The Big Bream Small Pond

[SoSalty]

Years back, living in the Bakersfield desert, I looked forward to retiring in Alabama, and putting in a pond. The 5 acres we bought is beautiful, 560' of creek front all to ourselves. But alas, putting a pond in on Sand Mtn became my challenge, only 1 suitable location and limited to 0.2ac in size. While passing the last 2 yrs waiting for my wife's retirement, I had to get a 150 gal rubber maid and a single 4 in Shellcracker, we named 'El Gordo.' Piled rocks in 1 end and stocked it with: grass shrimp, crawfish, snails, rosy fat heads, and red worms (in the bottom sand). He was hand fed live crickets, blood worms, meal worms, and everything nice, no expense spared. The water was filtered, and his tank cleaned as needed.

El Gordo spent much of his time nose down to the white sand or hunted along the rock pile. Every few weeks I'd think the crawfish were gone, then find the remaining skeleton or tail of an eaten 2-3" craw. We'd rarely see the lone grass shrimp. At 8" rosies, the orange fathead minnows, were added. It'd take him hours to work the 3"+ rosies down his throat. The small minnows seemed to avoid getting eaten. He hesitated taking pellets at 1st before developing a taste for them. A local pet store let me clean their aquarians of snails. El Gordo would give 'em a study, suck 'em in, work his phrengals, and then spit the shells 8" out in front of him. Cool. He'd clean the tank of dozens of snails in about a day. At 18 mo he measured 11" and 1 lb. We placed him in a large clear water body where he swam out 5 ft, watched us several minutes, and drifted away. Cleaning the tank, I was blown away, maybe 100 red worms, 200 craws, and 300 grass shrimp, that I assumed learned to hide from the 'hunter' and had remained unseen.

 

[SoSalty]

Actually, this is a shellcracker from the pond several years later. El Gordo was 11 & 1/4" and had a bright red/orange gill flap. I've only a pic of him when he was smaller.

 

[buckdeer1]

We had hybrid bluegill in a pond,I don't know what they weighed but we caught them on 8 inch plastic worms while bass fishing.Then the drought happened.Wheres picture of your pond

 

[Turkey Creek]

We used to catch a few Bullheads out of one of our farm ponds every Spring and put them in a stock tank over the Summer. We would fish the stock tank when no one would drive us to the pond. Catch and release only. LOL!

 

[SoSalty]

Yep, got behind on follow up post/pics. I thought there wouldn't be much clay and budgeted for 40 trucks. We hit a band of grey clay 3-6ft so hauled in only 20 truck loads. At 7ft a spring appeared in spite of it being a dry dry August. Hoping for 6ft we stopped, packed a ft back in and added 2 trucks of lime sand. The orginal 6 4" shellcrackers were from an aquarium. I placed 'em in the shallows, they stayed. I fingered 'em out a little further, they swam back to me. Several generations later the grandfish still follow me when I'm on the bank, the guy with food. The gambusia, mosquito minnow would've made it into the pond but I jumpstarted 'em with a bag of 50. (opps, ran into the uploaded image is too big)

 

[SoSalty]

The original pond came in at 6500sq.ft. about 0.15 acre. Seemed like too much water washed out the fertility in the winter/spring, then it'd get low in the summer. We put in a 170 ft well to help. After burning out several pumps we learned that the well only recharged at a quart a minute, we needed closer to 10 gal a minute. I'm able to pump 300 gal a day into the pond which helps, but only a little. In Oct 2022 I rented a dozer and pushed it out to 8800sq.ft about 0.2 acre. I fought algae mats for years. The algae would start growing in March when the water was in the 50's, too cold to fertilize an' trigger a phytoplankton bloom that would've blocked the sun an' held the algae in check. Once the water warmed to 65 and I could fertilize, it had already taken over and would've been pointless to fertilize. Last summer, 2023, we raised 3 Muscovy ducklings. This spring we noticed no algae from the bank, where it would 1st develop mats, out to 2 ft depth. Our 3 big dipping ducks were eating enough to make it manageable ! Rather than 80% of our pond being chocked with mats, it's a healthy 10%. with the minnows and grass shrimp thriving in the patches. I now fertilize to keep the water at 21-33" visibility.
p1) 3 hens, p2) cat 'n duck hunting voles, p3) Jan '24 view

We added a lone Channel cat and black Crappie to gorge on the Shellcracker fry. On sunny spring days, I count the 8-12" dark spots, Shellcrackers sunning just below the surface, about 22 big bream. Pellet training, though it cost bout $90, was intuitive & easy. (did you spot the deer in Emerald Pond pic in post above? use +magnify)

 

[SoSalty]

Well, why a Shellcracker pond? The pond forage base starts with phytoplankton, tiny plants and algae that turns your pond green. Then minnows, small bait fish, bream, then largemouth bass, usually, and of course there lots more that gets eaten in your pond but you get the idea. At every level, from small to large, it takes 5 to 10 lbs of small forage, for the next bigger fish to gain a pound. So, if LM bass isn't your top predator and you've eliminated a level in the phytoplankton to apex fish ladder, you've got more lbs. of sport fish. Also, if there aren't many species of sport fish, they aren't in competition with each other. Blue gill may feed at various depths and near the surface. Shellcrackers, as a rule, hunt the floor of your pond, at various depths, but not often on the surface. The spawn: Bluegill have a rolling spawn thruout the growing season. Miss a season of culling out those guys and you have a pond choke full of Bluegill. The Shellcracker spawns usually once in May and lays fewer eggs. Population management may be primarily a lone predator fish, channel cat, a bass, or a crappie. Lastly, Shellcrackers grow bigger than their Blue Gill cousins. Check out state records. Shellcracker records, with few exceptions top Bluegill in states that have them. In fact, the Shellcracker world record tops the Crappie world record. Taste: Shellcrackers and Blue Gill are both close second to the Crappie.

Redear Shellcracker 5lb 12oz
Crappie 5lb 7oz

What about pellet training? Blue Gill go nuts when the feeder goes off and Shellcrackers don't, right? The Shellcracker is easy to pellet train. In this video, he misstates, 'fish trained Shellcrackers' intended to say 'pellet trained Shellcracker.'

 

[SoSalty]

Several years and several fish feeders later, I've settled on a Moultrie directional feeder (spray painted). It was 1st used as a minnow feeder. For these Shellcrackers, the 2 gal. bucket needs refilling every 2 weeks. Algae would pop up in mats where it sprayed pellets. I've reduced the setting to throw for 4 seconds at 7am and 7:30pm and use Optimal Bluegill pellets for bream. With the Muscovy ducks and reduced feeding, there're no problems with algae now.
Optimal Bluegill
Some recommend feeding so that the fish feed for 5 min. Some say 10min. When this 2 min vid starts, it's on its' last second and the Shellcrackers are hitting the surface. They slow down after 1 min. At 6min there were 3 surface strikes, then even less. At 15min there were 2 more strikes and the last at 18min. Once trained, the young fish learn to take pellets by watching the older fish.
HungryShellcrackers

 

[SoSalty]

Oh happy day. There was an 11" Shelllcracker after only 3 yrs. I'd recognize 1, maybe a spot near the fin plus it's mannerisms, but it'd disappear. Possibly cranes or snapping turtle. Around yr 6, there were numerous 10.5" to 11". Yesterday I was fishing with worms hoping to get, what should be a 20"+ channel cat, out. [The water remains brown and at 18" visibility. I suspect the channel cat contributes to the dingy water.] Time for him to go but I knew the Shellcrackers would hit in rapid fashion. The 1st was 9.5" but had lost its' tail. The next 2 were 10.5", 1 swallowed the big bass hook! The 4th fought the good fight before getting off near the bank. All hit in less than 30 sec. 1 never made it to the bottom with the string headed sideways right after it sank below the surface. Then this guy. I was using 12lb line but it still took longer than a moment to land him: finally; 12 inches! (with tail pinched in) Three yrs ago, we tried a LM bass who devasted the ponds' aquatic life. No bullfrog sounds, no fathead minnows, or much of anything swimming about. My wife and I caught bream one after another noting that our bass was watching us. At Shellcracker #14 I switched to a bass rig, bam, he hit 1st cast; set the hook, got him in close, pulled up and he spit the hook landing on the pond edge. 1 flounce and he was in 2" water and mud. I dove and manhandled him up on the bank. He measured 18 inches and 4 lbs. The catfish remains in the pond till another day. The solo black crappie probably has a forever home.

 

[SoSalty]

The pond attracts wildlife, but nature can be harsh, vicious, and self-destructive. I dozed the pond out to 0.2ac in fall'22. I asked wife to turn on pump 9/23. It was 220v but I used 2 110v switches. She flipped on 1, then the other. Of course, the pump burned out; my fault. That was at the start of our '23 drought: Sept to Jan. The water level plummeted to 30". Jan hit with unusual single digit temps. Our poor ducks only had a big frozen puddle to dodge predators and we lost our grass shrimp. The fish stressed but survived. Neighbors' dogs targeted our place to run wildlife, including Hop-a-long, our 1-legged momma turkey. Then 5' black rat snake, Angus, found his way into a nesting box when Woody hen tried to hatch out a 2nd brood in June, since she had lost all her April ducklings. Notice the flashing that had blocked squirrels for years, below the nesting box, but Angus had defeated, in the last 'approved to land' pic. Regretfully, I shot Angus, leaving 4' Little Angus to handle mice and other snakes around the pond and house.

 

[Telemark]

The catfish remains in the pond till another day

Try a jug rig overnight with a circle hook and a big chunk of bait.

 

[SoSalty]

The jug would work great. I may leave in the catfish to predate on the Shellcrackers; there's about 30 8in+ in the little pond now and need to cull. Culled a 2 gal bucket of 4 to 7 inchers 9/30/24. Then while targeting the little ones I caught a new personal best. I measured by laying my rod beside him/her and making a mark. Tape measure of rod showed 12 5/8in and maybe another 1/8 if I pinched its' tail in. I'd rather be conservative and state it as 12 1/2 inches, 1.4lb. I couldn't see my phone well and missed getting all the fish, but here's my biggest Shellcracker to date. Fishs' tail is even with heel of size 9 1/2 boot.

 

[SoSalty]

I've completed a long overdue cull. My 2nd 45 min with rod-n-reel, yielded another 2 gal bucket of 6" to 10" Shellcrackers; yes it was fun! (returned a 12" to pond) This week, 2 of us fished for 35 min at sunset. A neighbor and I removed another 14, 7 small to the creek and 7 big ones to his frying pan (he graciously returned an 11&1/4" to pond.) I'm changing pond management to fewer bream so there'll be less algae, clearer water, and be generally easier to manage. So, we've culled 32--5" to 10.5" bream. Brown pellet looking cheese balls didn't work, red fish eggs tricked a few, again they'd hit pronto using red ?green worms from Walmart. There looks as if about 8 or 9--6"+ bream still hit pellets from the feeder. The 12" and 12.5" are included in that estimate.