Everybody loves a good fishing pond, and the winter drawdown provides more than just a mechanism to balance the predator-prey relationships. The banks and shallow regions of the pond offer pond managers an ideal situation to improve spawning grounds and shallow habitat.
Basically, every fish in the pond relies on shallow regions to provide certain needs, including: spawning habitat, foraging grounds, protection and thermal warmth. Even though many fish species may spend most of the year in deeper water, at some point, the shallows play an important role for the productivity of these species.
For starters, pond managers should remove beds of unwanted vegetation, including noxious cattails, water hyacinth, alligator weed, phragmites and others. Beds can be raked out with farm equipment or even removed by hand. After removal, the plant parts should be destroyed and not introduced to any other water resources.
Every pond needs shallow water, and banks can be graded to create more spawning and shallow-water habitat. Over the last few years, drought conditions continue to impact the shallow regions of many ponds, eliminating many of the critical spawning grounds needed by many fish. Existing spawning ledges exposed by drawdown can be graded some in certain areas to insure enough habitat is available during deficient rainfall.
Additionally, the pond bottom can be altered with applications of sand and gravel to provide better substrate for spawning fish.
Crappie prefer vertical structure to lay their eggs. Tree tops and other woody structure can be anchored along these shallow areas, providing both spawning habitat for crappie and structure for fish to live around and feed on.
Beginning shortly after drawdown, habitat improvements should begin and be completed as soon as possible to allow the soils to stabilize before raising the water level.
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