Do smallmouth survive in smaller ponds 7 acres or less? ive never caught any in ponds so i was wondering

Highly unlikely

i see posts that say people are catching them in small ponds and i always wonder if it is really smallmouth they are catching.  i live in va and fish a lot of small ponds and rivers and have never caught a smallmouth in a pond.  

matt

They can exist in small ponds.

Not sure how they originally got there but I have a small pond near my house 4-5 acres and it has smallmouth in it.

Yes, I do know what smallmouth look like and I am not mistaken them for some other fish.

The pond is small but gets 25-30 ft deep in the middle.

The only spot I can catch them is off one specific point that goes into or near that deep spot.

I have fished this pond for 20 years and caught maybe 10 smallies or one smallie ten times.

So yes it could happen. Probably not very likely but possible.

There's a guy around here who has stocked several small subdivision retention ponds with smallies (caught out of the river I believe).  (And I'm not telling where... )  I've fished only one of them, about 4 acres.  He stocked 9 fish in there two years ago.  The other day, my buddy caught 14 in about an hour (I only got 2, but they were FUN!).  Some were smaller than the smallest ones stocked, so they successfully spawned.  I can't say what will happen in the long term.  And I don't know if the fish are "happy" in that pond.  But, YES, absolutely, they can survive and reproduce in a small pond.  

And yes, they are definitely smallmouth...

They absoloutley could survive in almost any body of water if it holds proper spawning habitat and is deep enough. So basically, a 10 ft. deep pond with rocks and gravel will hold smallies. I know a "lake" that we fish that is about 5 acres. We catch sunnies, largemouths, pike, and SMALLMOUTHS. They are actually quite plentiful

in ponds up here in michigan i have caught two out of this pond one was 24 and one was 20 and a half and i know the difference between bronzebacks and largemouth..i do tournaments and catch both. but ya the guy said someone stocked somthing in his pond a long time ago and he didnt know what and i think thats what it was..im going to try and post the picture when i get it back from his wife. and thers also alot of  18 and 19 inch largemouth in there also. but the two biggest havebeen smallies.

i certainly did not mean to imply that anyone in particular did not know what a smallie looked like.  just that ive read post about smallies coming out of swampy ponds in the deep south that seemed unlikely to be properly identified.  i guess that they can do ok in ponds if they are deep enough and the water dosent get too warm.

matt

From what I have read smallie's can live in a small (acre or so) pond as long as they don't have a lot of competition for food. Put ten smallies and ten LM's in a small pond and the smallies will be gone in a few years. Again this is from what I have read and I personally have no idea.

There are some small spring fed, cool water ponds here in the Ozarks where people have stocked both smallmouth and rainbow trout. That would be an awesome backyard pond- Smallmouths for fun, and smoked trout right out of your own pond.

Found this-http://www.sepond.com/SMB.html

In my old hometown theres a rod and gun club that my dad and I used to belong to. They have a pond that's about 4 acres and it's full of smallies.

I fish a small lake/pond in the shenandoah valley here in virginia. Lots of the locals seem to mistakenly call the largemouth out of this lake "smallmouth", most likely because they haven't fished anything but the shen. river which has very small numbers of largemouth that can only be caught in limited locations but has tons of smallies. They might just not know the difference.

I cannot say they won't be in ponds.  Smallmouth like current and I have never seen a pond with current.