Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose 3/4 established pond, problem

Hey guys,
My Grandfather build a pond on our property and Im guessing it was stocked in the 80s or 90s. I can go down on any given day and catch tons of LMB, but they are all about the same size. I never see any minnows or bluegill in the pond. From my research, the best thing to do would be to flood the pond with forage. I do not want to kill the bass, I have however harvested many. The pond is about 3/4 of an acre or so. The bass are all under or right around 1 lb id guess. a friend of mine caught around 100 adult bluegills from a local lake and put them in the pond, i doubt it did much but maybe some spawned, and since they were adults, hopefully didn't get eaten immediately. I would like to go back to the lake myself and catch a couple hundred bluegills to introduce.

Are there any places I can order live crawfish, for a reasonable price to introduce? I feel like this may be a waste of time because they may all get eaten right away but who knows? Maybe if I got larger ones they would breed?

finally, fat head minnows..How many LBs would make it worth wild to stock for a chance of survival?

I am in Virginia, is the winter a bad time to stock?
Thanks!

Trying to establish forage in a pond where predators are already present, especially in large numbers, is a tough one. I know you don't want to eliminate those LMB, but in my opinion their numbers need to be reduced.

Adding adult BG sounds pretty good to me, just be sure of what you're adding...easy to make a mistake and introduce a species that will further complicate things down the road. Also take into account what types of cover are present, if there is to be any hope of recruiting additional forage they will need to escape predation for the plan to work.

You can get Crawfish from Smith Creek out of New York but not until June. Like Sprkplug said, you will need appropriate habitat/cover for them if you want them to stand a chance of becoming established.

C850, if ya have sooo many small LMB and ya dump FH in there, all you're doin is givin the LMB a fast easy meal. IMHO FH are kinda like the Bob-O version of fish, a little lazy and pretty slow.
Also welcome to the most informative forum about ponds. Keep inquiring and posting.
PS If you want to thin them down quickly, a church or Boy Scout outing event could be good.

I rarely stock any forage fish this time of the year. They might stay alive but not do much more. Their numbers won't increase.

Your problem is not a shortage of forage but an overage of predators. Start eliminating the problems instead of trying to feed them. The general advice here is to eliminate every bass under 14 inches until the average size gets above that "magic" number. At this time I would like them to be hungry enough to commit suicide by hook. Try live bait instead of plastic or rubber lures.

But, I would stock all of the big BG's that I could catch or buy. I would have some concern about introducing diseased fish. Tread carefully.

I really think the problem could be both, as until I added a few bluegill, i had NEVER seen one in the pond. Surely they were stocked at some point, but they disappeared. I harvest lots of fish this year and will continue to harvest. I will go with that 14in rule, but I may wipe out ever fish LOL

If I could get them I would probably stock some 7+ inch Bluegills.

FWIW I suspect you have at least a few bass that would surprise you. The "shooters" that out performed the pack and are now feeding on the pack. They are well fed on the abundance of small bass and would be nearly impossible to catch until the small bass numbers are reduced.

I agree with DD1, I mostly do , the bigger the BG you can stock the better while culling as many little bass less than 14 inches as you can.

Just my 2 cents