Green Sunfish

There are several small ponds in Northern California that hosted populations of warm water fish. These ponds were relatively clear and had Gills, Crappie, Large Mouths and an occasional bullhead. Like many of of the small ponds in this area they dry up during drought years. This happened to maybe 5 or 6 ponds about 4 years back and all the fish died. I heard that fish had returned to the ponds and were probably stocked by unauthorized means. I went down to the ponds and fished 5 of them. Two ponds had very clear water and a population of gills and and bass while three of them only had green sunfish and the water was really off color. The murky ponds were quite close to the clear ponds and used to be clear.

This might be the most silly question about these fish . Can the Green Sunfish cause clear water ponds to become muddy?

Thanks, Tim

I highly doubt it. But from what I have seen, greenies can live dang near anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Panman

This might be the most silly question about these fish . Can the Green Sunfish cause clear water ponds to become muddy?

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I'm gonna negatory that query, Jerry. I mean, Tim.

Reason being: green sunfish are like a bass/bluegill hybrid. Larger mouth, high energy, extremely prolific and very aggressive. They eat floating/swimming forage and therefore aren't going to dig around in the silt.

Carp/bullhead population any higher than it used to be?

Found this photo of one of the clear water ponds. It contained gills & bass. It is aout 20 yards wide and not much longer. The ponds that were muddy and had green sunfish were about the same size. As you can see the scenery makes the trip worth while along with the lack of competition. I spent maybe 4 hours and only saw one other rig that being a rancher hauling some cows.

Tim

The better Green Sunfish ponds in my area actually have GREATER water clarity than the average ponds. I agree with others...if something is making the ponds muddy, it is very unlikely that the culprit is the Green Sunfish.

maybe wading cows?

Muddy water solved - maybe. :D

The muddy water pot holes were visited again yesterday. They were still off color despite no cows or rain since the last visit. What my partner & I did was take along some of those infamous garden hackles and determined that the bucklet Brigades had loaded the ponds with bullheads that had manage to reproduce and fill the ponds with 3 & 4 inch fish. We decided that was the reason - bullheads.

Tim

That's a nice looking pond. If it was in NJ then there would be overgrowth surrounding it and 5 guys fighting for the one clear spot to backcast. And 20 bobbers floating around.