# pond - fish



## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

Ok, Here are two fish from my 2 year old pond. 
1st. Can you tell me if this is a male gill? 
2nd - the perch is one of I think 20
My question is this. I want to produce bigger gills, I have no bass and seem to have at least 4 saugeye in there. There has been an abundance of gills spawning the past 2 years and it is full of them! 
SO! without hurting my small group of perch and my saugeye should I introduce some bass to handle the gill situation? 
thanks
Mike


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

here is the perch.


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## dugworm (May 23, 2008)

Nothing wrong with that size gill!


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

How big are the saugeye? I'd put some bass in just to get rid of some of the smaller gills. Maybe even throw a couple CC's in.

How big is your pond?


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

My pond is 2/3 of an acre. I have at least 4 saugeye, that I have caught recently. Biggest is around 24 inches. All healthy but get thin in the summer, seems to happen in a lot of ponds around my area. 
I would like to put some bass in it, but definitely don't want to hurt the perch population and the saugeye. 
Funny I have 1 channel in there, my dad threw it in one day and I have seen him a few times but he hasn't hit anything yet. I am guessing he is around 25 inches by now.


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## rustyfish (Apr 27, 2004)

Gills are not like bass, most of their life they eat the exact same food. Even a large gill will mostly eat the same thing as a small gill. So if you want large gills then reduce the number of small gills by adding bass. 

Or you can start feeding your your fish. This obviously cost money and time. It can also lead to water quality problems if you over feed. And once you feed your gills for a while, if you stop it will be hard for them to adjust. But it is the best way to build a large population of large gills that are easy to catch.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

ying6, stocking a pond with large predators right off the bat is going to make it really hard down the road. If you stock small bass now, a lot of them will be eaten (defeating your purpose). The saugeyes and that big cat will try to eat everything else (and I'd bet they are). They say a perch is a lot easier to swallow for a predator than a gill just because of its body shape. I'd put 10" to 12" bass in now to eat your smaller gills , but they should leave the bigger (gills) ones alone.

I dump twenty plus pounds of fatheads in my pond every spring to fall to keep my predators happy. I'm taking the CC's out when I catch them and am going to try to replace them with saugeye this winter ( because I like eating saugeye better than catfish and the CC's eat way to much). 

One more thing, put structure in your shallower areas of your pond to give some of the spawn a chance to survive (food later on).


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

I am starting to think that saugeye do not have gills 3-5 inch bluegills on their diets. It is very interesting to catch an eye that is only eating flatheads.


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## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

I can tell you from experience that if you don&#8217;t get more predators in there you&#8217;ll have a pond full of 2-3&#8221; bluegill and perch within a few years. I&#8217;m dealing with that now, and it&#8217;s going to take years of work to get the pond healthy again. Four saugeyes and a catfish aren&#8217;t going to make a dent. I&#8217;ve put around 10-15 large channel cats in my pond (similar size) and it&#8217;s made no difference what-so-ever. It use to have quite a few saugeyes, but they never made a dent, and over the years I suppose they&#8217;ve died out. I take my boys fishing a couple times a week, and it&#8217;s rare to catch a fish over 5&#8221;. The last few years the bluegills seem to have been taking over. The pond started with nothing but perch, and the bluegills showed up about 5 years ago. Now we catch one perch to every 30-40 bluegills.


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## JimmyMac (Feb 18, 2011)

Let someone come and catch them for catfish bait. 

posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

Thanks,
I am going to head over to the pond just south of me and pull some bass out to get some of the gills out. 
Any suggestions on size of bass and amount I should transfer?


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## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

Anything you can catch or allowed to take.  Some people will worry about the larger bass eating the larger bluegills, but even though the larger bass can physically eat the larger bluegills, with the abundance of the smaller bluegills they seldom will. Not only are the larger bluegills harder to eat, they&#8217;re much harder to catch. For the most part, they&#8217;ll be safe. Losing a few won&#8217;t hurt anything. 
I try to catch flathead bait from my pond a few times per years, and to be honest it&#8217;s really tough to even get flathead bait. They&#8217;re just too small.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

ying6 said:


> I am starting to think that saugeye do not have gills 3-5 inch bluegills on their diets. It is very interesting to catch an eye that is only eating flatheads.


Ying6, What are saugeyes going to eat in your pond (especially as big as the ones you put in)? I said predators (not just eye's). If I'm misreading your post, I apologize. But farm pond "eyes" have gills on their menu also. The fatheads I feed release a little pressure on the smaller spawn for the (10lbs) spring and (10lbs) fall. 

Got to take your time ying6, 

By the way, Ive never caught an eye that ate a "flathead" that I could prove J.K.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

Ying,

I assure you the top predator in your pond even if you put in bass will be those saugeye.

The few saugeye that Josh put in my pond are the healthiest looking fish in the pond. They are fat and feeding very well and I'm very sure their forage are the small gills and crappie. 

I have a high population of small bass, 12", and a big population of very large gills. There are no small gills that last very long in my pond with the bass, larger crappie, cats, and now those 3-4 saugeye. Even the black crappie in my pond are a food fish for the predators. I have a population of crappie from 9-14" and very few smaller ones. They spawn every year but the little guys don't make it very long. I would not want to be a small gill or crappie swimming around in my pond!

If you want big panfish you need a higher population of predators to keep their numbers low. If you want big predators you need a big population of food fish and low numbers of the predators. 

I decided I wanted big panfish and haven't removed any bass so there are a bunch of smaller ones. If I wanted to try and grow some big bass I would remove a bunch of the small bass every year.

A feeding program for the gills will accelerate their growth plan


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## Big Joshy (Apr 26, 2004)

I dont know how deep your pond is but its possible that the few saugeye are getting stressed by high water temps in the summer and stop feeding and thats why they get skinny. Lundys pond is smaller like yours but 80 percent of the pond is over 10 ft with a good size area over 13 ft. Plus it may have a spring since it resists icing in the winter when some ponds have 4 inches his will have 1".


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

Well, I did it. I caught 10, 10-12" largemouth and put them in the pond. The pond runs around 6'1/2 most of the time. A couple shallower spots. We found some sand in the spot where we wanted it to be the deepest so it changed the layout quite a bit. I have a windmill for it and it does keep it circulated. Since the pond is only a couple years old the vegatation around it is still being created. 
Josh, you are right on about the eyes. They do get really skinny in the summer and do not look well at all if you catch them during that time. Now this spring, they looked good. the gills looked fantastic (those I could catch) and the perch looked strong too. I hope these bass keep the bluegills in check and that will be it for most of the fish I put in the pond. I had a real hard time not dropping in two black crappie last night, both around 12"'s. But I decided to make them dinner. 
We will see how this transpires.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

ying6, Don't worry about some black crappie in your pond. They don't spawn like the white crappies do. Your predator fish will need some younger fish to eat. So put some structure (Christmas trees, branches etc.) for the spawn to hide in till they get older.


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## ying6 (Apr 21, 2004)

The black crappie didn't make it to the pond.. I decided to let them go in the grease. We have 4 or 5 trees in the pond, I also have a nice big branch - from a very large tree that I put in there. I have to figure out how to get the cat tails out now.


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## Fishin Finatic (Oct 22, 2010)

Since cattails grow above the water I use Roundup or a generic. Just spray the leaves that are above the water. It will kill them clear to the roots. Used to have a big cattail problem. Tried cutting them off underwater and keep them cut off under the water and this worked but too hard for an old man. The roots are almost impossible to pull out and you will never get them all. I spray them and kill them before they seed in the fall. My pond is now cattail free until ducks or geese come in this fall with seeds from another pond. When I see them I just spray them and they die.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

^^^Ditto^^^... And I still don't know if its "chiggers" or another type of pest that stay in those cattails, but they will have you scratching for a long time

OOPS, Just re-read this thread...Sorry guys, I forgot to put Rodeo in. I just use Roundup in the driveway and around the borders of the house.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

If bass are not a priority, stocking female only bass for bluegill control would be a way to control the overabundance of gills without introducing the problem of managing a bass population...but I'm a little late to the party.

It is illegal to use Roundup on cattails if they're in the water...or within 3' of the water.

There are glysophate based products that are legal...it's not the "active ingredient" that's damaging, it's the surfactants in most of the products not labeled for aquatic use.


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## leupy (Feb 12, 2007)

Looks like several of us on here are now felons, not me of course. I just put up a sign saying no cat tails allowed.


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