Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Too Many Blue Gill?

Its a small less than a quarter acre pond that was once loaded with stunted CNBG and Chara algae and no predators. A few grass carp were added cleared out the Chara and the CNBG have been being fed and have gotten some size back on them over the last year. larger CNBG are not the goal for the pond, Baby CNBG as forage for some newly added predator fish is more the goal. .

Question is , can the over abundance of medium sized mature CNBG actually have suppressive effect on them spawning to produce YOY that could serve as forage. Should I consider thinning them out to yield more YOY sized forage fish?

Bobby, the best CNBG yoy production I've had in my 1/4 acre brood pond was with 2 male, and 4 females stocked. Once the general population of CNBG got to 5-6" and larger, that's about all we had. The small tilapia and the CNBG fry were feasted on.

So you think IF I thinned them out I would net out more YOY babies as most of the fry are getting hammered by all the hungry CNBG?

Fewer breeders seemed to work best here.

When we were growing CNBG out to 7-8", we rarely saw any fry. Those we did see were hiding in the shallow weeds, and would not come out to eat.

Yeah for real would you come out to eat, if you were gonna be eating... lol.

RC

OK, cool....

Thin them out and get more babies,sounds good. I will start doing that in hopes to get more babies that will fit into the predators mouths. Thanks