How should one harverst fish in a pond?

[Agronomist_at_IA]

Just wondering, I heard that Blue gills can be stunted in smaller ponds from over population. Is this true. And if it is true does one need to just throw the small stunted gills on the ice to die so that the others can grow? Can this happen with Crappies too?

[delmuts]

i'm shure the guys will chime in, but my $.02 .i would be very carefull about doing that( not shure about a want and waste law here) , and only if the pond has be check by a biologist to verify that the fiss are stunted. so many times small bodies of water( lakes or ponds will recieve heavy fishing pressure so that about the only thing left for a while is the little ones til they have a chance to grow up. i would also study the pond to see if there seems to be a good number of preditor fish in it.( bass,northern,cat fish) ! many times i see people throwing little ones away or taking them home to feed cats! when the problem is that the little ones are getting to the baits before the bigger ones , or fishing pressure has decimated the size structure so for the time being that is all that is left.

[Sandmannd]

I don't know for a fact, but I thought I read on the DNR that you can't waste the fish. Fish should either be returned to the water right away or taken home. If they catch you just throwing on the ice I would think there would be some punishment for that. I would let the DNR handle the populations of fish. I agree that the small fish are getting to the hooks faster than the large. That and if the pond is heavily fished, people probably aren't letting the small guys grow.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

Well I should have given everyone more information on this. This is a Farm pond on ground that we own. When it was stocked 10 years ago bluegill, perch, bass were all put in the pond. A few people fish this pond, but not very many. All summer long it sits in the middle of a field with no possible way to get to it unless you want to hike a half of a mile threw a corn field or drilled bean field. So fishing has really only been in the fall or spring. I'm not sure but I think that some of my cousins friends went down there about 3-4 years ago and caught a lot of the bass out of it with larger Rappala's. Once in awhile a fair sized perch can be caught but most of the fish we catch are small bluegill. Any Idea's of how to fix the problem. Would the best bet be to introduce some more bass,catfish, or to do this and harvest some of the littler gills?

[BillP]

I am told that the best way to keep sunfish in a farm pond ftom becoming stunted is: never keep a bass and never throw a sunfish back. Do fish make good fertilizer for corn?

[Maashkinoozhe]

I would harvest the smaller gills and toss back the big ones. Not sure what IA state regs are for ponds entirely on your property, though. You might want to check with your DNR just to make sure - they also might have some suggestions. A lake in Roseville here has been stocked with channel catfish (in addition to walleye) to try to keep the stunted panfish population down.

Dave D