Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Redside shiners as forage

Curious if anyone has experience using redside shiners as forage fish, as opposed to say FHM?

These fish are native to my region and may be easy enough to capture for transfer to a pond (some disease protocol may have to be met, but I can deal with that in time).

Could they possibly be a self-sustaining forage species?

I have no experience with them because they are a western species. However, from my little bit of research, they appear to be able to survive and reproduce in ponds. However, with your pond having such steep sides and in the future will likely lack much vegetation, I would guess that under predation under all but the most control predator populations would lead to them being removed from the pond in a year or two. Few ponds with steep sides and limited shallow areas with minimal vegetation can support shiner populations with predators present.

CJBS provides good basic info for maintaining forage fish species in a pond. Correct habitat is crucial for perpetuating almost all forage species from zooplankton, to fish, to pheasants and rabbits. As noted the type of predator and their size and density also play important roles. As I understand it beehiveUT is interested in yellow perch as a main panfish. I think in the right pond setting with decent cover and not an overabundance of fish eating predators,,, the redside shiners would be a good forage species. I would also initially use some FHM to provide a forage basis and get the fishery established while the redfins are developing a breeding population. Redside adults are often 4"-7" long and survive in pond lake settings. I think they are definitely worth a try in a YP fishery to see how they perform. Adult redfins may also prey of some fry of YP to help control the number of recruited perch. IMO Stay away from reproducing larger predators such as bass in the proposed plan.

We here at Pond Boss need reports and some basic experiences with using alternative forage minnows such as redside shiners. If you try them please keep good notes and report back to us about your results.


http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AFCJB39010.aspx
http://www.idahoafs.org/fishes.php?id=24
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=644