frogs in pond and snakes

Question
Hello, this is a little bit of a long winded question:  I put in a pond last year and had 7 large goldfish that multiplied into about 40, I had 5 frogs, and within a couple of weeks I noticed I was down to 3 fish, and 1 frog.  I soon realized I had a couple of snakes that were frequenting my pond!  I found them in my pond while I was moving plants around to find my missing fish.  My pond is approx 150 gallons, not large, so I asked the local garden place what to do, they suggested a small holed netting over the pond.  There is a space about 5 inches between the netting and the water.  The snakes now can only sun themselves on top of my pond.  HA HA HA , but now I am concerned because I have since put 3 additional frogs in my pond, and they have disappeared.  I am worried that they may not have gotten enough to eat by being kept inside the netting.  What do you think?  If so How can I keep the darned snakes out as well as cats, fox and racoons (they are around as well)if I take the netting off.  HELP PLEASE.  Thanks

Answer
It would help if you could identify the species of snake.  What do they look like?  If you go to enature.com, you can see species and compare to the ones you saw.  Some snakes, like garter snakes, may eat a few small fish or frogs but are not going to make a huge difference.  Now, if you have a true water snake, they can eat big fish.  See my page at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/pmamm.htm to see a photo of a water snake eating a huge (by comparison) sunfish.  The netting can keep out larger snakes but also keeps in the frogs and restricts their movements.  I have netting over my big pond partially to keep out herons.  The frogs often get stuck in the net so be aware of that.  Frogs will wander so it's always possible that some of them just walked away.  The fish, of course, did not. I would not rule out herons or raccoons as culprits in addition to the snakes.  Provide some floating platforms and dry areas between the water and the net for the frogs.  If there are just a few snakes, you may be able to catch and relocate them depending on how good you are at that sort of thing!  Water snakes will stay until there's no food.  Other snakes may come and go.  Good luck!

Robyn