Alright - I'm having some problems. My in-laws made a nice 1/2 acre (maybe a little bigger since it was made during june and it's june again) tank and stocked it with channels/crappie/shad on June 12th of 2008. Well I have been gone for about a year, and I come back expecting to see a nice tank full of fish and in return I only get what appears to be an empty tank.
There is some vegetataion growing and I see plenty of turtles/crawdads - but I've fished the tank religiously for the past 4 days and I haven't had a single bite or seen anything. I wasn't around when the tank was stocked, but the guy doing the stocking said the tank would support around 500 fish (based of species/size of course) yet I seem to be missing something. I've thrown a castnet all around the blooming thing and havent caught any fish and a day ago I baited out a spot with floating game fish food and got no action.
Anyone want to give me some ideas? Any help appreciated.

Is the water a green color like it was a phytoplankton bloom. Shad need a bloom to do well in a pond. If there is no bloom I doubt the shad lasted more than a few months. Stock some bluegill to provide forage for the other fish.

I can make some educated guesses....

If you've fished 4 days and have used some worms or other bait duirng that time and have nothing to show, its likely there aren't any fish in the pond.

Possibilities are 1) the pond was never actually stocked 2) it was stocked with 500 cats and they grew some and all died out...way too many fish 3) it was stocked and fished out by someone else.

Not sure where he came up with 500 fish....no way for 500 cats in that small of a pond(that's about 10 times too many and enough to cause problems with lack of oxygen). Shad, if they were ever stocked, quickly disappeared. Crappie, if they were stocked with the cats, they may well have been all eaten.

#3 isn't likely because even if fished hard, some would be missed. So, I'd look to #1 or #2...if you are sure it was stocked, and the only way to be sure is to see the fish released in the water with your own eyes...then a fish kill may have wiped out the overpopulation.

You might want to consider someone else for stocking in the future.

According to the paperwork it was stocked with 80 3 inch fingerling channel cats, 1000 shad(average # - maybe more or less), and 100 Black Crappie.

The vegetation is something they call pondweed - and it looks like normal stuff to me. I see the stocking order and I have pictures of it being stocked so I don't really know what to do. I cant imagine someone else fishing it that hard since it's 1)outta the way and 2) behind barb wire/locked gate.

I called the company that stocked it today and they told me the living conditions might not have supported a suitable habitat and to check the pond pH level and take a sample of the water to get it checked. It's somewhat clear...nothing out of the ordinary looking. Thoughts?

Start over. This time with bluegills and minnows first. Give them a while to get a good population of forage fish growing before you stock anything else. Build some forage fish structures and put them in a few areas of the tank. Doesn't hurt to throw a little commercial fish food in there every day or so.

Then you will you want to stock your other fish.

I doubt that it is totally barren but figure a crappie or cat ought to bite.

Neither crappie nor shad are right for 1/2 acre. If the crappie did die off, they are lucky. TPWD recommends not stocking crappie in anything less than 25 acres. The fish seller ought to have known better.

Like Davy says, start over with bluegill and fathead minnows. I see no problem with stocking some small cats with the forage. However, I would wait until Fall and cooler water and air temps. Survival in this kind of heat is pretty chancy.

I would most definitely get a water test before re-stocking.....but first I would try the following..

If you have access to bluegill in a friend's pond, catch a couple of them and put them in a five gallon bucket of your pond water. Use an aerator if you have it, but ok if not. The bluegill should survive overnight without any problems...with or without aerator. Just keep them in a cool place. If they die, something is wrong with your water and you should do a full water test, not just for ph levels which vary considerably during a 24 hour period anyway.

I still say you should use someone else for your stocking...anyone stocking 100 crappie in 1/2 acre pond without any minnows isn't doing you any favors at all. They will starve to death quickly. Shad just won't survive long in most 1/2 acre ponds.

Wait until fall before trying any re-stocking efforts.

Alright lark - I caught 3 blue gills and I have them setting in my garage inside a old fish tank full of the pond water. Its only been 2 hours - but they look ok. I'm doing a lot of research and it looks like my in-laws kinda got swindled by this guy doing the stocking - but I guess they just trusted the wrong fellow.

Thanks for all the advice/help folks - I really appreciate it. I guess I'll report tomorrow on the bluegill...

How did they do, RTW?

RTW,

I have a few questions that might seem silly but here we go...

Do your inlaws live on the land the the tank is on?

How much did the water level change in the last 12 months?

I have a good friend who's father lives west of Krum and he has an aprox acre tank, it looses so much water that nothing can survive. this last year it almost disappeared. But right now it is full and the average person would think it's teaming with life.

my uneducated on these matters opinion says that if you threw a cast net and there were no perch at all....it's barren

Put a perch trap in it baited with crawfish or range cubes. If you have nothing in a couple of days, it's definetly barren. I trap perch for cut bait in a pond down the road from my house and can catch about 20 to 30 in 1/2 a day. I use a clover leaf trap. It seems to work the best.