For anyone not familiar with retention ponds, they provide water drainage for the surrounding built up area.  Most suburban subdivisions (especially in low lying areas) have them.  But normally they do not stock them with fish.

We have one next to my complex that serves a newly-built subdivision.  It was a corn field before that and wetlands before the farmer grew his corn.  I've lived next to it for 30 years.  It always had a small area that would collect water after heavy rain but by-and-large it was dry (otherwise the farmer wouldn't have planted there.)

The subdivision's builder dug out this field for a retention pond.  It is now a quite sizable body of water and is surrounded by 10 yards of wetlands grasses, etc. that they do not cut.  An exemplary job by the builder...almost looks like a real pond and the critters have a place to hide in the tall grass.  However there are no fish in there except for the few that may have been thrown in there by locals.  Those poor goldfish probably died soon thereafter because of the oxygen-robbing algae.  But I digress.

Every day I see would-be anglers fishing in this pond.  On several occasions I've approached the anglers and asked tongue-in-cheek, "Any luck today?"  The unanimous answer is "No."  My next question is, "How's the fishing in here?"  I get two answers...."Not bad" and "Haven't caught a thing in here".

To those that answer "not bad", I say "Good luck...I see 'em jumping in here all the time."  To the honest fishermen I explain that it's man made and has no fish because it wasn't stocked.  They look sheepish, but I'm telling them for their own good.

Am I bad?  You betcha! 

At any rate it provides me with a good laugh when I'm taking my coffee breaks next to it.  And I've yet to see any signs of fish so I've got years of entertainment ahead of me.

Moral of the story?  If you're not catching fish choose a different lake, preferably one that is not rectangular.