I went by Lowe's and picked up 25 sheets of a blue colored Styrofoam sheets that are 3'x4'x3/8". I will be floating these near the banks on the pond for the FHM to use for spawning. I was thinking the 7 to 8 pallets that are floating do not provide enough surface area for all the FM I have in the pond. I started with 90 lb's back in November and added 30 more pounds in Feb. That's a lot of minnows. i just thought I might pass this along for others to see or to make comments about. And I thought I read somewhere here of using Tarps floating on the surface as spawning beds and I might do that also.
Tracy

I would think the Styrofoam would work better than the tarps, as the tarps would sink during a rain event wouldn't they?

Side thought, you'll have to make sure that algae will grow on that Styrofoam finish - I wouldn't think it'd be a problem but just a thought.

Are you securing them so they don't drift all over? I believe I read on a previous post that the spawning substrate works better if it's secured.

If they have no place to get under to lay their eggs are they NOT going to spawn?? I have stacked pallets but not many. Bass will spawn anywhere they can. Are fhm not able to adapt?

Flame, this is my first time to build and stock a pond. It has not been on the cheep. lol I have laydown's for the lmb, and cender block pyramids sunk and root balls of sweet gum trees and pallets and rock piles but when u go to thinking about spawning FHM's, I think of the numbers of male and female pairs wanting to spawn, in a pound of FHM's. just 1 lb would be around 60 to 70 pairs wanting to spawn. Now increase those pairs by the number of pounds of minnow u stock. That is a lot of pairs of FHM looking for a spawning spot with an underside area to spawn on.
Tracy

d, I will be staking down the mats in shallow areas and for the Tarp, I was thinking of pushing some rebar rods into the bottom of the pond and then tying off the corners of the tarp causing the tarp to be rigid while floating on the surface. I also understand the tarp absorbs heat making it a good place for the FHM's for spawning.
Tracy

FWIW My understanding is FHM do not pair off to spawn. A male builds/selects his nest and then spawns with multiple females in the same nest. The male will keep this up till he gets tuckered out and then another male will take over the nest and keep the process going as long as water temps are right.

Bill D I think u r right but when two get together even for a short moment, isn't that a pair?
Tracy

When the male builds the nest, he needs a place with an underside to it, if I understand it correctly? So Bill D, in my case there is or I hope there is the 130 lbs of FHM's. That is a lot of area required for a male to build a nest, I think? Anyone know how close the male will build next to his brother?
Tracy

I expect that the pads will work out OK. They will spawn on just about anything that they can get under.

And yep, two of anything is still a pair.

You got me there man. Sure wish you could go to yer fish supplier to get yer FHM and tell him you want 20% males and 80% females.. Get way more "bang" for your buck (pun intended)!

I think I read they like 18 to 24 inches from their neighbor's nest.

Lotta FHM spawning habitat discussions in the past.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=211792

Esshup says 18-24" area in this thread
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=295830

Found another interesting paper on FHM spawning. By Dewitt (1993) in Can Journ Zool V71.

He tried 50, 100, 200 sq cm sized tiles at 25, 50, 100 cm depth.
He found they preferred 100 & 200 sq cm and not 50 sq cm.
They used all 3 depths- no preference noted.
They like to nest next to each other. He theorized that FHM prefer a nest that already has eggs and this leads them to congregate where there are eggs in sight. He cites nests within 4 cm, presumably the edges. Tis interesting as some try to keep nests out of sight of the next nest to minimize energy used to defend. He cites Unger (1983) as finding males nesting near other males also.

So per this paper, make the sites good sized (200 sq cm is 5.6" on a side), put them reasonably close and up to 3' deep.

Saw a BYU paper describing males going out to get a female and lead her back. Apparently it's a rather social thing.

Habitat or not, like college kids on Saturday night, they'll find a way...

You can buy a bundle of cedar shingles or shakes.....then go around the pond, and shove them into the bank at a 30-45° angle up from the bottom....maybe in 6-12" of water with the shingles under the surface. Space the shingles out about every 2ft or so, in several groupings around the pond.

Also, if you have access to large cobble or have some in the pond, you can lay down a loose bed of that and then cover it with limestone or shale slabs. The loose cobble will keep gaps open that the FHM can come under and use the slabs as nest sites. This may look a bit more natural than the shingles.

Or, you can just float a couple of pieces of fence wood.

They're not really all that picky. I have seen them spawn in bare clay bottom ponds that weren't even at 20% full pool. By the time the pond got full you could almost walk across the fatheads.

My guess is that we worry about it a lot more than they do.

I stocked FHM and CNBG in February.. Noticed lots of little fry on the shoreline the other .. Not sure what type of fish but sure excited to see them

Cav, glad to here your FHM are spawning. It's a good feeling to know the pond is producing fish I can watch my cnbg feed on the fhm fry. The bigger cnbg seam more interested in feeding on the fry over the fish pellets. it's cool to watch.

Tracy

Well, I've got four pallets in a one acre pond. One is right below the surface with rocks piled on it. One sank, and the other two roam all over depending on the wind.
I have 8" gravel in beds around the shallow end for SMB (someday..) with smaller gravel piled on top of the 8". I've noticed the spawning FHM hanging out about two feet apart all around the big 8" gravel. It's piled, so there's a lot of gaps. I guess this is where they are spawning, going to spawn. No FHM around the pallets. I'm a total rookie at all this, I'm just watching and learning.
I do know when the feeder goes off the FHM seem to materialize out of nowhere in rivers of minnows.

In my opinion, rock pile are one of the best things that you can add to any pond. The fatheads will use the little "caves". The crawdads will hide there. The bigger fish will relate to them like structure and use them as ambush points. There are so many benefits, plus it gives life a place to grow off of the clay bottom.

I can't find one draw back to adding a bunch of rock piles to your pond.

After observing for the first year you will be able to distinguish between the adult FHM and BG fry pretty easily. They swim and act different.

I would relate the way a FHM swims more like a shark or catfish. Moving most of the time with more random movements than the BG. I relate the FHM swimming more like an active puppy dog acts. The BG I would relate it's actions more like a cat. Measured, moves forward, inspects, moves again, inspects. Methodical. FHM random and more erratic.

When seeing the two schools feeding together on sinking pellets in shallow water, the FHM will go in Pell mell. The small similar size BG will be on perimeter more timid (adult FHM vs BG fry)

I suspect you are seeing FHM fry.

Fathead minnows will spawn under lily pads.

In the past few weeks I have had a big FHM spawn, thousands along the shore line and along the sweet gum tree laydowns. But yesterday I watched a small group of maybe 50 fry that were flashing. They would turn on their side and flash a silver shinny side up. Some were so small that I would not have seen them but they flashed and would catch my eye. They were very active about flashing. The first time I ever say this action was when I went Bone fishing and would look for the flash to then follow up with a cast near the flash. I am guessing these might be GSH fry but not sure really of what these fry were. Just happy to watch the spawning going on.

Tracy

FWIW My FHM flash a lot as well

You can do this by ordering small to medium FHM only. Large FHM are males, often old and likely nearing the end of their lifespans. Female FHM run much smaller than males, by ordering small/medium FHM you stack the odds in your favor significantly. Sure there will be plenty of males in the smalls, but they will have many more months and spawns in them than the large adult males. In the last 4 years I haven't stocked a FHM for a client larger than 2" as far as I can tell.

Interesting. FWIW maybe I did something at least a little bit right for a change. When I did my original FHM stocking I did it by going to the bait shop at the state park. They had small "crappie" and large "bass" size FHM. As it turns out a "dozen" to the clerk at the shop is a net full. So each time I got 3 "dozen" small and 2 "dozen" large I was really getting over a hundred fish. Due to their way of measuring a dozen, I probably stocked around 80% small as you can get a lot more small ones in the net than big ones. I stocked a total of 25 "dozen" into my 1/4 acre and had tens of thousands after a few months.

That is really interesting about sorting them by size. You could probably fashion a trap to take JUST the big males out of a forage pond to use as bait while leaving your girls behind to keep breeding.