We have an acre or so large pond. Previous owners said it has been stocked routinely in the past but from their guesses it had been 10+ years since stocking. We have tried fishing it on and off (not very frequently) over the last 5 years with no luck. It’s been on the back burner treating and taking care of it so we just thought it was empty or things have died. We started filling in a little area so there’s a beach on it we can sit by and utilize. Since doing so we must have caused some interruptions in there and we’ve found 2 dead fish within the last week. After no fish for 5 years 😂 here’s 1 picture. Google lens says different fish each time and it’s hard for us to tell with it being dead. Also any tips on taking care of a farm pond with fish in it, greatly appreciated! We have some plans but we didn’t really think there were fish in it anymore so this changes things a bit.
by Pitiful-Driver-5709
10 Comments
My guess is a bass of some sort, congratulations on the successful pond! You’ll have eaters in no time.
Pretty sure it’s a rock bass
That’s a blue gill
I was gonna say piurch but im not sure
This is a rock bass. You can tell by the size of the mouth, the shape of the body and the darker blotches on the back. These guys don’t get too big but they’re vicious predators and super fun to catch, especially on ultralight gear. I’ve heard they’re good to eat but haven’t tried them myself
Birds poop out viable fish eggs when they land to drink.
You’ll have random fish show up often as the birds drop off eggs.
Dead.
Rock bass or maybe pumpkinseed
Could be a bluegill despite what people are saying. When things die the colors change you know. It’s academic anyway because a rock bass is a type of perch, not a bass. Perch do eat well but you need a lot of them to make a decent meal. In terms of care, well it’s hard to give you any recommendations without seeing the pond and it’s watershed, and what you want from it. Generally though it’s a good idea to put submerged obstacles in it in a couple places so young fish have cover. A stack of pallets or dead Christmas trees are popular. If you want catfish, 8 inch PVC 3 feet long with a sealed end is popular cover for breeding. Unless you’re pretty far north or it’s deep and spring fed a pond that size is probably going to be too warm in the summer for crappie or walleye. Spring and fall are good times to stock a pond and not expensive (10″ channel cats are $1 ea by me for instance and I would go with 20 in a pond that size and 20 bass for a starter population). Let them grow a couple years and establish a bit of a breeding population before you start fishing them and their small ones back and you won’t have to restock again unless you get something like river otters coming in and eating everything they can catch. As far as perch, every one of my ponds ends up with perch in it even though we have never stocked perch.
Probably Green Sunfish. Maybe Warmouth if you are in range. Any pics with less mud? Rock Bass will have more than 3 anal spines while the other sunfishes (lepomis species) will only have 3. You could double check if you really want to confirm that Rock Bass ID.
How deep is your 1-acre pond? Climate? Fish management is really going to depend on what can survive in small amount of water and then secondarily what your goals are. Greenies aren’t typically the most desirable sport fish but will survive in places a lot of other fish won’t. They also love to inhale just about any bait or lure they can. Largemouth Bass/Bluegill is the most common farm pond stocking with Channel Catfish underneath. Could also go for bullhead as they survive better but will often stay small. Allegedly they muddy the water. Debatable