Thread: Pond management

Don, my lake is a little over 4 surface acres. The deepest part is about 32-35 feet. Usually bait shops sell shiners. You don't want to stock them in your pond because they will grow to be full size shad. Fathead minnows only grow to about 3-4 inches and spawn 6-7 times a year. Yes, you can use them for crappie fishing as well and crappie LOVE them!!!! Before I stocked the bass, I never bought minnows for bait. I'd go to the lake the evening before going fishing, put out a minnow trap with a half a piece of bread in it. The next morning, the trap would be slap full of minnows!!! Dump about half in a minnow bucket and pour the rest back into the lake.

DD....this is a touchy subject, but IF you decide to do grass carp to control excess vegetation, IF you do, DO NOT over do it. For example: If "experts" tell you that one per acre is what's needed, and in 3-5 years it'll be well balanced, DON'T put in 5 per acre to get it done quicker. It is a process that MOST folks greatly over do. My little 1 A. pond has ONE grass carp in it, and it does just fine. He got to be about 3 feet long and I took him out and put a 10" replacement in. Smaller fish eat more than the larger fish do in this regard....or so I'm told. A friend had a beautiful 5 acre lake that got 'weedy'. Conservation guys told him to put in 4-5 grass carp. He put in 15...wanted it done in a hurry!! In less than 3 years they had eaten all the vegetation around the shore line and the lake began to silt in dramatically. He almost lost it!!! Just a friendly FYI..