Farm Pond Management

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According to a Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks publication, Producing Fish and Wildlife from Kansas Ponds, weight gains are greater for cattle that drink from a source away from the pond than weight gains for that same group of cattle drinking the same water with direct access. Cattle can die in the pond, contribute excrement and basically cause the breakdown of the whole operation, costing you money and destroying a resource in the process. 

Filtering runoff

Buffer strips are easy to install and will improve the wildlife habitat and aesthetics around any pond while serving to keep out silt and excess nutrients. Basically, the buffer is a strip of land, at least 50 feet wide, that’s planted with perennial grasses and trees. Most buffers are planted completely around a pond, but, at the very least, they need to be planted between the primary source of runoff and the pond itself. When working properly, buffer strips absorb runoff and, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, prevent up to 70 percent of sediment from entering the waterway. Further, some growth, grass or shrubbery, can provide an excellent place for wildlife to nest or seek refuge.

If you currently own a pond and there is no buffer strip, now’s the time to construct one. Check with your county extension or NRCS office for best practices in your area. If your pond was constructed with the embankment method, you’ll need a wider strip on the slope above the pond. 

Let’s go fishing

When farm ponds are managed properly and the health of the structure is maintained, recreational activities like fishing are a joyful byproduct, as was the case in my youth.

The key to fish production in farm ponds is maintaining a healthy phytoplankton and zooplankton, along with maintaining a proper balance among larger fish (such as bass, catfish, and crappie) and the smaller species (such as perch, sunfish, and blue gill). Both fencing and a buffer strip help with the first of those two. With the second, you need only fish the pond to understand species balance. It becomes a question of what to harvest and how much.

Smaller species function primarily as food for bass. If the bass have been over harvested, the smaller species become abundant and you’re left with a pond full of tiny fish that are of interest to nobody. If this happens, harvest some. After all, bluegills aren’t bad eating.

Alternatively, if you have an overpopulation of bass and not enough smaller fish, you’ll end up with a lot of slow-growing, skinny bass. Harvest some of those bass.

“That’s what we strive for when we talk about managing ponds or any lake, for that matter,” says Ron Marteney, fisheries research biologist and pond coordinator for the state of Kansas, “balancing that predator/prey relationship.

“You don’t need a biologist to tell you what is going on. If you’re catching all bass that are 12 inches or less, and you’re catching them on virtually every cast, you’ve got too many bass and you need to harvest some of those guys. If you go out there fishing and you can’t catch a bass but you can’t keep the little bluegill off your line, that means you probably don’t have enough bass, you’ve got too many bluegill. Pond management is really pretty easy; it’s just a matter of observation.”

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