Looking for info on HSB in ponds. Check out this thesis link - study. It was the basis for a peer reviewed study which some may have. This is the longer version with some interesting charts on things like water charts on where they ate and avoided and how they effected other fishes including a regular LMB/BG pond.

http://uaex.edu/wneal/pages/Publications/Publications/manuscripts/thesis.pdf

Thanks, Eric. I hadn't thought of the importance of an insect diet on an essentially pelagic fish.

I bet he was sick when the fish kills occurred.

I wish I'd have seen this last night . Now I've got to wait 'til I get home to look at it - the firewall or something at work won't do .pdf files .

WOW! 68 pages of "Good HSB Stuff".
Thanks,

Ed

Good HSB paper. I wish he could have avoided the fish kills so he had more data. The most interesting thing I got from the paper was the possibility of controlling black crappie with HSB in a pond without a lot of cover. The size of these fish dramatically increased. (P59) If someone could experiment with the right numbers this might be a means to a crappie pond.

PFF,

That's the problem in a nutshell...what are the right numbers of HSB?

The problem with crappie and HSB, as I see it, is the variability of the crappie spawn...one year low spawn, next year prolific spawn. HSB would seem to me to be the best predator to choose for a crappie pond, but how do you stock them? Stock for the worst case scenario, i.e. assume prolific crappie spawns and stock high HSB predator numbers so that in some (perhaps many years) the HSB starve and no crappie recruitment.

Or, on the other hand, stock best case scenario and assume low crappie spawn and get over run by that one big spawn because of low HSB numbers...or just split the difference and roll the dice?

That's why I gave up on crappie...and I'm the type to try most anything in a pond...anything, that is, that can be managed. Unpredictable spawning equals way too much management, for me.

Perhaps the way to go with HSB/Crappie would be to stock the HSB for the most successful Crappie spawn possible, and support the HSB numbers with feeding during years the Crappie don't spawn well. ML, do you think HSB can be "turned on" to pellets for a year like this?

Really a very good idea Theo! The HSB could be kept on pellets and increase or decrease the amount according to how many small crappie were in the pond. Wouldn't it be nice to have a pond with 1-3 pound crappie. You could add removable cover when you needed some more adult crappie but keep the pond almost devoid of cover for medium size fish when the population was in balance.

PFF,

Give it a try...experiments are really a great way to learn and to help others learn. I've done several over the years and have two ponds tied up with different ongoing experiments now. I'd sure like to hear the results.

Theo,

Good thoughts. However, I'm not sure how the pond manager would know in a timely manner what the results were of a given seasons crappie spawn. Seems like without shocking/seining there would be a time delay in information availability....like a growing season before you knew what actions need to be taken. Shocking/seining aren't tools in my bag of tricks, but maybe there is another way?

Yes, I believe that a HSB would resume feeding on pellets with a year time lapse. They are really the most pellet adapted fish I have dealt with...of course no cats in my pond.

More importantly, the problem I see is that one will still fail to achieve the objectives of large plentiful crappie. My reasoning: if HSB are accoustomed to crappie, they will get after them as a first choice and in those down years for crappie spawn, with HSB stocked for the max, they would eliminate virtually every crappie offspring and result in failure to achieve objectives. Even with pellets, the HSB would also get first choice of other forage fish that a crappie might need to achieve desired weight gains. The down years could be consecutive and many. The whole point of the technique was to raise 1 to 3 pound crappie, not healthy HSB. It still looks like a crap(pie) shoot to me. Comments?

PFF,

I know this is getting a little off thread (and maybe weird to some) and maybe I'll get moderated out, but as strange as this may sound to you, I view the TGG as a "virtual" crappie but without the spawning unpredictability problems. If they reach the 2 pound threshold as advertized, if the HSB control the offspring, as I believe they will, then they will be my virtual crappie...to be caught, enjoyed many times, and eventually eaten and replenished. That experiment has a long way to go, but for me, in addition to satisfying an objective for Kid's fishing, I look at it as a possible source of a crappie like fish that fights better than crappie, is more aggressive than crappie, grows almost as large but faster, and can be managed much easier than crappie. Time will tell the story...but there is a lot more to the TGG experiment than just kid's fishing, for me.

Meadowlark- At the rate my pond is filling with water, I will be lucky to see it full in my lifetime. I may have started a 100 year drought by building a pond. I am more of a virtual pond keeper and experimenter at the moment. I am real good at thinking up experiments for others to try! especially someone on a journey to 9 ponds and 17 acres (I can't remember the real numbers)! Maybe we could put our heads together and make a pond computer game. I could really experiment then!! :p I have never been a crappie man myself. I like catching a huge catfish or HSB right on the edge of losing them for several minutes. I have just seen several people wanting a crappie pond and thought maybe that paper gave some insight to control.

It's gonna take more than just you and me to solve the Crappie problem, ML (especially since neither one of us is stocking them at the moment :rolleyes: ).

I've still got lots of the HSB MS Thesis to read. What really, really surprised me was the small (<0.5") size of the BG, etc. that the thesis shows HSB preferring, IIRC regardless of HSB size .

I swear I saw that study before (the autobiography at the beginning is hard to forget), but I wasn't "ready" to digest it at the time. Now it's like it's such a good read, chock full of interesting facts, and pretty easy to understand .

Why does that surprise you? Ever look at the mouth of a 4 pound HSB? If the study had included Tilapia it would have been much more interesting.

The CW has previously said that LMB can consume prey up to 40% to 50% of their body length; that HSB can consume prey perhaps 25% of their body length. This just did not prepare me to see them prefer prey only 1/2" long.

They must be an awesome consumer of very small sunfish.

What kind of direct or indirect evidence have you been able to observe of HSB eating larger sizes of Tilapia (say, during period leading up to the Winter die-off)?

Most of my evidence comes from stomach samples and just plain old observation.

It is my belief that HSB consume large quantities of small Tilapia...in addition to the small BG as observed in the masters thesis. Tilapia, in my ponds, like to spawn in shallow areas, but love to hang out all over the pond including areas near very deep water that offer some food they like.

Also, my belief is that larger Tilapia are consumed almost exclusively by LMB and especially during the die-off. LMB are amazing in what they can get inside that mouth...we've all seen pictures of LMB with another LMB in its mouth of comparable size...and LMB with duck feathers hanging out the mouth.

HSB consume the Tilapia up to about 4 inches in huge quantities, I believe. That's why I said the master thesis wasn't nearly as interesting as it could have been, to me, if Tilapia had been included.

I understand perfectly. Personally I would have loved to see more info on what HSB would do to a large GShiner population.

Here is another bit of interesting HSB info from :

Comparison of Bluegill Consumption Rates by Largemouth Bass
and Sunshine Bass in Structured and Nonstructured
Artificial Environments

CHRISTOPHER W. HICKEY AND CHRISTOPHER C. KOHLER

Wild Largemouth Bass versus Wild Sunshine Bass

Largemouth bass were more adept at consuming
bluegills than sunshine bass in the presence of
structure ; bluegill instantaneous mortality
rate was significantly higher for largemouth bass than for sunshine bass predation.
Conversely, consumption on bluegills by
largemouth bass and sunshine bass was similar in nonstructured tanks .

Wild versus Pellet-Trained Predators

Sunshine bass.—Wild and pellet-trained sunshine
bass in structured and nonstructured tanks
consumed bluegills at similar rates in their respective treatments. Bluegill instantaneous
mortality rates in structured tanks did not differ significantly between wild and pellet-trained sunshine bass; similarly, in nonstructured tanks the bluegill instantaneous mortality rate in the presence of wild and pellet-trained sunshine bass did not differ significantly.

ewest- What is meant by bluegill instantaneous mortality and how does that affect the rate of consumption?

PFF I did not want to put the stats as they get confusing. The chatrs/tests were based on 120 hour tests. One % natural morts were assumed and the rest were predation. Here is the method used.

An analysis was performed on the daily prey counts to generate bluegill instantaneous mortality rates. We performed a simple linear regression on each treatment with loge(number of bluegills remaining + 1) as the dependent variable and time (h) as the independent variable. Bluegill instantaneous mortality (Z) was derived from the regression under the premise that slope = -Z (Van Den Avyle and Hayward 1999). In the absence of fishing mortality, all mortality is considered natural. A higher value of Z indicates a greater mortality rate, which in turn is directly related to the foraging success of the predator. The resulting slopes of the regression lines were tested for heterogeneity using the general linear model (ANOVA). Significance for all comparisons was set at a @ 0.05.

PFF scratches head, reads for third time scratches head again. Does this mean that the HSB were just as successful as Bass at bluegill predation when there was no cover in the pond?

In this study that is exactly what it shows. In tanks not ponds. The reason I posted it was that it shows that pellet trained HSB and wild HSB are almost equal in there BG predation with or with out structure.

PFF check your email.

Ewest I guess the big question is what is lake of structure? Does this mean covered with standing timber or just a few humps, points, rocks and couple of fallen trees. I have mentioned to ML but in my expereince even in ponds with moderate to low cover the HSB could not control bluegill. Keep the science coming though, I read it ever chance and appreciate your time in finding and posting.

As noted in the title and post above it was a tank study. I need to be clear -- the study was not about nor did it even deal with the question of " can HSB control BG #s". It was about wild and pellet trained LMB and HSB in both open and structured water and their feeding on BG.

ewest - since this is a fairly long read, did they test different types of structure in the tanks? Say wood or rock structure vs. aquatic vegetation structure and how this might have an affect on predation success? I have read that BG tend to shoal more and in larger groups in the presence heavy aquatic vegetation making it tougher for LMB to successfully capture BG. I wonder if this would hold true with HSB too.

Nine tanks were randomly fitted to about 50% coverage with structure consisting of 1.0 m2 of artificial vegetation comprised of buoyant 0.9-m polypropylene string uniformly attached to rigid 6.5-mm polyethylene netting fastened with silicon-based caulk to tank bottoms. The artificial vegetation loosely floated to the surface and split the tanks into nearly equivalent halves, one with cover and the other with open water. We provided each of the structured tanks with an artificial stem density of 500 stems/ m2; nearly double the threshold level of plant density (276 stems/m2) experimentally found to reduce foraging success of predators on bluegills rates.

Thanks ewest! I'm just trying to figure out if HSB would do well or not in our vegetation choked pond.

Ask Bruce he has seen the pond and knows HSB in your area. I bet they would do ok if you were feeding as well. Assuming enough forage for all predators.

I'd be really interested in a water temp. profile for late July to see what kind of environmental stress the HSB would be under. It is very likely that they'd have plenty of oxygen, though.

Bruce, the more weed cover there is the cooler the water temps are as the shallow water areas are typically shaded, basically any depth under 6ft doen't get much sunlight beleow the surface. Based on just surface temperatures with the fish finder on my boat I don't think I have ever seen any surface temps over 87-89 degrees.

I'd consider the possibility of a conservative stocking of HSB.

If you stocked 6-8 per acre, you'd be able to observe feeding behavior, body condition, angler return and possible mortality to decide if you wanted to put more in later.

You'd have next to nothing invested since you'd be only paying about a buck per fish. (I hear you paid $50 each for the smallies )

Does anyone know the cold water tolerance of HSB?

I don't think I've ever had any HSB survive my winters which are 3-4 months of complete ice-over.

I live in NJ and people stock them in my area. I also know that they are stocked in lakes above Easton. I hope that helps.

Here is some info.

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/300fs.pdf


Hybrids survive and do well in a wide range of environmental conditions. A temperature range of 4 to 33 C (39 to 91 F ) is acceptable, but optimum growth occurs within a temperature range of 25 to 27° C. Hybrids are generally stocked into freshwater systems but they do well in salinities of O to 25 ppt, and some can survive salinities up to full strength seawater (35 ppt). Dissolved oxygen levels as low as 1 mg/l can be tolerated for a short period of time, but optimum dissolved oxygen levels range from 6 to 12 mg/1. Hybrid striped bass are stocked into a variety of water quality situations with regard to alkalinity, hardness and pH. Alkalinity values of 100 mg/1 or above are preferred but levels less than 20 mg/1 are suitable. Hardness and alkalinity are usually related and similar values could be given for hardness. A pH range of 7.0 to 8.5 is optimum for growth, but a much wider range is tolerated. Hybrids in culture ponds have survived repeated exposure to a pH of 2.5 for short periods of time.

HSB in Nebraska do great even in winters that have 2-3 months of ice.

I don't think it does much for overall growth rates, but I don't think it kills very many either.

Sunil,
You are about 330 miles east of me but at a much higher elevation. Our HSB did really well over last winter but we didn't get much ice. I would think they'd do fine but I was glad to have a relatively mild winter for their first year in the pond.
Chip