Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose oh no!!!

Why did the dept of fish and wildlife recommend this number for my pond????? I built the pond on the usda farm assistance thing, or whatever its called, i forgot. they told me 1000 coppernose, and 75 bass. so i need to get less bass and try to get the bg to grow as fast as possible before gettin bass? If i can get them to 3" by end of may can i get bass then??? i have not fertilized the pond since last summer and then only once, but will get some today!!! dont really know what number to get. the county engineer told me triple 13 last year. this correct or can somebody recommend somethin better for my pond. Thanks for help guys!!!!

Keven, check the treads under FERTILIZATION. You need a 10-50-0 or similar. Most Feed and Seeds stores sell pond fertilizers. If you set on putting in bass in 60 days you might consider stocking fathead minnows now. I think it is questionable that your 1 inch bream are going to be producing forage in 60 days.

fathead minnows are still going to be too large for 1 inch bass to eat. they will be of no use. you need bluegill reproduction, the bluegill fry are so small when they hatch that they are hard to see. these are the fish that are critical for very small bass. use you finger nail to open the mouth of a 1-2 inch bass. the width of the mouth is the size of fish that can fit.

You may consider stocking bass that are large enough to eat the 1 inch bluegill. that gets tricky and I dont feel like writting a book on this post. drop me an email with your phone # if you want more info

I dont know why your state guy recommended 1000 bluegill for a 3/4 acre pond. One thing I can say about the state guys, they still get paid even if all your fish die. It will not effect his income. for a guy like me (and many others here) that is not the case.

later

Shan

Shan, my thought was the fatheads would reproduce quicker and the fry would be forage for 1 inch bass. Am I off base?

I misunderstood your post. Fatheads may work in that context but I dont think they are big spawners. I would also anticipate the bass fry will have to compete for the fathead fry with the overcrowded bluegill. Bluegill can and will eat fish, I've caught a few on minnows before.

When I stock new ponds I prefer to stock all sizes of bluegill for just this reason. its a little more expensive but results are great. If this were my project I would feed the bluegill like crazy and wait for them to spawn. Once they were large enough to spawn I would introduce adult bass. I have alot of experience with stocking larger bass. Actually, Lusk asked me to write an article about it for Pond Boss. I was just working on it this morning. Maybe the powers that be will revise my terrible writting into something that resembles an article and you will see it in PB soon.

Shan

Posted in thread below b/f reading this one. response below, followed by new comments.

"Keven, as I posted on March 23 under "Coppernose ok" thread, I mentioned the importance of stocking the intermediate size bluegill if you wanted to stock bass this year. Did the hatchery say they were going to be bigger than 1"? If so they are in the worng. If not I strongly suggest properly fertilzing the pond. Once the bluegill grow slightly, they will eat starter pellets in about a month. Fed this then switch to small pellet foating feed. ALso F1's are not avail until June. When first stocked they will not eat fish since they are only 2". BY July-August they will require fish. You may help yourself out by stocking some fathead minnows now 1-2K. THis will provide some forage for the new bass. Then by late August even the 1" bluegill (by following above) should be sexaully mature and start spawning. ALso backing off the number of bass is a good idea. Good luck! BTW I just stocked 8,000 intermedaite coppernose yesterday so 3 clients would not have the same problem."

I will say again that bass 2" EAT VERY FEW FISH. There main diet is large zooplankton and aquatic insects. Thus Keven as you now know fertilizing is a big key. ALso fatheads do not compete with bass for food and will only help matters. Also to answer about the fertilizer get a liquid 10-34-0 or if you can find it water soluble 12-52-4. ALso while there look for starter pellets these are much smaller than normal size and high protein. Its what I feed 1.5 to 2 inch bluegill. Again good luck and I think it will workout ok.

Greg,

I agree that fertlizing will help the cause.

I disagree that 2 inch bass eats few fish. I have read several studies that say bass tend to eat one another right in the nest. As a matter of fact every book I have on the subject mentions thier cannibalistic behavior. correct me if I'm wrong but didnt Dr. Gilbert have problems with the bass he was trying to pellet train in Cohutta preying on one another? If I remember correctly those bass would not eat pellets once they were large enough to stock into ponds because they shifted to meat. And he had to pay close attention that one bass was not getting more feed than another because if that bass got large enough it would wipe out all the other bass in the tank. All those studies were conducted with bass fry. besides a 2 inch bass in a new pond is not going to be 2 inches for very long. Do you think those bass are going to live until August on zooplankton?

Shan

shan & Greg - I think you are both correct in what 2" bass eat. When YOY bass are crowded into a hatchery pond the bulk of the diet of most of them is zooplankton and insect larvae. Primarily because zooplktn are the main food items in most hatchery ponds. In this pond you will see a percentage of noticably larger YOY bass. These guys were primarily cannibals and were eating smaller siblings.

If a 2" bass can find ample small fish 1/2" to 1" long this bass will eat lots of these small fish. Resultant growth of YOY piscivorous bass will be more than for bass eating mostly zooplankton. Energy effeciency dynamics.

My point is stocking bass fry into a crowded bluegill population is not the best idea. They will be competing for the zooplankton and since the bluegill are crowded bass will be at a disadvantage. I would not recommend stocking bass until bluegill are reproducing. I still stand firm on my point, bass fry will eat fish. Based on Bill's post and most of the things I have read and experienced the bass will grow faster on a fish diet.

Shan

Whats YOY bass mean?

YOY - means young of year. fish that were spawned in this year

Shan

Shan, went by Berkeley Lake today, what your management plan this year?

Harvest, harvest, harvest

lots of bass in that lake. Shocking out there next week. Hope to see some improvment in relative weight. will be removing all bass between 12 and 17 inches. Trying to talk the community board into stocking some shad. they should take off because of the fertilization program. I may consider stocking some adult bluegill later in the year, depends on how things are looking during summer.

that place is gonna be SWEET.

Shan.Got to go fishing for the first time this year friday.I didn,t know how much I had missed it but that first cast felt as good as the first time I. Well you it was fun anyway.I caught about 7 good size bass with 5pounds being the largest the bass seem to be as healthy as normal and very active.I have been trying an aproach that might seem to be a waist of money but when I go to the pond after a hard winter and catch a healthy fat bass it must be a little help.what i like to do is dump about 1000 per acre of a forage fish in the late fall and again in the early spring to give these bass less wieght loss during the winter.Do you think that I am waisting my time doing this I only do this to my own spot not any of my customers.your thoughts on this please.

Shan,
I remember the project well since it was the beginning of my Masters thesis and yes the bass were cannibalistice and did not take to pellets so well. ANyway my point was that in ponds for 2 inch bass the dominant food is big zoopl. and insects and given the opportunity fish. I think the bass will survive altougth it is not the ideal situation. I'm tyring my best to help Keven with the situation.

lakedoc,

sorry about the delay. had some work in Ohio just got back. I have run across a few ponds where guys try additional feeding for the purposes of growing bass. It usually does not work. Bass need 10 pounds of forage to gain one pound, therefore you need allot of fish and a large wallet to stock enough to put weight on bass. I realize you are interested in maintaining fish weight and with that in mind I dont think a few additional baitfish will hurt anything.

on the other hand we dont get the freezing over down here so I have no experience with this. One potential problem you could have by crowding fish before the freeze would be oxygen problems. Consider the BOD. (biological oxygen demand) this term is used to represent everything that uses oxygen in a pond. fish, plants (at night), bacteria that makes things rot, insects and anything else that uses oxygen contributes to BOD. When weather cools down bass eat less, their metabolism slows with their body temp. They may not gobble up all the forage you add to the pond. If the pond freezes with thousands of additional forage fish they could possibly contribute to oxygen depletion under the ice. again, I have no experience with frozen ponds so this is just an educated guess on my part.

If you are getting good results without winter fish kills I say keep doing it. If it were me I would add the baitfish fairly early in the fall to make sure bass have an opportunity to feed up before sub-zero temps.

Greg,

I thought you got an MFR. What was your thesis on? I would like to read it.

Shan you hit the nail on the head.That is the only thing to worry about is the o2 levels.But it hasn't been a problem so far because I keep the plant growth and algae in control and don't go over board with the stocking it seems to give the bass alittle added boost to get through the winter without the loss of the body weight that is common in this state.I have seen a increase in the ave.size and weight to length ratio.And best of all its free just have to walk down to the back side of the dam and sain some minnows out of the exit pond.This little trick is a little added something not a have to case Ijust like to catch those fat fighting spring monsters.There is not a better feeling in the world after a long hard winter.DOC

Shan,
I did get an MFR not an MS. I can't beleive you do not remember my project. Orignally it was to establish stocking rates for bluegill/bass based on starting with differnt sizes and numbers of fish. Funding was lost so I switched to treating bass fry with estradial to convert an all female population. Complications arose as desrcribed above, after about 9 months I wanted to take more classes instead of being stuck in a lab. The project had been succesful for a bath immersion technigue by Garrett at Texas. Gilbert was wanting the pellets to work. I changed took more classes and the rest is history. Sorry to bore others but Shan asked. For those who don't know we are both fisheries consultants in Georgia. Enjoy your post Shan keep up the good work.