Maintaining proper density and abundance of available fish habitat is a very important part of your pond and lake management plan.
To help gain a better understanding of how much habitat is needed within a pond or lake, we put together a few examples based around a one-acre pond. You can scale these recommended numbers of fish habitat structures to fit your pond and lake management plan by multiplying or dividing according to your pond size and/or your budget.
As a general rule of thumb 10 – 20% of the total surface area of the lake should be providing some form of available fish habitat.
Examples of available fish habitat include:
In the first two examples we share how much artificial fish habitat would be necessary to achieve 10 and 15% of the total surface area in a new one-acre lake.
Then, in the final two, we show how to take into consideration existing habitat (things like aquatic vegetation and a floating dock) when determining how many artificial fish habitat structures are necessary in an existing pond.
First things first, you need to know how much area your habitat will need to cover, so let’s do some math. Since one surface acre is 43,560 square feet (sq. ft.), maintaining habitat with 10-20% coverage requires 4,356 sq. ft. to 8,712 sq. ft. of area providing available fish habitat.
Determining the area your habitat provides can often be deceptive as it is important to also consider the area around the piece of habitat. Fish that are relating or associating with habitat/cover will not always be in the heart of it.
Oftentimes fish position themselves outside of habitat in order to ambush prey using the habitat for refuge, or when they are inactive, the habitat provides a quick safe refuge if it is needed.
As a result, the area of available habitat each piece of structure provides is greater than expected. Grouping multiple pieces of fish habitat together can further amplify this effect and offer greater available area around and between the artificial fish habitat structures.
When placing artificial fish habitat structures, we recommend placing them in groups of two or more in order to take advantage of the increased area and complexity.
As a general rule, when placing habitat in groups of 2 to 5, the available area provided by the structures is roughly 2 times the number of individual habitats.
Groups of artificial fish habitat structures greater than 5 can have their areas estimated at 2.5-3 times the number of individual habitats.
Example #1:
Example #2:
To help simplify things, here are a few images showing plans based on a one-acre pond utilizing our Honey Hole Trees. This will give you an idea on how many artificial fish habitat structures are needed to provide the proper habitat availability for your fish pond management plan.
Within both of these examples, area was calculated under the assumption that the only habitat present within the lake was the artificial fish habitat - the Honey Hole Trees. There were no natural structures or structural elements that would provide additional habitat.
These examples were aimed to mimic a newly dug pond with minimal contour changes.
Here we have a 1 acre pond, with 10% of the newly placed, artificial habitat throughout. This placement has 38 Honey Hole Trees to account for the submerged habitat.
New Pond: 10% Artificial Fish Habitat Coverage
38 Honey Hole Trees
And for you math gurus, here’s how we got to these numbers:
Next, we have added more honey hole trees to help boost overall habitat coverage to reach 15% of total lake area.
New Pond: 15% Artificial Fish Habitat Coverage
53 Honey Hole Trees
Here is the actual breakdown of numbers based on the recommended placement and clustering we show in the image above:
1 acre = 43,560 sq ft X 15% ~ 6,534 sq. ft. of coverage needed
Using the earlier examples for available habitat counting space between:
If you’ve just dug a new pond, hopefully these examples give you an idea of how much artificial fish habitat will be needed to be within the recommended range for trophy pond management on a one-acre pond.
If you have an existing pond, when calculating the amount of fish habitat coverage you need, make sure to take into account any existing habitat such as: aquatic vegetation, docks, contour changes, etc.
The following example will take these into account and adjust habitat quantities accordingly to maintain 10% coverage of available fish habitat.
Existing Pond with Goal of 10% Fish Habitat Coverage
Supplemental Artificial Fish Habitat: 27 Honey Hole Trees
Within this example, measurements of existing aquatic vegetation and the floating dock were made through use of Google Earth Pro to estimate approximate coverage.
The combined area from the dock and aquatic vegetation was roughly 1,400 sq. ft. and reduced the minimum habitat coverage from 4,356 sq. ft. to just under 3,000 sq. ft. needing to be composed of artificial fish habitat.
Here’s a breakdown of how it’s calculated:
After decades of installing habitat in ponds around Texas and Oklahoma, we have found that the ideal coverage or fish habitat for a lake is 18%. When you achieve 18% coverage, you are providing ample habitat for your forage fish to feel safe and great opportunities for your bass to feed.
In this final example we took into account the already existing habitat (aquatic vegetation and floating dock) but increased the total habitat availability within the pond to 18% of the total area. This is to represent an ideal habitat availability and composition utilizing both the Honey Hole Tree and Honey Hole Shrub.
Existing Pond: 18% Ideal Fish Habitat Coverage
Supplemental Artificial Fish Habitat: 43 Honey Hole Trees, 18 Honey Hole Shrubs
Put your math hats on! Here’s how we got to these numbers:
Habitat diversity is important to consider when putting together a habitat plan.
Establishing a mixture of more complex refuge style habitats such as aquatic vegetation or Honey Hole Shrubs with more open ambush structures such as Honey Holes Trees provides suitable habitat for all species and age classes.
Floating docks provide mostly shade and mixing additional habitat near a dock is recommended, especially when around deeper water.
For more detailed information on habitat placement you can check out our other fish habitat blogs, including “Habitat Placement for Bluegill Production” and “Designing the Perfect Bass Habitat”.
Hopefully this article has given you a better understanding of how we design fish habitat plans for trophy pond management and you can take this information and apply it to your own lake management plan.
The beauty of artificial fish habitat is that you don’t have to purchase it all at once. These numbers are to give you a starting point for how much habitat is needed to provide the recommended coverage. You can purchase some over time and add to the pond as your budget allows.
Creating a fish pond management plan for the first time can be overwhelming and confusing, but it doesn’t have to be. At Pond King, we are here to help! Call or contact a member of the Pond King team with any questions or needs determining how much habitat is necessary for your lake or pond.
We’ll see y’all down at the pond!