Last Spring had a new SMB reproduction pond constructed with the goal enabling me to:

- Collect fish solo
- Eliminate need to seine through excessive vegetation with volunteer labor
- Help reduce handling stress on SMB

1/10th AC pond was constructed so the lowest point was at the outlet, hopefully funneling fish through this lowest point.

Tried several variations on the standpipe, ended up going with 8" drain controlled by a gate valve on the backside of the dam.





90 Elbow into collection tank with 1/2" galvanized wire netting/cap secured to prevent fish escape





Everything was in place, so I let her rip!



We had about 20 SMB stuck in vegetation we had to collect, otherwise ended up circumnavigating all previous issues of vegetation, time, labor, etc. and yielded approx 500 4-7" SMB. Entire collection process took 2.5 hours for complete draining and collection, and I didn't don waders once!

Failures: At one time I estimated 2500 SMB YOY around the edges of the pond, but since this was a new, sterile pond, they had no vegetation/cover with exception of the SMB spawning beds to escape predation from a few shooter brothers and sisters. Within two weeks they all but disappeared - seemingly from predation. Next year I'll allow vegetation to grow by filling the pond earlier in the season, and may temporarily place cedars around the edges to provide some cover.

Glad to hear that it worked TJ!

It is a great design and very good success for easy harvest of fish from the forage production pond. It is great when a plan comes together and works!! I like it - congratulations on designing and building a nice system.

Temporary removable structure items should help with survival of fingerlings. You can experiment with different types of structure each year to compare which ones work best. Tree limbs and/or brush placed with butt ends on the bank and limbs in the water so they can be easily drug out may be the easiest and cheapest to use. Tree limbs tied together and stretched across the pond will provide lots of small spaces may be helpful for easy removal. Lots of periphyton and biofilm will grow on tree branches increasing production. The more surface area that you can provide underwater the more periphyton that it will grow. See the current issue of PBoss Mag No-Dec 2013 for an article by Bruce Kania (pg20) that explains how periphyton will increase fish production.

Aside from myself feeling pretty irrelevant at the moment, this was a great plan!

Good ideas Bill - I have abundant cedars I can lay into the pond for a couple months to help ensure better survival. I feel the pond will be much more nutrient rich next year which should provide vegetation and invertabrate forage helping to bump recruitment, too.

Josh, you can come open the gate valve next year!

Yessss! I have purpose again!

I could see this working great for a forage pond ...Just have it dump right into a main pond...

Could have a small pond Full of GSH or FHM and just dump right into the main pond. Refill and start over again .....

could feed a lot of mouths with a pond full of minnows dumped in every year.

BR - exactly. Keep a few adult brooders prior to opening the valve and you're good to go.

TJ, I think the removable small fish cover would be the way to go (cedars). With vegetation growing in the pond basin, more SMB would be trapped and you'd have to hand fish them out after the water was down. Remove the cover before opening the drain, or have the trees going across the pond like Cody said. If the branches/cover just hangs into the water, as the water receeds, they will flop out of the cover to stay in the water. Not so much if the cover is laying on the pond bottom.

I'd fill the pond asap in the spring if you are leaving it dry over the winter and put in a buttload of sorted FHM to keep the babies from eating each other.

How do you get the adults out post spawn?

Did you notice much scale loss on the fish you collected?

Yes, I'm going to use larger cedars [6-8'] and tie the trunks to the stakes on pond edge and leave the rest in the pond as cover. Good ideas, and I have plenty to spare.

I actually forgot to mention this in the original post, but I stocked 4 adult BG into the pond in mid June in hopes they would pull a spawn and help feed the SMB with their larval/YOY offspring. I had probably 1000 BG from 1/2" - 1.5" when I collected the SMB, and all fish were in pretty solid shape - WR 90-100%. It was an educated guess that worked out OK for me since feeding the SMB daily is difficult for absentee owner.

As brood SMB I only use pellet flys to catch the brood fish for two reasons:

1. Pellet trained fish I can keep fed and hopefully reduce cannibalism.

2. Pellet trained fish are easier to catch and remove.

Fish were all in great shape in the tank - had zero mortalities. That's a first for me - apparently the ride wasn't too rough for them.

Cool!

I'd consider FHM as food instead of BG tho. Mouth gape on the SMB, more fusiform fish without sharp spines for the forage fish.

BG are free! FHM $35/1000 around here plus hour drive.

Just say it, I know you're thinking it..."TJ is a resourceful genius."

That's not quite it. I was thinking that TJ should start a FHM only forage pond.

You come dig it, it shall be done.

couldnt you just keep a FHM back and dump them in when you refill, they should reprouce quick enough just from a few...

even just leave a few adults in the holding tank that you use as your basin tank until the pond refills

or make another micro pond just for FHM, get a glass minnow cast net with small mesh. couple net fulls into the brood pond to seed it after refill

Better yet have the micro FHM pond drain into the Micro Brood pond.

When you are ready pull the drain for a few minutes and spew some FHM into the Brood pond then close it back.

Leave SMB pond empty during winter to help reduce nutrient load/vegetation. I will fill in early March, add some FHM, and should have plenty of YOY by June. Depending on what I see I may add a couple female and 1 male BG in June, too.

BG will eat FHM too. Put some FHM love condos in there! If you have a good bloom in the pond, I'd not put BG in there - but that all depends on the amount of forage FHM in there.

When will the excavator be on site? I'll be there to run it.

How about a small number of adult GSH instead of BG?

If you were to leave water in that pond during the winter, I would worry that it might freeze solid in the pipe leading to the gate valve and cause damage to both.

Agreed Richard - that 8" gate valve will take several years of SMB babies to pay off as it is. They don't come cheaply.

BG worked great this year, and spawned at the right times for the SMB apparently. SMB collective body condition was better than any other year, and I had one 8.5" shooter that looked like she was ready to explode from BG YOY - that's a new record for a 5 month old fish on the farm. I like the idea these fish are trained BG assassins out of the gate, too. BG Assassin SMB - that's Georgia Giant marketing school right there.

I'll likely add FHM in March, might add a few GSH later in the Summer, but I am not confident they'll spawn. So far the BG are working well.

Bet you could sell some to Condello for a thousand bucks!!

TJ, this is a great project, and your ability to envision it, then see it though is really admirable.

Like Esshup keeps saying, I'm a resourceful genius.

Thanks Yolkie...owe the pond engineering to Bill, Cecil, Travis and Luskie. The collection idea actually was hatched during a rare moment of clarity when I was drifting to sleep. I'll have another good idea around the Summer solstice, 2049.

SMB need more than just FH as they get bigger. To much energetic drain chasing FH. Snacks yes but meals no. Add some GShiners. They will help reduce BG eggs/fry but also FH eggs/fry.

If BG are the problem keep #s reduced by any means possible. YP will eat BG in cold mths well but they will also eat yoy SMB and FH.

I don't care for gate valves as they tend to stick shut and cause major problems unless you open and close them several times a year.

Eric, this is in a pond where they will only be in from hatching until the Fall. Will they still need BG or larger forage fish to eat?

Eric, it's the SMB reproduction pond we're talking about. I added 4 BG to provide forage for 4 months over Summer as an experiment. Since I can't get out and feed daily, and auto feeders dump way too much into the pond at a given time leading to nutrient overload, adding some natural forage helped my SMB recruitment and overall body condition tremendously this year. The BG apparently spawned a couple times over the Summer, and the YOY SMB responded very well. I'll definitely be doing it again this Summer - helped solve the nourishment issue I've been facing with they YOY SMB the past several seasons. I will probably add some FHM early season to allow them to reproduce a few times before I stock the brood fish, maybe some GSH - not sure. Goal here is to feed the SMB offspring for maximum growth.

IMO golden shiners would be better than BG as they would be less likley to prey on YOY SMB. The five 7" RES currently in my aquarium can eat 2-3 dozen small FHM (under 2") a day.

GSH should spawn at least 4 times over the summer.

I see some merits using GSH - but 3 BG won't impact SMB YOY population noticably IMO as aquarium vs. 1/10th ac pond, big difference, but I again understand your angle. I can easily sex BG and limit numbers that way, GSH stocking would need to be higher qty since I can't sex them. GSH absolutely will hammer any SMB YOY they can manage - far more pisciverous than BG! Gape of a 6" GSH vs BG, I've not measured it, but feel higher number of GSH would pose more of a risk for predation than 3 BG. Who knows, I might do a combo approach of FHM early, BG and GSH.

Wanted to share my experiences in my 5th year of SMB growing - learning some tricks to help improve my yields, and the collection efforts were far more efficient this year, which was a great success. My goal for next year is 750...Josh has already reserved my top 10% class, I don't want to disappoint him.

GSH have very small gapes compared to BG, I have trouble catching GSH using small dry flies, they simply can't get their mouth around the hook. GSH should be sexually mature at 3" in size.

http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3210&context=etd

Uncle, I give!

I say run your SMB reproduction pond any way you feel like TJ.

I will say that I have watched BG work over schools of freshly hatched LMB fry numerous times, that's all.

One of the interesting observations from my pond this year was that I started seeing GSH fry everywhere along the banks about 1-2 weeks before ever seeing any SMB fry. One thing I will say about both, neither are very predator smart during those first few days/weeks after they hatch. I was able to sample both GSH and SMB fry by just dipping a tea cup into the water. Shallow water cover next to the bank will be your friend while while your SMB are still relatively predator stupid.

re: mouth gape. A 9"-10" GHS cannot fit a single AM600 pellet in it's mouth. They'll grab one and chew on it for a bit until they can get it in their mouth.

TJ,
I’m thinking of feeding my 2.7 acre main pond with the .15 acre forage pond similar to this thread. Right now I’m using minnow traps to transfer. In several years I might change it into a grow out pond, unsure at this point. One problem that I will face is the large amount of deciduous leaves and broken branches that fall into the forage pond. What have you found is the best way to clean out your grow out pond?
Thanks!
Heppy

Ping me we can chat. Happy to help.

Tj@hudlandmgmt.com

TJ, is your SMB crop raise solely on forage?

I do things a bit differently now in my 9th SMB season. I don't collect brood fish and wait for the spawn, I actually collect SMB fly right after swim up in my largest pond and move them to a grow out cell. Reduces quite a bit of effort to collect brood fish in April and trying to ensure proper gender spread, also don't have to worry about catching and removing the brood fish following the spawn. Those fish can be amazingly selective and difficult to catch again.

I fertilize March-May with alfalfa pellets or cottonseed meal for strong zooplankton population prior to larval SMB transfer and add FHM throughout the season. The zooplankton helps the larval SMB make it through those first few weeks - I easily doubled my survival rates once I figured out I was likely losing 90% of my SMB the first few weeks due to starvation. Some years I'll stock 1 adult male and 2-3 adult female BG as their 1-2 spawns help provide additional forage for growing SMB and are free compared to the FHM. I stock just enough BG so I don't have to worry about predation on the SMB. I don't live on site so it's not worth the effort to try and feed train my SMB - but that could be done if I had more time to dedicate to the training 2 times daily.

TJ, I was thinking of texting you about a SMB reproduction pond idea I'm working on, but having it on here may be better. I'm hoping to turn one of my grow out ponds into a SMB reproduction pond, and the plan is to release a small number of brood stock into it. Then what I will do is sink a large 400sq ft plus lift net into it so that about 50-60% of water volume would be inside the lift net. The brood stock would be outside of the lift net where I would have spawning structures built. In the lift net portion of the pond I would have a belt feeder supplying the fry with regular feed. My intentions would be for the fry to enter the lift net for refuge and then grow them to a point where I could just lift the net and acquire 3-4" feed trained SMB. Thoughts?

TJ, FWIW I think your methods of raising SMB advance fingerlings leads to a far superior fingerling. I especially like that your fingerlings are exposed to BG which have much different evasion tactics than FHM. When a fingerling is raised entirely forage, IMHO, it is fitter and more experienced in how to make a living. Even the way you collect fry leads to a selective improvement I think. If the customer taking the top 10 percent acts the least bit disappointed ... well ... I just figure he's pretending. If I lived up there and needed some SMB fingerlings I would hope to purchase some of yours.

TJ,
After seeing your response to jpsdad, I immediately thought of a question.
Which method have you found to be most efficient in catching the swim up SMB fry dipnetting, seining or trapping from the big pond? I will still be calling you tomorrow afternoon just thought I’d ask here as a future reminder.
Thanks,
Heppy

Fairly certain he uses a fine mesh, long handled dip net.

Thanks NEDOC!
Heppy

This is doable, but I prefer bypassing brood fish and collect fry to grow out. Eliminates several steps and variables - if we don't have more untimely rains in May you are welcome to SMB fry. One can also pair SMB in cages on rock spawning beds which allows fry to swim out and easy collection of SMB following spawn. I've done this with caged YP and it was a successful project by all accounts.

Well JP that would be a nice marketing spin - falling in line with my Bluegill Assassin SMB idea! My babies are doing well in Shorty, Omaha and Condello's fisheries - I'm happy to share with my PB family.

I watch water temps and photo periods and once I start seeing males shallow I know YOY schools aren't far behind. I use only commercial duraframe dipnets - hex head 1/32" mesh. One has to time collection just right, once the larval fish go from flagellum to caudal fin development they're much more elusive/faster and collection is exponentially more difficult.

TJ,
Thanks for talking me through my plan this afternoon! I really appreciate you taking the time to walk over my plans for the ponds with me. Everyone should know what a great asset he is to forum. He is willing to spend time and share his knowledge with anyone about anything pond related. As TJ said, “Bill Cody taught me everything I know.”
Thank you again for your help TJ!
Heppy

You bet buddy your project sounds awesome excited to witness it come together. Don’t forget your homework projects!!