NEW IDEAS FOR THE OLD FARM POND

Enlarge Image Image Gallery LARGEMOUTH BASS PHOTO BY DON PFITZER, PUMPKINSEED SUNFISH PHOTO BY BRAIN MONTAGUE, CRAPPIE PHOTO BY GALEN BUTERBAUGH; ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF TH U.S. FISH AND WILDFIFE SERVICE

By Bill McLarney

The farm pond is something of an American institution. After all, we've been building ponds and stocking them with fish for as long as there have been farms in this country. And for good reason: For a minimal outlay of cash and labor, a pond not only provides the enterprising homesteader with a means of home fish production but also furnishes water for livestock and crops, creates wildlife habitats, offers a source of recreation, and adds an aesthetically pleasing element to his or her property.

The considerable virtues of the farm pond were perhaps given their widest acclaim during the Great Depression-Dust Bowl years of the late 1930's and early 40's, when the newly formed U.S. Soil Conservation Service began to promote such bodies of water as aids to soil and water conservation, and as sources of food and recreation. As a consequence of the original SCS program, the term farm pond has come to mean a particular type of pond . . . specifically, a 1/4- to 5-acre artificial body of water stocked with warm-water fish that reproduce naturally within the pond environment. Because food production is just one of the many purposes of the pond, the fish populations are not intensively managed (as they would be in commercial aquaculture operations). Harvesting is done by hook and line, and the fish are intended for home use rather than for sale.

There are now more than two million farm ponds in the United States, and—as might be expected—an orthodoxy of farm pond management practices has developed over the years. One tradition concerns the stocking technique. SCS and state conservation agents almost invariably tell prospective pond-builders to stock their home-scale reservoirs with a mixture of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus). When an inquisitive farmer asks about stocking other fish species, he or she is usually just told that it "won't work". In fact, experimental pond stocking is discouraged primarily for two reasons: First, since certain species or species combinations have been shown to be detrimental to the farm pond ecosystem, a concerted effort is made to avoid those possible groupings . . . and second, extension workers are trained in the current doctrine: Their job is to offer practical advice, not to oversee experimental projects.

However, as this article will point out, there are perfectly suitable substitutes for and supplements to largemouth bass and bluegills . . . and there's plenty of room for more experimentation, too. In the following paragraphs I'll discuss some of these alternatives, as well as a few of the popular fish that generally are not suitable for the farm pond.