Stocked 4-6 inch fingerling hybrid striper in our 2 acre N.E. Texas pond on Friday.
Bottom diffusor aeration and feeder in place.
Flyfishing - catch and release.
Found a good reliable local source for the stockers if anyone interested.

George Glazener

how many did you stock?

Stocked 110.
Plan on restocking 50 each fall depending on Relative Weight data.

is that all you have stocked in the pond? are you supplementing them with fish food or just some type of forage fish?

LMB – coppernose bluegill – redear sunfish – channel cats.

Hand feeding and aeration since pond stocked two years ago. Currently Stren feeder with Aquamax 500 for hybrid stripes.

George how deep is your pond ? also what kind of airiation system do you have . will the wipers compete with your lmb.i have a pond in east texas near canton , 8' at deepest and would like to know your source for the hybrids . Thanks harvey- e-mail fisher8384

Harvey – Our 2 acre pond is north of Canton, off Hwy 19 between Sulphur Springs and Paris. Depth mostly around 8 ft, deepest 12-14 ft.
My supplier is near Van.

I searched the PB archives endlessly for hybrid striper information, posted questions and received valuable help from Greg Grimes and other professionals. I am comfortable that hybrids will do well in our area.

Our aeration system is ¼ hp Gast rotary vane air compressor with rubber membrane diffusers.

I have been advised that they will not compete with LMB since they are open water species.

I’ll email you details.

i'd be careful with a blanket statement "they will not compete with lmb". my research suggests that at relatively light stocking densities: 25-35 per acre, and with supplemental feeding, you will not notice a decrease in your forage population. but put in too many of these predators, and your future trophy large mouth population will likely suffer. jb

Jbrocky - Your "research" is well taken but differs from the PB professionals.
Refer to July 3, 2003 Q&O - Hybrid Stripers?

In small ponds, hybrid striped bass can make a significant impact on the forage base if stocked at high rates. Supplemental feeding is a must in order to maintain positive growth. I usually recommend 15-25 per acre to correct an overcrowded bream population and no more than 35-50 per acre if stripers are the preferred sportfish. Stripers are very aggressive predators and require lots of food in order to maintain good condition. I would recommend waiting two growing seasons before adding more stripers to the pond.

I have a 5 acre pond outside of Memphis, TN that I renovated in the past 4-5 years. The pond was built in the 40s and is 22-25 ft. in the deepest areas. I got some help early on from SE Pond Mgmt. which really helped me out. Have had to harvest and cull out lots of small bass over the past 3-4 years and have had to add more forage fish, i.e. threadfin shad (they all died after the 2nd year), additional bluegill, coppernose bluegill, and redear. Also put in 800 channel cats and 2 years ago, I added 250 F-1 bass fingerlings. The lake also has some mature crappie (very hard to find and catch-the ones we have caught were very large-2-3 lbs.). I fertilize regularly and have one fish feeder that goes off 4-5 times daily.
My question is, would you recommend stocking some Hybrid Stripers? If so, how many and what time of year would you do so?

Thank you.

Mark Jenkins

Hi Mark,
I saw your post shortly before leaving town and thought some of the pros would answer your question.

You guessed it – gone fishin’.
I fished some of your home state waters – the Hiwassee River right in the heart of the Cherokee national Forest – beautiful country and quite an experience for a flatlander.
Caught lots of rainbow trout on wet flies in the morning and dry flies in the afternoon.

Returned yesterday and my first priority was to check on our baby hybrids that we stocked 4 weeks ago.

I can only tell you what I have learned from my research and from the professionals and pond owner members of this forum. They have been very helpful on my ongoing hybrid striper project. It is much appreciated!

First of all, I was advised to stock 25 – 30, ½ to 1# hybrid stripers/acre but could not find a supplier. I was worried about predation of fingerlings, but Greg Grimes, a Georgia fisheries biologist and PB contributor, advised stocking 200-400 fingerlings/acre to avoid predation.

After locating a supplier, he tried and failed to find 8 – 10 inch stockers, and staying on the conservative side, we decided to stock 100, 4-6 inch fingerlings, and restock another 100 in the spring.

My supplier advised against this plan and recommended adding another 100 as soon as he could find them, because the original stockers would feast on the springtime fingerlings.

Bill Cody has been very helpful in advising aeration and feeding advise and it is most appreciated. We now have bottom diffuser aeration and automatic feeding Aquamax 500 feed at the present time. We will go Aqmx 600 this spring – or maybe a mix of the two?

As far as I know, we are the only pond owners in our N.E. Texas area stocking hybrid stripers, so it has been an interesting learning experience.

I fly fish for striped bass on Lake Texoma and they are tackle busters!
I look forward to raising them in our pond.

Hope this helps,
George Glazener

George,

We are neighbors. I live in the Dallas area and have ponds near Paris also.

Having not been to the pond for a couple of weeks to check on the hybrids, I went last week to check on the 4 – 6 inch hybrid stripers stocked about six weeks ago.

Spent the afternoon until dark observing the pond. The feeder is set for 4:30 pm and when it went off the gills started feeding vigorously with an occasional channel cat but no sign of the hybrids. Then the SE wind drifted the feed into open water and a feeding frenzy began!

At the pm feeding I learned two very important things:

1.The LMB did not do significant damage to the number of stripes – a big school of stockers survived from the original 100 fingerlings.

2. The hybrids don’t eat the pellets the way the gills do – they blow up on them like they are trying to kill them! They blast the water a foot into the air and so fast all I could see was a flash of silver!

I wanted to find out their size, so the next morning I tried to catch one on a small “pellet fly”. No such luck – the wind was blasting and the gills ate very little, and the wind blew the feed to the opposite bank. The stripes started feeding sparingly and by the time I could get the boat into position it was all over.

Which leads me to the (?) conclusion - any fish that will blow up on a pellet of fish food should hit anything that looks like a baitfish!
Any additional ideas on catching them?

George Glazener

put 50 in acre pond , about year and a half ago , their bout 2 lbs 14" or so , with big fat bellies. i love watching them slam food too.my neighbor has small pond loaded with shinners 2 to 3" , when you though bucket them in sit back and watch the show lol. we catch some on small silver spinners and spoons . great fighters,can't wait till they get some size to them.

george one of my favorite striper/hybrid lures is a topwater pop-r or a spook...if they hit the food like you say then color probably wont matter...just any baitfish resembling color will do. also when the fish go deep in summer months you may want to try a Stump Jumper which will also work when they are coming up on top. all three of these baits can be found at bass pro's website. good luck. sounds like you have the same type of fishery i am looking forward to.