Nice looking pond project. I cleaned my pond out a couple of years ago. There were a couple of sink holes that acted like quicksand when I stepped near them. The next Spring I expected to find no fish.....but sure as shootin’... bluegills, pickerel and largemouth bass ( full sized ) returned. They must have been down in the sink hole muck. Oddly, bullheads also appeared though I had never seen them before. They must have come in via the blue heron that visits periodically or the small stream that feeds the pond.
I’ll have lettuce and peas in the ground by the end of the weekend here in southern NH.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that bullheads are inevitable.
The neighbor built a pond above mine and there were bullheads mixed in with the channel cats that he bought.
When we get a lot of rain his dam overflows and the bullheads swim out.
I’ve picked up 30 or more of them from my yard over the past couple years.
Many people can't believe that cranes bring in fertilized fish eggs into stock tanks. They walk in the shallow waters of another pond, tank or a lake where the fish build their nests and the eggs stick to their legs. They go to a new or cleaned out tank, and plant them there.