A local non managed pond I sometimes fish suffered a fishkill about 2 years ago.A lot of Bluegill, Green Sunfish, LMB and even a few large Koi died. I haven't fished the pond since then. This week I decided to go up and give it a try. On the first day, I threw a Rapala XR6 X-Rap and caught 9 fingerling Bass and one Bass that went 1.4#s.

Today I went back and caught another 9 Fingerling Bass and one that went maybe 3/4 of a pound.

Same lure, same presentation. On some casts, you'd see the fish just scatter, creating a lot of disturbance on the surface.

With what has been mentioned, does it seem like this pond will likely make a good comeback in a few years?

you should check the bluegill and green sunfish populations. if there is plenty of food for the bass the pond could make a nice come back

Hard to say as there are MANY different factors that will play into this equation, but being there are different aged bass, means some reproduction is/has happened since the kill.  Do you know if all the fish died or not? 

 

Jeff

I was told it wasn't a total fish kill but was also told that because the Koi died that it was pretty bad

As said the forage fish is key. I forgot the ratio but you want/need alot more forage than predators.

Well...Bass are cannabalistic...

I fish small waters mostly now, and fish kills are a part of that. Here we have winter kills. They can be partial to nearly complete. It pays to know when they ocurred and how bad they were. The good news is fish grow pretty fast -you can have fun catchable bass in big numbers in 3 years. Oxygen depletion (most winter and summer kills) tend to weed out the larger fish however. And it takes time to grow big fish, at least in the north where I fish. Keep track of the date of the kill. Also, partial kills may mean a percentage of fish were killed over the entire water, or that certain areas were spared. The latter is more apt to have left some big fish.

 

I call this "Boom-n-Bust" fishing. A strong kill often clears the way for rapid growth. I follow my waters closely so I know when a given water is likely to be booming or has gone bust.