How do fish get in the pond ...

[blueriver]

A couple years ago we built our second of three ponds, we stocked it with Channel catfish. Today my grandson asked if he could fish it, I told him go ahead and good luck ... well he caught a a hand full of catfish ranging from 8-12 inches and I was fairly proud of that ...

And then he caught a Bass and they where never stocked ... so how do they get there?

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

wading birds (like cranes & egrets) transplant fish and frog eggs when they visit different bodies of water.

 

[brin]

I have a pond and have had the same thing happen , my only guess is herons or ducks fly in and bring fish eggs or an actual small fish unless it is a spring fed pond and they get in that way. I am curious too..maybe someone has a definite answer.

 

[blueriver]

Well I have both the visiting birds and all 3 ponds are spring fed ... guess I need to let him fish the others ... you should have seen his reaction when that base hit !!

 

[kthompson]

We recently bought fish to stock pond and the person I dealt with sort of said they can have other types of fish mixed in at times. Guess tanks may not get totally cleaned out of such. He did not give details.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Ive dug test hole in the woods on some jobs looking for soil types and hav an open pit that was woods have fish in it a month later. also in wet weather seen a few skidder ruts get minnows in them. I think they travel with birds and other animals.

 

[blueriver]

AND another thing ... thats a pretty good sized bass, can they grow that much in a couple years?

 

[Bird]

Ive dug test hole in the woods on some jobs looking for soil types and hav an open pit that was woods have fish in it a month later. also in wet weather seen a few skidder ruts get minnows in them. I think they travel with birds and other animals.

In the early '50s, we had a place with a small pond (stock tank) that would not hold water. It filled up with the Winter and Spring rains each year, was only 3 or 4 feet deep, and would dry up every summer. But every time it dried up, there would be a bunch of 1 to 3 inch minnows there.

 

[MarkV]

AND another thing ... thats a pretty good sized bass, can they grow that much in a couple years?

I was thinking the same thing. That is a good size bass for a pond that was built a "couple" of years ago even if it was stocked. There must be a food base besides the catfish in there also.

MarkV

 

[Mike120]

A couple of years ago we had a real wet spell, and I found minnows in one of the puddles in our old dirt arena. My daughter still has some of the "arena fish" in a tank at the barn. They're pretty hardy!

 

[MossRoad]

A couple years ago we built our second of three ponds, we stocked it with Channel catfish. Today my grandson asked if he could fish it, I told him go ahead and good luck ... well he caught a a hand full of catfish ranging from 8-12 inches and I was fairly proud of that ...

And then he caught a Bass and they where never stocked ... so how do they get there?

That bass is more than a couple years old.

 

[blueriver]

I was telling my 73 year old neightbor about it this morning ... he went to laughing and then came clean ... He said last year he dropped a half dozen small bass in there ... NOW I KNOW the rest of the story!!!

 

[iplumb]

I was telling my 73 year old neightbor about it this morning ... he went to laughing and then came clean ... He said last year he dropped a half dozen small bass in there ... NOW I KNOW the rest of the story!!!

Too funny

 

[MossRoad]

I was telling my 73 year old neightbor about it this morning ... he went to laughing and then came clean ... He said last year he dropped a half dozen small bass in there ... NOW I KNOW the rest of the story!!!

Funny story.

Not to be a bummer or anything, but you know bass will keep the catfish from reproducing unless you provide places for the catfish to hide their babies? Catfish keep their babies herded up in a ball. A bass will eat the entire ball in just a few gulps. As I recall, closed end clay pipes, barrels, cans, etc... will provide places for the channel cats to hide the babies. Your local extension agent should have information on it.

 

[blueriver]

Funny story.

Not to be a bummer or anything, but you know bass will keep the catfish from reproducing unless you provide places for the catfish to hide their babies? Catfish keep their babies herded up in a ball. A bass will eat the entire ball in just a few gulps. As I recall, closed end clay pipes, barrels, cans, etc... will provide places for the channel cats to hide the babies. Your local extension agent should have information on it.

No bummer, thanks for the heads up! I will be in contact with the extension agent ... I needed something to do anyway!!!

 

[MossRoad]

No bummer, thanks for the heads up! I will be in contact with the extension agent ... I needed something to do anyway!!!

Good for you. I don't have a pond. I wish I had a pond. I have researched everything I need for a pond for about 30 years! I have everything I need except the $$ to dig the hole! I grew up on a small lake. As a Boy Scout I did a stint with the DNR killing all the fish in the lake in the spring and then restocking it in the fall. I did a study in it before, during and after. Around here they almost always stock lakes with bass and bluegill in proportional numbers. The theory being the bass keep the bluegill in check. They also stock channel cats in lakes with established logs, stumps and structure where the cats can hide the babies. Otherwise, they are just stocking the cats for catch and release they will rarely reproduce.

Unfortunately, around here at least, there is a phenomina where they stock bass, bluegill and channel cats... three months later you will catch perch, pike and crappie... due to people wanting those fish instead of bluegills. They throw them in. Perch and Crappie rarely do well in small lakes. One perch can lay 60,000 eggs. Both eat minnows. No minnows and they turn to eating each other and bluegills. Then about a year or two after the restocking they start seeing huge schools of shad! Turns out it is bass fishermen that are the culprits for the shad. They think they know how to make the bass bigger... by releasing shad into the lake. What happens is the shad reproduce faster than the bass can eat them. Once a shad gets over 8-10" the bass don't touch them. Then all those shad eat the food that the bluegills would normally eat and the bass eat the shad instead of the bluegill. The bluegill are small, the shad are everywhere and the bass never get to large sizes because there are too many fish eating the forage.

Any given body of water can support X pounds of fish life depending on the nutrients suplied to the water. So, for example, let's say your pond can support 1000# of fish. That can be 10,000 on tenth pound fish, or 1000 one pound fish or 100 ten pound fish or any combination of the above to get your 1000# of fish. Its kind of neat to study. I wish I had my own pond to experiment with.

 

[DocHeb]

I was telling my 73 year old neightbor about it this morning ... he went to laughing and then came clean ... He said last year he dropped a half dozen small bass in there ... NOW I KNOW the rest of the story!!!

One of my friend's fathers used to live in a subdivision, and his next door neighbor had a built-in pool. Every spring he'd sneak some bluegills or a couple bass under the cover so that when the cover came off, there would be a suprise. He had amazing control of his laughter since this went on for years - every year the neighbor would be scratching his head. It was the 30" Northern Pike that went in one year that gave it away...

 

[blueriver]

Good for you. I don't have a pond. I wish I had a pond. I wish I had my own pond to experiment with.

Around here anyone with 20 acres or more can go to the USDA, make application and if you qualify for the pond....up to 75% cost share

 

[MossRoad]

Around here anyone with 20 acres or more can go to the USDA, make application and if you qualify for the pond....up to 75% cost share

That's how I got my trees planted... through our state forestry program that plants trees on highly erodible soil. Got 2150 trees planted for $265.00 after the state reimbursed us for 75% of the costs.

 

[blueriver]

That's how I got my trees planted... through our state forestry program that plants trees on highly erodible soil. Got 2150 trees planted for $265.00 after the state reimbursed us for 75% of the costs.

Yep, now you just got to sign up for a pond ...