3/4 surface acres and approximately 4 acre ft of water in East Texas. Just ordered 1000 CNBG and 2K FHM. We're picking them up on Thursday.

The fish hatchery said it's going to be REALLY, REALLY hard to have a blanced BG/LMB pond that small. I've heard this before and now I'm wondering if I should just change our plans up a bit...maybe try to have a "fun" pond for the kids instead of a perfect pond.

We have thought about some CC since we like to eat them. Instead of trying to have a well balanced perfect BG/LMB pond, shall we just stock less LMB this summer and throw in 50 or so CC to the mix on Thursday?

It hard to have a balanced pond BG/LMB pond. The CC will just mess up the BG/LMB combo. It all depends on your goals and what you wish to achieve.

I'd feed the fish if possible, and manage for large BG. Lots of smaller LMB for kids to catch. I have a heck of a time catching CC in my pond, and so does a neighbor. Unless you know a secret that I don't, I'd be leery. They are easier in higher concentrations, but I think stocking CC light = harder to catch more than 1 at a time.

I say large BG because in smaller BOW's, to get large LMB, there can only be a few.

Always such good advice on this forum! We ARE planning on implementing a feeding program, by the way. We are also considering adding a bit more cover than planned to help the BG.

So I should just ditch the thought of adding 50-100 CC in the mix and stick with the original BG/LMB idea? I should also accept the fact that I'm not going to have big LMB??

Essup, what's your definition of "lots of smaller bass"? At the end of the day this pond is for the kids, but I really like fishing for LMB......

I would ditch the CC. You could have big LMB but then you risk your BG stunted but feeding should help with that. Probably lots of bass in the 9-14" range.

how drought resistant will your pond be??

Also what else are you adding for forage, or does the feeding plan eliminate the desire for more bait?

My pond in IN is about one acre when full and about 3/4 acre at the end of summer when it has been rather dry. For a dozen years I had LMB, BG, CC, FHM, GC along with 20 KOI and 6 Israeli carp that died last year from winter kill. With the CC, KOI and Israeli carp I had perfect FA control. The CC had a mossy taste so we didn't eat them.

Hve you thought about Hybrid Striped Bass to go along with your CNBG?
Minimum structure/cover will allow HSB to control over population of CNBG - don't stock HSB until FHM turn the water black and HSB will be forage trained.
Begin feed program second year and then decide on LMB option.

Where in Texas? HSB require high alkalinity and hardness - lime often required in East Texas acidic water.
Good Luck

George provides a very good idea as an option that includes some HSB. Have you ever caught a HSB? Exciting! They are definately more fun than LMB. Once you catch one you will change your opinion of LMB.

HSB will not spawn in the pond which is a good feature. When you need more predation add more HSB; too much predation remove some HSB. You can always add the LMB later if the need arises and the LMB will soon dominate the fishery. If you like this idea ask about densities for HSB and CNBG. You can always decrease the number of CNBG that you orderered. George who has lots of experience with CNBG & HSB in TX can better advise you on numbers of each to stock in a 3/4 ac pond.
HSB homework:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92629#Post92629

14" and under. I'm not saying that all the LMB will be that size, but the majority will be. At the start, the LMB will grow larger than that, but as more and more LMB are in the pond, they will not get as big. My buddy feeds his fish, and wants large BG. We're taking out LMB that are 2#-4#, trying to keep the LMB population under 14".

You could keep a few larger ones in there, but they will get hook shy after a while. The larger the LMB, the fewer large BG you will have.

If you want to have a few large LMB in there, get a tagging kit from Greg Grimes, and tag say 10 of them. Any LMB over 14" that isn't tagged comes out, if it's tagged, it stays in.

Is it possible to be discouraged AND excited at the same time? I feel like I'm married to this pond. Will it always be this way?

George & BC, I have fished for HSB....that's something I never considered or even thought was a possibility. So the HSB will never spawn? You control their numbers/size by harvesting? Can a pond full of large BG co-exist with the HSB? Fascinating....

Essup, so a pond full of big BG and a bunch of <14" LMB would be the result in a smaller BOW? Would I delay the stocking of the LMB in the early summer to allow the BG to get even bigger or would I stick with the June stocking?

Sorry for all the questions....very valuable information and I thank you all.

Who are you getting the fish from? There are good people and bad people to work with in our area.

Yes. Welcome to your obsession.

Brian, Tyler Fish Farm is where we are getting the forage fish from. If we go with LMB we'll use them as well. If we go with HSB we'll get them from Overton.

No successful spawning of HSB - never reported to happen. You control numbers of HSB by put and take. Numbers to put and take should largely be determined by the structure of the BG population. Keep in mind that HSB do not eat as large of BG as LMB for HSB and LMB of same length due to smaller mouth size of HSB. Adult BG co-habitate well with HSB. As worst case condition in a pond as small as 3/4 ac, you could fairly easily manually remove some smaller BG by annually trapping and or seining of the over abundant size classes for example the 4"-6" size group. If there are no LMB in the pond you should be able to supplimentally stock smaller sizes of HSB compared to if larger LMB were in the pond to prey on any added 4"-6" HSB. When larger LMB are present, add stock HSB should be a minimum of 8"-10" to improve survival rate. IMO one should stock at least a few HSB every year so there are numerous size classes of HSB in the pond to eat various sizes of BG from 1" to 4".

Woke up this morning somewhat stressed about managing our small pond for BG/LMB and never really being able to make it work like a larger pond. I am now VERY excited about the prospects of us managing a BG/HSB pond!

Two great tasting fish. Both have realistic potential to reach max size. Great fighting predator. Easy to manage. Fun for the kids and adults. Is this the best kept secrect in small pond management or what?!?!

I'm at the luxury of starting from scratch with no LMB in the current pond. Knowing my pond size from my initial post and the fact that I will have 900 BG, 100 RES, and 2000 FHM come Thursday, what HSB stocking schedule should I follow?

You will have to manage the BG very intensively to produce quality BG with only HSB as a predator. Heed George's advice about minimal cover and no vegetation. Cover and vegetation will make it all that much more difficult for the HSB to successfully control your BG.

IMO consider changing the BG order to 300-500 RES: 500-700 BG. The hatchery should not have a problem with this. BG will always outpace the RES. The higher % of RES will IMO slightly reduce the chances of early overpopulation of BG. A strong population of RES is rarely ever a problem. The big negative to this IMO is the RES will not be regular pellet eaters and thus slightly slower growers compared to the CNBG. It has been speculated here that adult RES will eat small FHM <1" to maintain good growth rates. 500-700 BG should be more than adequate for a pond having primarily HSB as the only predators. Plus if you follow George's suggestion of "don't stock HSB until FHM turn the water black" (probably in spring 2013) fishery balance should work well for the first few years until lots of minnows are reduced and significant BG harvest is nececessary to keep remaining BG growing well.

I think you are going down the better path with the HSB instead of the LMB. It's easy to add LMB, but after that, turning back is impossible without starting all over.

I agree with Bill but would add if you are stocking small HSB (4-6 in.)you can do that next fall. Supp feeding will help.

Alright guys, tomorrow is the day we begin our project. I'm fired up! BG/RES/FHM tomorrow in our 3/4 acre pond. At some point we will begin a feeding schedule for the BG and at some point we will stock HSB. We do not have any intentions of adding LMB at any point....decision as been made to go for the HSB only.

I'm at the mercy of the HSB experts from this point forward. Please make my pond your project! Pictures and updates to come.....

George has been very successful with his stocking ladder approach with HSB. Pretty darn innovative.

Will someone please explain the technique of George's stocking ladder approach for HSB for JC03? JC03 plus other readers have probably not heard of this method.

I understand it but will contact George and let him lay it out.

I coined the phrase "Stocking Ladder" to explain program of restocking 8-10 inch HSB each fall, numbers harvested or lost previous year.

Program works really well to provide good classes of HSB each year for fantastic sport fishing and table fare.

B.Cody Comment- George, this is a very good stocking and management technique because it minics how nature works to maintain a good balance of both predator and prey, especially when dealing with non-spawning species. Nature usually has good ways of getting things done. Thanks for your input here.

The Channel cats wont hurt anything, dont get blue channels. If your gonna feed the pond they shouldnt bother anything till they get bigger, and by then you or someone would be takin some to eat. Just my observations on channels in the pond. Just dont put to many 3/4a pond 30 - 50 CC wont hurt nothing. Plus if there true channels they will eat some weeds and other green stuff.. everyone i cleaned had greenery in its belly and no fish. Now Blue channels whole differnt animal, they will wipe out your fish. Someplace on her there is a ID just dont remember where. After you know the differnce you can tell by looking at the mouth, but there is other ways like counting fin lines and another give away is a true channel has black spots on it when little. all the other stocking advice is all good and will drive you nuts but in a fun way.. G/L

esshup... here is a secret use chicken livers and if need be fish at night. (-:

In my opinion the HSB are great but there hard to keep, they die easy if caught and talk about eatin machines...there will tear your FHM up.. they eat small sunfish to, just my observations. to me its easier to manage the bluegills and feed them, and what ever else (CC) wants to eat the feed and then just keep any bass i catch that looks thin, after each spring and they spawn get some shiners and keep a few of the bigger bass. Seems to work just fine. I am just about out of CC so its time to stock some.

Joey, it's been my experience and many other members on here experience that CC become very hook shy and difficult to remove from a pond, even using any number of baits and at night. Perhaps you have a magic touch in catching them, but most don't find catching CC that are large and have been caught before overly easy or there wouldn't be so many posters complaining about way too many 5+ pound CC. Don't fool yourself, CC 16" and above become highly predacious and will greatly cut into the forage supply available for other species, particularly if they are not supplementally fed. They may not be quite the problem that blue cats are, but they still will cut heavily into the forage base of a pond.

Remember, a 3/4 acre pond can roughly support 75 pounds of predators. CC may not completely cut into that number, but they will take up some of it. If the original poster is going to remove 50 CC per year, then stocking that many is fine. However, as they start getting to the 1.5-2 pound range, that becomes a good number of CC meals. Most people won't eat that much catfish per year.

I had very big CC and I found it easy to catch them. I fed my fish from my deck everyday and the CC were the first to show up and ate like hogs. I took a stout 5 ft piece of pvc pipe with a short 50 lb test trolling line tied to it and a bated treble hook on the line, and drop it infront of the CC I wanted. It looked like those guys on TV bringing tuna into a fishing boat.

Interesting idea John... Were you able to catch multiple fish at a time or did they spook for the day after catching one?

Here's the latest and greatest with our little project and what we've decided.....

We ended up stocking approximatley 800-900 BG/RES mix with 2K FHM. Went to the local co-op and bought some fingerling fish food for the BG...we're feeding them a couple of times a day already. Would like to use Aquamax 400, but we bought what was readily available.

Based on my personal messages with George and my conversation with Todd Overton, we will stock approximately 75 6-8" HSB in April or May if Overton has some in that size available. We will then stock approximately 30-50 each year thereafter depending on how many we harvest or lose. Since this will be a put and take pond, we will be able to dictate how big we want to allow the HSB to grow and how many we would like to harvest each year. We will feed the HSB Aquamax 600. At some point we may consider threadfin shad as an additional forage for the HSB.

Both George and Todd recommended that we leave out the cover in the pond for a couple of reasons. Both said it will help the HSB control the BG population and allow us to potentially grow some big BG. I thought it was funny that Todd said, "Yeah, leave out the cover because the HSB will run you all over the pond". I'm looking forward to that experience!

Special thanks to George for all the personal messages. Your advice and thoughts have been greatly appreciated!!!

CJB the first catch would scare all the fish but the next day they were all feeding again. The fish I think that is the smartest is the White Amur grass carp. When I tried to spear one, the GC would just disappear for the rest of the summer. The next year fewer would feed again, and again after trying to spear one they would not come back. It was like they could communicate that it was dangerous to feed. I actually speared two and both got away. Both times they were so heavy and strong they pulled the spear out of my hand and I later recovered the spear on the bottom of the pond. The winter kill finally did kill all but one of the 18 GC I had. I saw him early last spring but not since.

John, when I really need to kill a grass carp, I use a shotgun.

Dave I didn't want to shoot into the water but I had given up trying to spear them and was going the gun route the next spring, but the winter kill did it for me.

I had 2 monsters left in a pond that were really spooky. I tossed out a bunch of feed and walked off about 50 yards and used a 22 LR on one of them. Last years drought got the other one.

75 HSB are stocked and the Texas Hunter fish feeder is in operation! There is a huge difference in the way a HSB attacks the food versus the CNBG. They are fast and furious even at 6"! Now if we can just find a place to get our Aquamax at decent price close to Canton, TX we'll be in good shape.

Many thanks to Todd Overton. Great place, great guy.

AM is good, but if you can't find it and can find Silver Cup (There's one more brand that I can't think of - Greg Grimes sells it) it'll will work just fine.

If 20 miles works for you, Pott's at Emory will order Aquamax. If I remember correctly, Purina delivers to them on Thursdays. That's where I get mine.

You can't miss it, right on the corner of 19 and 69.

We had a local feed store right down the street order some for us. $34/bag! Very excited about that.

By the way, it's amazing how much you turn into a kid again when you fish. Even when you are only catching little CNBG and HSB that are max 4-6" right now! I could have spent hours doing it last weekend. I've never seen such fat little fish...I guess they are enjoying the buffet twice a day! Can't wait to watch them grow over the next month or two.

So did you decide against the CC for now?

No CC for now. We'll see how the pond evolves. Our intent is to add some more HSB in the fall in a different size. We have some CC in our very small pond in the front, but it has a slow leak....we'll see how that goes. Our bigger back pond is our priority.