Troutman Park Fish Kill

I visited a separate pond in Fort Collins on Saturday that had a similar kill event. I found hundreds of dead shad all along the shoreline. There are carp and crappie in this pond as well, but I didn't see any dead on the shores. I was wondering the same thing about the oxygen levels.

Shad are pretty easily killed. Might not be a total fish kill in that second pond. Did you fish that pond? usually when the shad are dying off like that everything else is gorging on them!

I wondered about that too, because I know shad die off seasonally, I just thought it typically happened during a different time of year. Regardless, there's not a lot of fish in that pond besides carp, some small-ish crappie, and apparently shad, so I didn't see anything taking advantage.

AM Fisherman - thanks for submitting the update, and posting this.

Sad to hear this! I always enjoy fishing this pond in the spring with spinners!

Several years ago I came across a smaller scale winter kill on that pond. One fish was a ~20" bass.

My guess is that this pond is more susceptible to a winter kill maybe due shallow depth. Since we had earlier snow and ice that might have pushed this pond over the edge.
Another small city park pond that I skipper also had some winter kill, but not as much.

We will probably see more of these small ponds affected this spring.

rjib, yeah the whole pond killed pretty much. I haven’t caught any bass above 18 inches there but there’s a possibility of hopefully rebuilding the ecosystem there soon. It def sucks, I liked that spot too.


Also, what pond were the dead Shad in? I might have fished there recently...

Here’s some photos: