Ponds, fish, and Great Blue Heron

[CajunRider]

My local ag extension told me that 3/4 acre is the minimum pond size for natural balance of bass, cat fish, and blue gills. Anything smaller and I have to choose between catfish/bass and give the fish supplemental feeding otherwise I will either have stunted fish or too few fish.

 

[Dadnatron]

We've had a about 3" of rain over the last week or so. The pond is completely full and running out the overflow pipe for the first time since we've owned the place. When I bought it, it had a big break in the dam and the water was about 4' lower than it is now. I dropped some dirt into it, just thinking to slow down the breach a bit. Well, i just kept going and going, and built the dam up so it should completely refill. Left a spillway on virgin soil as lowest point. I was surprised when I drove out to do some work, and heard water running through the overflow pipe. Checked over my 'dam building' work, and everything was dry.

Now that it is so full, I wish I would have taken the time to pull a few things out when it was low. There are a couple steel posts and a regular post out there for some reason. They used to be almost completely out of the water, now they barely peek through the top.

Since I am going to redo the pond in a year or two anyway, I wasn't worried about building the dam extremely well. But at least for this moment, it looks like everything is in good shape. Lots of frogs and the Heron were playing cat and mouse all weekend it seemed.