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