There are dozens of ways to mismanage fish ponds and most fishermen believe in one or all of them. Fortunately the wrong techniques are more complicated and more difficult than the few essential practices which produce good fishing in farm ponds. Few people know what conditions exist within their ponds or what conditions should be like.

First, it is essential to protect each pond from muddiness and too much water. This could be done by selecting a site on a small drainage area and keeping it well vegetated. Pond management is chiefly water management where fertilization is a hopeless task if the pond continually refills with fresh water and washes out that which has been fertilized. Of course, the construction would have to be water tight and safe.

Second, it is essential to keep a pond free from weeds, grass, brush, trees, and other debris or obstructions. Fishing is more pleasant and successful. More fish will be large enough to use. The pond area must therefore be cleared completely before water is impounded; and shallow water will be troublesome. High ground should be cut down to avoid rapid weed growth.

Third, it is essential to fertilize pond water. Submerged water weeds and mosquitoes thus can be kept out. Fertilized waters produce a heavy yeld of fish, and make fishing more successful. Between 500 and 1,500 pounds of 8-8-4 chemical fertilizer is required per acre annually. Without fertilization a pond will be no better than ordinary.

Fourth, it is essential to begin with approximately 100 bass and 1,000 to 1,500 bluegills per acre. More is too many.A few adults won't do and no other kinds of fish have yet been managed very successfully.

Fifth, it is essential that a pond be fished - removing usable fish by hook and line - without regard of spawning season, size, kind, or numbers.The number of pounds removed will govern the number of pounds produced. The food, formerly consumed by those caught, then becomes available to those remaining. The fish themselves will limit the angler's catch, leaving a big margin of safety in breeding stock.

Stocking a well-fertilized pond with less than 100 bass per acre is wrong. Any southern pond without bass is no good. Stocking with adult bluegills in numbers substantially below 1,000 per acre is wrong (if the pond is well-fertilized).

Stocking ponds with crappies, catfish or any species other than bass and bluegills is not likely to produce continuous fishing. No other combination is as simple to manage as bass and bluegills.

Brush and trees in a pond neither increase the fish nor make fishing better. Sand, gravel, or rock piles for spawning are entirely unnecessary. Pond fish will spawn adequately without them.

Addition of golden shiners, gizzard shad, top minnows and other "base food" is unnecessary. The small bluegills and bass provide adequate food and will eat all mosquito larvae in weedless ponds.

Screens across spillways are dangerous and largely unsuccessful. Little fish washed out even in great numbers are of no consequence - there will be that many more produced. Large fish go out only with deep flows through spillways - a condition avoidable by making wide spillways that spread the overflow thin (no more than three to six inches deep), and by avoiding flood waters, either by deversion ditches, or still better, by selecting sites on small watersheds.

Kingfishers, herons, fish ducks and other birds have no material influence on fish in farm ponds. They eat only little fish of which every pond will have plenty. Only in hatcheries where thousands of fingerlings are kept in relatively little water are such birds undesirable.

Planting of water lilies, mosses or other water weeds is of course detrimental. More fish are produced in weedless ponds than in those that are weedy.

Running water to "keep it fresh" is unnecessary. The plant and animal life together with the sunlight maintain a healthful condition for fish, livestock and people even in waters which have no "fresh" water entering.

Leaving stumps or putting wire, posts, broken glass and other impediments in ponds to "keep some so-and-so from seinin' all the fish out " makes wading, swimming, and fishing unpleasant. Very few ponds can be seined heavily enough to reduce the brood stock substantially. Depth is usually sufficient guarantee against harmful seining.

Draining a pond to "dry it out for weeds control" is not successful. Weeds that live beneath the surface can be killed and kept out with shade resulting from the dark green coloration of fertilized water; the roots of water lilies can be exhausted by cutting the leaves as they reach the surface of the water (several cuttings are necessary as exhaustion proceeds slowly); and cattails and similar "edge weeds" can be kept under control by pulling them occasionally as they appear. Bluestone(copper sulphate), calcium arsenate, and other chemicals are not desirable for weed control as some weeds are not harmed substantially, chemical poison kill fish foods, too, and the "successful" results are but temporary.

Feeding with stale bread, grain, or other foods is less efficient than fertilizer, and contributes little to the poundage of fish when fed in the small quantities usually given. Five or ten pounds of such foods will probably produce one pound - to add to the 500 pounds per acre supported in fertilized water.

The use of manures, cottonseed meal, hay, or other organic fertilizers is not so successful or productive of fish as the use of inorganic chemical elements. Organic materials support the undesirable pond scums.

Closed seasons or "protected areas" are quite unnecessary in conservation of pond fish. In fact, the spawning beds of bluegills should be located and heavily fished if a high yeld is to be harvested. It is foolish fear to refrain from catching fish whenever they will bite.

It is not necessary to fish the bass and bluegills in proportion to the original stocking for the purpose of keeping a balance. The bass will maintain a correct balance whether the owner takes only bass or only bluegills. To enjoy full use and to harvest the usable surplus, however, both bass and bluegills should be fished;the possible yeld is approximately three pounds of bluegills for every pound of bass.

A narrow belief has grown up that "cathing the big ones" is the foremost (and to some, the only) objective of fishermen and fish producers. To a size-hungry fishermen, one should suggest the Gulf of Mexico or either the two oceans bordering the United States. Now that pond owners know how to produce more fish, it is time to recognize as "master fisher" he who can produce the most pound of fish per acre, and catch delightful strings of fish frequently. Most people like small pan fish, and like to catch them, too, if the braggart and the contest winner don't bully them into embarrassment.