This is a photo of a small pond that I have managed for 10 years for a neighbor.
You can see the grass line and can see where the water line is when the pond
is full. The water line never gets higher due to the overflow area being large
enough to handle run off. This pond has never been stocked with bass. I stocked
it with channel cats, blue gill, warmouth and crappie 10 years ago and to stop
the level from getting lower than it is now, a private well supplies water due to
livestock utilizing the pond for drinking water. I have harvested channel cat in
the 10 & 15 lb range and they are very healthy. Crappie up to 3 1/2 lbs at a rate
most would argue with. I have witnessed their grandkids catching crappie numerous
times that I could hardly believe. When I stocked the crappie 10 years ago, I put
15 crappie in ranging from 3/4 lb to 1 1/2 lbs. In 10 years, hundreds of crappie
have been harvested as well as numerous channel cats. Very few gill and warmouth
have been harvested for consumption. I did stock 10 lbs of fathead minnows one
time. I do feed floating fish food periodically and test it often to check on the
health of the fish. The crappie from this little pond are very good eating and the
channel cat on a fly rod are very good eating too. The depth of the pond is 16' when
full. Last year it got a little lower than this before they turned the pump on. The
livestock keep it a little stirred up, but the fishin' is always good.
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