Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait New small forage pond

As some of you may already know, I have a small (17,500 gallon) forage pond that is four feet deep with extensive shallows around two sides. It was built last fall and is not yet stocked. This pond holds water like it has a plastic liner, but is all clay. It has cleared to about 14 inches visibility, and I scattered one bale of straw into the water about two weeks ago. The truck from Lonoke, AR with Fathead minnows will be here in our small town about April 9. How many FHM should I stock and what could I do to enhance their chances before I stock in about six weeks? The pond bottom is smooth clay, and I would like to keep it so I can use a cast net to harvest minnows without getting snagged, so I would need removable habitat. How many minnows could I expect to harvest after about five months? It's only a few feet horizontally above the main pond, so the transfer will not even require a bucket.

How many FHM do you plan to add to your small forage pond? Do you have a surface size for it?

The only habitat you will need for minnow production is numerous places for the FHM to spawn. Consider affixing boards (6"x6" to 12x12) about 12" apart onto a rope. Tether each end along the shoreline or across the pond or across the corners. Remove the spawning boards when you want to harvest the pond. Amount harvested will depend on amount and type of foods available and water quality. Optimally you could get 150 lbs of FHM per 0.1 ac. Daily hand feed the FHM ground fish pellets. If you have FA problems use some tilapia as algae control and polyculture. Please return here keeping all of us updated about your progress. Thanks.

Be sure to thoroughly sort the ones ya do get. Very good odds you'll find other fish.

At full pool, the forage pond is about 30 x 52 foot oval. So far, it has stayed almost completely full. An oval in the middle about 10 x 12 feet is 4 feet deep. Most of the rest is 18 inches or less. I plan to start out with three pounds of FHM. I have about 14 one to two gallon thin polyethylene flower pots I could use for cover by stringing them together on a rope. The boards on a rope sounds good too, but wouldn't they waterlog and sink?

John,

Are you planning on feeding them or go with whatever natural forage the pond provides?

Plan to be feeding crushed catfish food pellets almost daily.

If ya have the rope with boards tied to it stretched across the center or end of the pond somewhat tight, the waterlogged boards can't sink. To make sorting more practical, get 1 gal at a time.

When the minnows get thick they are pretty easy to harvest with minnow traps if you just want to harvest a modest portion daily while feeding. Put one or more minnow traps with feed in them and return in fifteen to thirty minutes.

I hand feed daily so just run the traps while feeding.

I got lots of FHM early out of my forage pond, but I also have RES in there. I think as the RES got bigger they really hammered the FHM because could hardly catch any in traps later last year where mid summer was easy to get a large number in the traps. Either the RES are chowing down, or something happened to my minnow population.

Using minnow traps in a large pond with fewer minnows is kind of hit and miss. But in a pond dedicated to minnows and where the minnows are used to feed, I was able to sometimes get a trap nearly 1/3 filled with fish. I don't know how so many got in there. Not all the time that many, but sometimes.

A pallet would work in a small pond like u describe. If it waterlogs and sinks, it will still have a layer of boards for spawning on above the bottom of the pond, along with the feeling of some cover for the little fishes. They are also easy to remove by adding a rope to pull it to the bank when needed.

Tracy