass want forage 1/3 their length so bluegill are your best option as Lundy said.

If you go the pellet feeding route, I highly recommend an automated feeder. If you will be feeding trout over the winter, a remote activated one would be handy if you live nearby so you can manually activate a cycle on ice free days without going outside. The pellets will definitely help the bluegill but if there's a large population of catfish, they will take the lion's share being the gluttonous hogs they are.

I doubt the floating fish are from starvation. Aeration will likely reduce mortality.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> LilSiman, I agree with what Lundy is saying. You could stock the trout and see if they survive or get a recording thermometer and track surface temps after aeration is added to be sure. I think it would take about 300 GPM of spring water flow in the Northern part of Ohio to keep the temps below the upper 60s in the heat of summer...that's quite bit of water and just an educated guess.
> 
> As far North as you are and with as much spring flow as you already have, tilapia may not do well for you as they prefer temps in the 80s for the most part. Monitoring surface temps will help answer this too. There are fairly inexpensive thermometers out there to monitor temps http://www.acurite.com/00739-remote-sensor.html
> 
> ...


We plan on catching 20-30 bass by either angling or other methods and moving them to my friends over next summer. We will try to catch as many as possible to fillet or use in the garden. We plan on taking 30-40 channel catfish out as well. We'll have nights that we catch up to 20 fish with fresh mouths. We plan on using cats for fish fries. 

Trout will not survive in my pond. There is nothin I can do about that, but I do plan on stocking some next fallout for fun over winter and spring. 

We want to set up a automated pellet feeder after hearong your opinion the catfish will just tear them up. So that is out of discussion for now. 

My brother wants to put perch in there but I don't know how we'll they will survive . Another though we had was smallmouths. I know they will never be able to dominate the environment because of the lm population. But I would like to see of I could get a few in there. To catch every once in a while. I live only a mile away from black ever and we catch hogs out of there all the time. And before anyone gets mad we will not transport the larger ones. I was wondering if it 's even legal to transport the fish from public water? Obviously they'd have to be legal fish in the first place and that means taking the mature bass out of the river and I just think the river in this area is just to small to be able to take that demand.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

Pretty sure its legal to move fish (legal) from public waters to your own private pond. But, you take a chance of infecting your fish with "outsiders".


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