# Pond advice needed



## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

I have a pond at my workplace that is a little over an acre and the deepest area is about 10'. About 7 years ago we drained it and removed a bunch of carp and very few gamefish. Let it fill back up and stocked 175 bass fingerlings and 500 gills and 20 channel cats(fingerlings). The pond was doing great for the next 4 years and the bass was around 2lbs and a lot of the gills were around 8 to 9" The channels were growing nicely too. Then the river nearby got really high and managed to reach the pond which is in a 50 year flood plain and filled it with shad and a few carp. Well the pond has been producing some really nice sized bass up to 5lbs but they have began to be quite difficult to catch. My concern is the shad population has exploded because there are huge schools of shad. I still feel we have a decent bass population even though we may have lost some when the river flooded into it based on some good days of catching them and watching schools of bass busting the shad. (keep in mind the river did not totally engulf the pond just a low area on one side) My first question what will all this shad do to the pond, I have seen shad kills in the early spring and it still doesn't put a dent in the population. It amazing how thick the bass are from eating all the shad. They look like prespawn fish all year. My next concern is that the bass are not reproducing. You will not catch a bass smaller than 3lbs. The gills have decreased in size and the cats are reproducing like mad and are getting 3 to 10lbs. I see in the spring what appears to be spawning bass but never see any fry or catch small bass. Everything else in the pond seems to reproduce like mad especially the shad. I have lots of habitat in the pond and there are good areas for them to spawn. Since it is not my pond im limited on how i can manage it. There is a huge goose problem every spring and the geese are always romping around the pond stirring things up. Could this be messing up the spawn, or arel the shad eating the eggs, i have no idea but its weird. There is also a ton of turtles of all types that may be a problem also. Im forced to apply copper sulfate when the algae starts to get bad, I usually only have to do 2 treatments a season and i have been starting in late june not wanting to take a chance of messing up a bass spawn if it would. I go light on the copper sulfate and only apply to half of the pond at a time folloing the directions on how much to apply and then using less. Is this copper sulfate messing up a food source for bass fry. I know this is a crazy pond situation and a lot thrown out there and probably not stocked properly but its what it is since it is not mine. Any advice on the shad situation and bass reproduction.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Maybe try applying the copper sulfate a couple of weeks before the spawn so the planktonic algae has time to recover?

Gizzard shad consume huge volumes of planktonic algae removing the food base for other small fish. Consider stocking Hybrid stripers to control them...maybe 50. They won't reproduce. 

Channel cats don't normally reproduce well in ponds especially with good numbers of bass present. 175 bass stocked in a 1 acre pond is too many in my opinion but if they have good relative weights than that is not the case. To few bass is rarely a problem. If some were washed out, they should recover quickly. A small bass's biggest predator is other bass. The large channels are also likely consuming large numbers of fish too.

Well fed bass are hard to catch. Try changing up your fishing techniques.


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## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

Thanks for your comments pondfin. Do you think the shad will become so thick that it could cause a carrying capacity overload and cause the bass and cats to die off. I have had a coulpe things run its course in this pond. 2 years ago i lost about 50 cats and about 10 bass that i could see. Some of the cats were really big (probably up to 12lbs) Since almost all the bass are around 3 to 3.5 lbs thats the size i saw for the bass. They had a white fungus on the skin. That disease seemed to run its course and the fish were ok in about a week or so. The pond seems healthy now except for the shad problem and no small bass. One thing i have noticed is the bass don't use the brush and rock piles like they used to. They seem to roam more in open water probably following the shad around. A good day at this pond is catching 6 to eight bass all nice size of course. You really have to work for them. For a private pond that no one fishes it sure is tough to get em. Sometimes i wonder if since im not catching any small bass, could the bass population be lower than i would think. Or is it just because the bass are not relating to the edges and cover like they used to (pre shad) and im not fishing the open water enough. There is some 6 and 8 inch pipe in the pond that maybe the cats are liking making the reproduction more successful. 

To give you a better description of the pond heres some more detail. There is a pond by the road about the same size that has a dam that flows into a canal that leads to the pond im talking about. So the back pond gets a constant feed from the front pond about 350 gpm. Then the back pond has a dam that flows into a canal that dumps into a stream . The front pond is fed with treated water from a wastewater facility 350gpm 24/7. So i have good flow through the pond. Anytime i do a treatment i shut off the feed flow for a day or so to stop the flow throughout the ponds, Then after a few days after treatment i add the flow to prevent washing the chemicals through the pond before it has a chance to work and i don't want anything going down stream. These ponds do not hold water well and will drop some if the flow is not kept on. Thats why we have not experimented with other treatment methods such as an aqua shade. I have worked with the soil water conservation service and was told to follow those techniques and application rates i use. 

Alot of the fish really hang around the inflow of the pond. The shad are usually concentrated there and make for easy netting which i do once in a while. I can get a whole cast net full at a time but its a lot of work and don't have a lot of time in my day to spend netting shad. Your probably right about putting in the hybrid striped bass, i'll look into it. Thanks for your advice its definately a weird pond but at least i have access to mess with it some.


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

Shad simply eat to much plankton for small ponds. As we all know, plankton is the heart of the foodchain. That's why shad are bad. Adult largemouths love them, no denying that, but they simply out compete other species. Expecially when your bass and bluegills are spawning, and the fry need every peice of plankton they can get their mouths on once their yolk sac is gone. 

Hybrid stripers are probably your best option. 50 would be a good number to start with. If the shad population is "huge" I'de simply stock more. Remove them after they've served their purpose.

I doubt the common carp will pose to much of a threat. I'de fish them out, and hope their fry suffer the same fate as what might be happening to your other juviniles.

What kind of habitat exsist around the the banks in terms of spawning areas?


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## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

One side of the pond has been eroded pretty bad from the geese going in and out. But 3/4 of it has a good bit of rock and gravel and is like a small shelf that dropps into deeper water. The eroded side is more like a beach type slope. We have let the weeds grow along the banks to help secure the banks.(this helped some with the goose control) For years we were told to keep it trimmed like a golf course but now its got lots of weeds around it. It also has an island with fairly steep banks. I have placed numerous rockpiles/ concrete chunks and a few brush piles along the bank. There are around 5 submerged trees laying on their side in the shallows. I can tell you when fishing a bait on the bottom that it has a pretty roungh bottom along the banks in most places. The water color always seems to have a stain to it. Since its fed with treated wastewater from the plant i work at there are some nutrients going into the pond. Although we do a good job removing nutrients our plant cannot remove all. So it does get a dose of phosphorous and nitrogen but at low levels within our plant permit. But since thats all that feeds it, it may have more than most. So no need for any pond fertilizing here. With the extra nutrients comes the filimentous algae, but luckilly this year the algae has not been bad and i only treated the pond once and it looks like it may not need another treatment this year. Thanks for the comments guys, it would be nice to see if i can get this pond turned around and make it a little more fisherman friendly. I work tonight maybe i can get a few pics of the pond to help let you guys see what i have, especially the water flowing in.


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## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

The first pics shows where the water flows in and the others lets you see a little of what it looks like with the island in the last one.


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## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

A nice bass from the pond. Had to turn camera to side to get a good shot. 
 

I had one tonight that was real red inside the roof of its mouth and its fins were kinda yellow, first i have seen of that. Was almost dark so no pic. Saw 3 15" channels swimming where the water flow in and caught one on a crankbait about the same size.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

The short version: Remove cats, stock hybrid stripers, and rearrange structure if needed

The Long version:

Gizzard shad make excellent bass food. The problem is that they outgrow their predators way too fast (unless you have 4 foot bass) and they reproduce like mad. Large females may broadcast nearly half a million eggs during a spawn. I'm not sure how they got in my pond but my first thought was to drain 3 years of work and start over. I stocked hybrid stripers and they've kept the shad in check. Actually, numbers of shad have been dropping each year since they wipers were stocked. High densities of gizzard shad can actually suppress reproduction of other fish with hormones and as Fishman said they can put a pretty big dent in the bottom of the food chain.

Hybrid Stripers are schooling, fast, open water predators and are much better suited for the open water nature of the shad. They also have relatively small mouths so they eat volumes of small fish rather than big meals like largemouth prefer and reduce the chances of the shad reaching spawing age. Maybe with less food and having a competive disadvantage in open water, the bass will return to areas they're easier to catch. I'm sure you'll find the stripers put up plenty of fight too. I love smallmouth but I think if one was hooked tail to tail with a wiper it would end up with it's gill plates turned inside out.

I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of disagreement from others for the following but here it goes:

Structure is not necessary for bass growth. They will grow great in a swimming pool if they can get enough food. The main purpose of adding structure is to attract fish to a spot within easy casting distance for the fisherman. Too much structure and the fish have too many options. Rockpiles attract more panfish than bass. Tiles will occasionally hold bass but are better suited for cats and is very likely why you're channels are able to reproduce as you suspect, I'd remove the tiles. Ideal bass structure is standing trees with large protruding limbs in less than 5' of water. 15% of shoreline is recommended most often. Maybe stand the tiles up and attach some big PVC "limbs".

A little bushy dense cover is good for baitfish survival though. Sounds like you have some. It should be dense enough that a bass can't easily chase baitfish though it. Cover is not necessary either for good bass growth. There are plenty of near barren looking lakes that produce enormous bass. I like to see 5% in bushy cover, 10% is max... we don't want to let the prey grow too big to eat.

I think soil and water gave you excellent advice on managing the weeds. I also think you have the setting for a terrific fishery.


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## Marshall (Apr 11, 2004)

Thanks for the follow up. Bottom line is i need to get the wipers in there to get this shad under control. I agree i have a great resource at my workplace and just want to try to make the best of it. Its private so i have no worry of people trashing the place and taking all the nice fish. (Right now if someone sneaks in good luck catching the bass Ha Ha!) I may be able to take up a collection from the guys at work (the ones who fish) and buy them wipers with not a whole lot out of my pocket which would be great. I appreciate all your help pondfin and fishman, thanks a ton!


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