Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose RES 1st year ?

I recently built a 3 acre pond. I plan on stocking with SMB, YP, HSB, and a few RES. I have already put in FHM and GS and I plan on waiting to stock the SMB, YP, and HSB next year.

My question is will it hurt my pond to stock the RES this fall?

Goal of the pond is good fishing for above average SMB and YP..

Thanks in advance

I don't see any difference between stocking in fall and the following spring. Not much going on during the winter.

Main difference will be in availability and sizes available. Sometimes in spring sizes and numbers are limited especially if you are looking for RES that have been hatched & raised by hatcheries in the northern regions who sometimes have RES that are more acclimated to northern winters. Do some good homework before buying and it could affect the long term survival during KS winters of your RES population.

Cecil, I'm in Kansas like he is, and I would have said the same thing you did, last fall.

But I stocked 2" LMB last November, just a few weeks before water temperature dropped significantly, and a week ago I pulled out a 9" LMB. And we had an unusually hard winter like almost everyone else. So those bass had to do at least some growing during a portion or the warmer part of late fall and early spring. I was not expecting to pull in a bass of that size while fishing for BG. It sure had a fat belly.

Here is a link to a list of RES threads if you are interested in reading up on them.

RES info and links to other threads

I put 2" RES and FHM in my new .065 acre forage micro pond. Was starting to believe the RES were taking out my FHM brood stock as I saw a 4" fish and a couple 3.5" RES in the shallows the other day. I put in FHM's and they feed fine then in a week there is no trace of them. Was beginning to wonder if I was going to get any reproduction, but saw a few small fry in the shallows and see the telltale signs of hundreds of tiny circles in the open water where some tiny creature is hitting the surface. So I think I'm getting fry and in a few weeks will be big enough to see along the shore line. Hopefully. I have put in several batches of adult FHM and was beginning to wonder. Will keep adding a dozen or so adults each week so I have multiple size classes in the forage pond. (trap them out of my main pond, but the LMB are doing a number on them now so will not have that supply much longer)

Have about 20 RES in this small pond so I would expect them to be working on the fry pretty hard. I hope I got the FHM's established, cause the RES will need more than what snails the pond can produce (already a good crop of them). Idea is as the RES get some size, take half to two thirds of them out and put in another pond, then leave enough RES brood stock to produce more RES fry. That is the plan. My plans don't always work out.

Remembered a day or two ago, FHM's usually die after spawning, so maybe they just spawned and died, and that is why I quit seeing them feeding or other signs.......dugh.....

RES will definitely eat FHM's, but in a three acre pond should be no problem for the minnows to stay ahead of the RES. The pond I have both in is a tiny forage pond, with few places for the FHM to hide outside of a few pallets to spawn on.

Hope at least some of this info is helpful.

I had not heard that fatheads usually die after spawning. But then, I've never heard how long fatheads live without predation.

18 months to two years is what I have most often read for the life span of FHM in the wild. Possibly longer in an aquarium.

As my fish guy at Wallace fish farm likes to say, "they are not long of this world". My present ones are looking at a much shorter life span now that the LMB are up in the 5-9" range.

I have read that sometimes they will spawn more than once, but they are getting near the end of their lifespan at spawning time in any case.

In my experience 'snrub' has the information about life span of FHM pretty accurate. There are always exceptions.