ponds.....what say you ,also, Rick?

[lee s]

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We kinda are thinking about the local ponds we frequent. Run-off pollution from hillside poop spreading by the dairies, in general, seems to effect all the inhabitants of THEIR ponds. The ponds belong to the dairies, so.......?
Anyways.....We were thinking of the ponds we see go to poop as far as big BG's and it seems that it may start with the indiscriminate take of LM's by "workers" who harvest to supplement a very poor income. They seem to harvest almost ALL the LM's they can catch, and have little interest in the BG's. And this in turn seems to let the small BG's proliferate and it seems quite detrimental to their population. I guess what we're thinking is that the harvest of big bass (or any bass) is more detrimental to the BG's than any BG's we do harvest.....within reason.
Somebody told us once that a pond will produce only so many pounds of fish. It is our choice if we want 100 - 1# fish or 10 - 10# fish in the pond......?
We had a chance to fish a "new" pond in Wa. state (Kaholotus, WA.) some time ago for about 6 years, at it's start, before it was "irrigated" up. The interesting thing was to watch the BG's go from a general size of 6 3/4" - 7 1/4", the first year we were there, to about
7 3/4" the next and about 8 1/4" the next and up to about 9" where they seemed to level out. THEN they drained it too low for irrigation and we lost our informal study lab. It was a hoot while it lasted though. It would have been interesting to see where it finally leveled out for fish production though.
Just more fodder....
...lee s.
...........
An email we sent discussing some ideas as to ponds and BG's recently.
We are kinda of the thought that it generally takes more than direct harvest of BG's with a wad and a wand, to effect BG's. Maybe not in public water, but in the private ponds we frequent, where, I would guess angler harvest to be mediocre at best.
I guess what we're thinking is that, to have big BG's, it is more important to have 10 - 10# bass than 100 - 1# bass so to speak. Or I guess, the key to producing big BG's (public water or not?) is predation.....and big bass are mush more effective than us at predation..... Make any sense at all?
Rick, you pester private pond a bit, yes? Your insight along these lines.....?

Always curious....
......lee s.

[white43]

Lee, I'm not Rick but I'll chime in. Back in my home waters of MO there are almost a half million ponds by DNR count. Fish are stocked by some formula that will supposedly give the water balance, something quite delicate especially in such a small body of water. Herein likes a problem: most of those fishing the ponds have a couple of tenants in mind -- they want to catch the biggest fish, and they want to eat that fish. Typically that is a bass. Seemingly few stand on a pond bank angling specifically for bluegill, greens, etc. Many even put those fish back in the water while stringing a limit of 2-3 lb. bass. When I was growing up the harvesting formula was something that for every pound of bass you needed to harvest something like 20 bluegill. I'm old and don't remember it verbatim. Many, many of those ponds are underused, and those that are fished are quite out of balance because of the harvest of mid-sized bass. Now Rick fishes these much more than I do, and he probably does a great job for his sharing landowners because he does target bluegill and crappie therefore helping maintain a balance between. However a more typical midwestern farm pond might have a few old bruisers in the 5-7 pound range, hundreds of smaller bass and not many in the mid-range of 2-4 pounds. As many are probably a stunted bluegill fisheries. So the profile will consist of thousands of bluegill up to 5 inches, hundreds of LMB in the 9-14 inch range, a handful of bruisers and a woefully small population of aggressive bluegill-eating mid-range bass. I've seen too many ponds like this. Generally you'll have a pond fished from years 2-5 quite heavily, and when the initial stocker bass are fished out the fishers move on leaving behind a pond that is doomed for a lifetime of imbalance. This is one reasons behind the keep-all-bluegill advisory; it helps maintain some sort of balance. JGW

[lee s]

Thanks JGW,
I guess that is what we were trying to get to.....out of balance. Out of balance (and we are often accused of being just that way! ) seems NOT a good thing.
And we, collectively and generally as fisherpeople, do promote this by harvesting MOSTLY large fish and MOSTLY predator fish, in this situation.
NOW as respectful users (no way could we spell concientous!), we try to rectify this by harvesting all, so to speak, "mid-range sized" of the prolific "food of the pond" species to try to somewhat re-create balance in the pond.
I guess my question is...is this not somewhat akin to trying to catch flatulence and painting it pink.......sorta?
There is a size limit on LM's in Ca. but it seems the deciding factor is spawn related and not predation related.
Seems if resource benefit were the goals of game laws, those goals would best be realized through resource balance and thus better achieved by SLOT limits.
We were wondering also how size limits worked on crappie, another prolific fish. Seems like fishing pressure is not a (the?) deciding factor as to the quality of the few places we pester them around here. Some get much pressure and are lacking, some get much pressure and are good, and some are just there and lacking. Come to think of it, again it is probably balance.
.....lee s.

[ohiotuber]

The formula I heard is to keep 7 lbs of bluegill for every pound of bass, which would pretty much equal your 20-1 ratio, John. I also read once that the "average" pond will support about 200 lbs of fish per acre. Of course, a "richer" pond could support more. That is the reason I am so AGAINST grass amur being stocked...my experience in ponds I have fished with those things stocked is that they don't "control" weeds, they eliminate them. IMHO, that reduces the poundage of fish a pond will support.
I do not keep bass anymore & seldom keep bluegill, except for an occasional fish fry, unless the pond is new to me & stunted. Then only with owner approval.
Mike

[lee s]

Mike,
Like you say, there is more to "balance" than just the BG/LM ratio. And like you say maybe 200# of fish/acre....BUT, with the addition of the grass amur, you probably still have 200# fish/acre.....but it ain't the fish most want to fish for.
Some of our steelhead water here locally is like that. It used to produce
X# steelhead/Y acre water. Now we have changed the conditions and it produces still....but it is X# squawfish/Y acre.
Sorta like, there used to be 90% steelhead water/10% sucker water in the river(s). Now we have changed the envirioment to 90% sucker water/10% steelhead water.....and the fish #'s reflect that splendidly.
....lee s.

[white43]

Grass carp throws a whole new wrench into the works. We all know the situation when habitat is eliminated, and this is what happens with the introduction grass carp into such a small eco-structure as a farm pond. Basically you have eliminated habitat, oxygen producing plants, hidey-holes for any fry that has been produced -- in other words, you have effectively killed the future of the pond. Combine the unbalanced harvest with the introduction of grass carp and you have effectively eliminated not only the balance but also the future propogation of the species, both bluegill and bass. JGW

A pond I wrote about on FAOL was fished almost exclusively by me for the first year. I caught not a single bluegill the whole year, tons of little 2-3 lb. bass and an occasional larger up to 6 lbs (my personal best!). But too many folks saw me there, and they came in droves the next year, which was last year. By fall, I was catching bluegill mostly. Obviously the larger predatory fish had been removed.

It really chaps my butt that people can't see the ends of their noses and only worry about "what's in it for me."

R

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[Rick Z]

I think the balance of a pond is affected by a couple of things.
First is the fertiltiy of the pond. That makes a huge diference in the number of fish the pond can support.
Second is the balance of fish in the pond.
I try to get the folks who own the pnd to put slot limitis on bass, from 12 to 16". The larger bass live on small fish and the smaller bass will do a job on the panfish minnows.
The latest info I have read is for 10 lbs of panfish for every pound of top line predator taken out. That would be bass and catfish in most ponds.

I rarely keep a bass and have been turn back all the gills over 10 inches as they seems to keep the small gills from spawning. I keep all the crappie that I catch.

Hope this helps.

Rick