The Avid Angler: Pond Management

This area of the website came about because one of my friends is trying really hard to improve the fishing at his family's old three acre pond, and another of my friends is building and stocking a new ten acre pond. The articles posted below are a result of research I did for each of them about stocking and maintaining small ponds. I'm still learning a lot about this facet of fishing, but I find it fascinating and appreciate any feedback anyone with experience in pond building or management might have.

This twelve acre pond in southern Laurens County, Georgia has been specifically managed for big bass, and the owners have done a terrific job. By consistently applying high levels of fertilizer, fattening up the bream with feeders, managing the catch rates, and adding a mechanical oxidizer to keep the water in balance, in only five years they have created a big bass mecca. (Check out my Pond Management Page for more information on how to manage a pond for big bass.)

On Saturday, Dave Harper and I caught about thirty bass and virtually every one of them was over two pounds and several around four pounds. They fought aggressively, pulled hard, and jumped big. You can tell these are healthy bass, and they're only going to get more massive in the next few years.

One of the owners was there with us and he saw I was catching several fish in a row with Wave Worm's Tiki Stick -- which is the Wal-Mart version of the senko. (WaveWorm's TikiStick knock-off of the original Yamamoto Senko runs only about $4 for a pack of 10, so I've started using those for
wacky style fishing unless I want a special color or size from Yamamoto.) In any case, he told me to smell the bag of worms, and I noticed a distinctive familiar smell but couldn't place it until he told me to think of licorice. Sure enough, that's exactly what they smell like.

He said that licorice smell comes from anise oil . Back when he started bass fishing, he got a bottle of anise oil and added it to his worms as a "secret scent" fish attractant. WaveWorms (a company that, despite its South Pacific-style marketing, is actually based in Lake Fork, Texas *website*) says their worms are "Molopo Infused" but "Molopo" is apparently just a created name for anise oil.

I'm interested in some of the equipment the owners of the pond have used to keep the pond in balance while adopting a heavy fertilization program, so hopefully after a little more research I'll have another post on this topic.

The Shuman family, along with an adjoining landowner, hired Mr. Sutton to convert two streams and a wet bog into this beautiful ten acre farm pond in northern Laurens County. The pond now fills the old valley, but measuring three feet deep across most of the expanse, some family members wonder, is it deep enough? Opinions vary, so see an upcoming article on this topic. Once the pond itself is finsished, the next concern is to get the stocking ratios right to create a prime bass fishery. The Shumans have opted for Gorilla Bass shipped from Alabama. I'll post an article about this strain soon.

Jeff Davis's family has this three acre pond at their farm outside Dublin. The pond was constructed in the 1970's and is 18 ft deep at the dam. It's spring-fed and the water level never drops even in drought years. If you look closely at the picture, you can see where Jeff and his brother Josh and friend Rob chopped and sawed down the brush along the banks and pushed the debris into the water, creating a great bass habitat. Problem is, the pond's now over-run with tiny, tiny bass, a very common problem in small ponds that don't get fished enough. As you can see from the articles below, Jeff and his friends are working hard to get the pond back into balance to grow some bream slabs and hefty bass. If you click on the picture, you can see Jeff on the tractor showing how big he wants his pond bass to get.

4-18-2005. This evening I went fishing with Jeff Davis IV at his family pond, and we spent some time discussing an issue he's been having with the pond -- almost all the bass weigh in under a pound, really under 3/4 pound. We spent a couple very relaxing and fun hours harvesting some of those small bass (they jumped all over a 4" red Senko texas-rigged weightless pulled through the shoreline sticks)--

Small fish culled from pond. 5 comments   

But then I got to thinking, maybe I ought to do some research to make sure harvesting the small bass is the right thing to do. Here's what I found about small ponds with lots of small bass:

When you want to improve bass quality in a pond, you have to think about the sunfish population, because the relationship is symbiotic. According to most sources I reviewed, if a pond is left unmanaged -- with no fish harvests for many years-- you end up with many small bass and many small-to-medium size bream.

Abundant panfish compete with each other for food, and growth slows. Likewise, as sunfish sizes becomes stunted, the bass end up spending more energy catching the little sunfish than they actually derive from the morsel meal itself. Fingerling sunfish are eaten by small bass, and small but hungry sunfish start eating bass eggs and fry. Everybody's hungry, everybody's thin.

This is apparently the problem with Jeff's pond. The solution suggested by the sources referenced below is pretty simple . . . The rest of this article is here .

Four issues for a new pond in construction:

(1) Q: How many bass, redbreast, and bluegills do you start with?
A: These two reputable sources both recommend 50 bass fingerlings & 500 bluegills per acre or 50 bass fingerlings & 350/400 bluegills & 100/150 redbreast

http://www.cfr.msstate.edu/courses/wf4313/pondart.pdf
http://georgiawildlife.dnr.state.ga.us/

(2) Q: When do you stock each of the fish species?
A: Both sources suggest that you stock the sunfish in the fall and then wait until spring to stock the bass fingerlings

(3) Q: After stocking, what about fertilization?
A: The GA DNR says expect 50-175 pounds of fish per acre without fertilization and 300-400 pound of fish per acre with proper fertilization. That's obviously a big difference. Their suggested method, however, includes fertilization every three weeks throughout summer for a total of about 12 applications per year. It's outlined in the on-line pamphlet Managing Georgia Ponds available at the link above.

(4) Q: Any steps to take before stocking?
A: Sources recommend killing all fish in the pond before embarking on a stocking program, to get rid of any trash fish. Application of rotenone is a common method. The DNR suggests waiting two weeks for detoxification of rotenone applications when temperatures are warm and a month or more when temps are cooler.

Other suggested links about pond management are available at the post in the April Archives labelled "Small Bass at the Jeff Davis Pond".

Printer-friendly version of article is here.

The following information about stocking small ponds comes from Ted Will, a senior fisheries biologist with the Ga Dept of Natural Resources. I have added photos and links to related internet sites.

Most people manage a pond for Bluegill and Largemouth Bass, so with that in mind, here are other species that interact well and poorly with those primary two.

(1) Shellcracker, common name for the redear sunfish. Below is a picture of a recent record shellcracker, weighing in at over 5 lb, caught at the diversion canal between Lake Marion and Lake Santee-Cooper in South Carolina by a man from Appling, Georgia.

Here's a link to the article that describes the catch.

Shellcracker live a little deeper in a pond than bluegill, and don't spawn as often, once sometimes twice a year. . .

The rest of this article, including info on grass carp (pros and cons) and other species is here.

Here's the second post reporting on Ted Will's recommendations for ponds under 10-15 acres. Mr. Will is a senir fisheries biologist with the Ga DNR.

Do Not Recommend List:

1. Crappie -- for ponds under 15 acres, crappie will over-populate and take over the pond.



2. Green Sunfish -- they breed like rabbits and compete with the more-popular bluegill. Here's a picture of the Georgia state records green sunfish, caught in April 2004 and weighing in at 1 pound 4 ounces:
   
3. Hybrid Bluegill -- this fish is a combination of bluegill and sunfish, they get huge and aggressive, but if you put them in a pond, that's all you're going to end up with . . .
   
   The rest of the article, including info on flathead cats and other species, is here.