Whenever we talk about species, stalking rates etc., one question always comes up. Do you want one or a few species in your lake or do you want lots of different species?

In the over whelming nunber of cases, most people want simple systems. You manage your pond one way and you get big bass. You manage your pond another way and you get big panfish. Most any fisheries manager can tell you how to do this.

We have a very high diversity pond (4 acres of water plus 1 1/2 acres of island. The debth ranges from 15 ft. to 3 ft. flats. It has two aerators.

Fish species include: LMB, SMB, wipers, white bass, rock bass, bluegills, hybrid bluegills, pumkinseed sunfish, green sunfish, black crappie, white crappie, walleye, sauger, yellow perch`, channel catfish, goldeye, freshwater drum, shorthead redhorse, white suckers and small numbers of many other species.

Has anyone else tried anything like this?

I'm still planning the stocking of my lake, but from everything I've read a high diversity requires a high management commitment. I would anticipate this to especially be the case when many experts don't recommend some of the stocked species in a lake that size.

It sounds like you have a really nice lake. Please let us know how it goes.

Yes, it does require more management but I don't think it is more than many readers of this magazine devote to their ponds. Actually, the only work is stocking two year old fish of selective species. My guess is that we have better fishing than people that put much more time and effort into their ponds

I love it when people think "outside the box." This concept is certainly outside the box.
Our company has several lakes with multi-species management. Most of these lakes are fairly large...bigger than 40 acres, up to 600.
Here's what I have seen. The more predator fish, the more dynamic the entire fishery seems to be. Different predators begin to dominate different niches in the lake. Forage fish numbers rise and fall, and as goes the "best" forage, so goes the most dominant predator of that forage fish.
For example, take Lake Kiowa, about 20 miles from my house. As threadfin shad and small gizzard shad thrive, so do white bass. As bluegill, shad, and redear sunfish thrive, so do largemouth bass.
As golden shiners come and go, with silversides minnows, black crappie come and go.
A remnant population of yellow perch in this north Texas lake exists...but without their main food, and hot water in summer, yellow perch numbers are too low for a thriving, catchable fishery.
Channel catfish numbers rise, and fall.
One absolute I have seen with multiple species of predator fish....there will be one or two dominant species, some in the middle, and some headed for extinction.
Tweaking, adjusting, managing for specific forage fish can cause a certain predator species, or certain year class of a species to quickly rebound.
Here's another absolute...your pond has a maximum production capability. Take that maximum and divide it amongst your forage fish and the different predators, and that's what you get...divided results of different fish.
A largemouth bass/bluegill fishery grows the maximum number of pounds of those two species.
But, add smallmouth, or walleye, with wipers and two or three others, that "given" amount of forage fish will still only support a "given'" poundage of predator fish. Therefore, competition amongst and between predators, their ability to survive, their mouth size, and their ability to reproduce directly influences long term survival, and heath, of that fishery.

I think Bob Lusk made an important point when he mentioned the size of the pond in connection to diversity. If a pond has a uniform habitat one predator and one forage species will be able to dominate. To have diversity in your fish you need diversity in your lake. If someone wanted Bass and walleye they are going to need to build a pond that offers seperate walleye habitat. Most ponds are built to offer 100% bass habitat. But by adding some deeper holes, sand and rock piles and yellow perch the walleyes can maintain there home court advantage, so to speak.

Bob's other point about maximum carrying capacity is also true. A survey in northern MN found that lake trout did better in lakes with out small mouth bass. SMB generaly use habitat under 20' deep, while Lake trout in northern MN spend the summer near the 100' mark. Yet these species still manage to compete enough that the lakers growth is slowed.

I'm for diversity in my pond. This is the first time I've done any type of stocking besides emptying my bait (shiners or fatheads).

Existing fish were LMB, Cats, Crappies, Sunnies, and Perch.

Additions this year were more LMB, SMB, a few Wipers, more Perch, and a lot more fatheads and shiners.

We've got depths in flats as low as 3' and going to 5 & 6'. We've got a long creek channel that's 6-10' deep, and about a 1 acre area thats 10-20'. The whole water area is roughly 7 acres, partiallly spring fed, and partially creek fed.

But my situation is different because any thing can come into my lake from the creek; anything can leave my lake via the creek also. The creek flows along side the long side of my lake, separated by an abandoned RR berm. The creek connects to my lake via a 5' pipe buried in the RR berm; there is a damn just downstream of that pipe which pools up water and flows it into my lake. Then theres a similar 3' pipe about 300 feet down stream that can serve as the outlet.

I believe I would get bored if all I could catch was LMB and Sunfish, even if every LMB was 5 lbs plus. Then again, for all I know at this point, all of my new SMB could be out in the creek.

I disagree with the idea that the idea of “carrying capacity” is a constant. It is a measurement (usually by weight called “bio-mass”) of different living things to use their environment. As such, it is variable. Here are some examples.

Imagine two identical ponds in the South. Let’s stock LMB in one pond and gizzard shad in the other. Let’s wait five years and come back and seine both ponds. If carrying capacity were a constant, we would expect the same weight of fish in both ponds. Obviously, we would find a much more weight of gizzard shad than LMB because gizzard shad can use their environment much more intensively than LMB can.

Here is another example. You stock a pond with LMB and a carrying capacity is reached. Then you add another species, bluegills. The bluegills can use resources in the ponds that the LMB could not and a new carrying capacity is reached. However, the bluegills are also competing for resources with the LMB. Let’s add a third species, channel catfish. Again, the catfish is able to use resources in the pond that the LMB and bluegill could. The carrying capacity of this pond increases again. However, the catfish are also competing for resources with the LMB and bluegills. Let’s add a fourth species, redear sunfish. Again, they are able to use resources in the ponds (snails for instance) and so the carrying capacity of the pond increases again. Again, they also compete with the other three species for resources. The point of this is that we have developed four different carrying capacities for exactly the same pond.

So why don’t we just keep adding species to all of our ponds? Because most of us really don’t care about carrying capacity. What we do care about is maximizing production of something like big LMB or large panfish. Remember, as we increase diversity, we increase competition for resources. That means individual fish don’t grow as fast or as big as they would with less competition.

In my case, I don’t care about trophy bass or lots of panfish to eat. What we do get is lots of good size fish of many different species that are always hungry.

I love catching a "mixed" bag of fish. Lunker Bass are awesome, Hybrid Stripers fight to the extreme, Huge Catfish break your line, Crappie taste great. I'm thankful my pond is in the South where Tipapia multiply like crazy, Threadfin Shad flourish, and the might Bluegill backs them up as forage during the winter...sure makes for some interesting conversation and tough decisions !

Norm,
I don't think anyone is suggesting that carrying capacity of a pond is a constant.
What has been reffered to is maximum carrying capacity. The idea is that any given body of water can support only so many fish (maximum carrying cap.) reguardless of species.
Now I'm sure that with certain combinations of fish in a pond that max. cap. may vary somewhat however that is the general rule.

I ditto what RIc said. I think most folks understand carrying capacity is not an exact number, and realize it changes as population dynamics change. However, you hit on the more important point of competetion. It is all about your goals. If you want to maximize bass growth for trophy bass you should not stock, channel catfish, hybrid stripers, small mouth bass, etc. However if you don't mind giving up some bass growth to enjoy hybird bass action then stock them, just realize you are definently lowering the potential bass growth by lowering forage base.

Greg is it possible to add other species without lowering the forage base?

For instance, here's how I'm looking at it. If you have a family of 3, Father Wife and child, and everyday they were fed a constant amount of food...say 3 pounds. (I have no clue if that is even close to being accurate) Then each person could consume approx. 1 pound. However, if two more children were added with the same amount of food being brought in then each person would only have .6 pounds.

Now looking at our ponds and backing up what you said previously, if we have a certain number of forage fish and predator fish then each fish can have so much. If we add a different species that also consumes the forage fish, then each predator fish gets less as in our family mentioned above. But what if we could have such a large forage base that the introduction of wipers or channels would not influence growth? Is this possible in a pond environment? I know I have seen HUGE schools of shiners/baitfish in lakes before. So my real question is...Is it possible to obtain a forage base that is large enough to sustain a number of species of predators and that doesn't have to be restocked?

Oh yea and I forgot to mention this too...it might help clear up my question too.

With the family analogy...what I was saying was that the family could simply buy more food...thus making the 3 pounds, 5 pounds...then each person would again have 1 pound of food per day and would no longer be competing. Is this possible in nature?

Chris

Tritonvt; The family analogy might work as long as there were no issues other than food intake. But, the more family members we add, the more waste there is to be dealt with. Now, that might not be a huge issue with indoor plumbing but fish have no convenient way to dispose of waste. They live with/in it. Thus the concept of biomass, oxygen availability, increased disease, etc. in a water hole.

Also, there ain't no free rides. Adding 2 more family members means the first 3 usually have to do without something, maybe space in the house or quality of food or some sacrifice to accomodate the 66% addition to the population. Of course, all of this assumes a stable income with no salary increase or no move to larger quarters.

Tritonvt,
Take a balanced LMB/BG pond .. Like Greg said it depends on your goals. If you're managing for quality bass ie:(not catching a bass on every cast but the ones caught are BIG) the ideal numbers or balance of both fish in the pond will be different than if you're managing for quantity of bass ie: (catching & eating alot of bass.) Now in the Quality bass pond you've reached a ballance of preditor/forage such that you are growing very large bass very quickly. Then you sell the pond & the new owner loves catching your huge bass but also wants to grow & catch huge blue cats so he introduces them to this very well balanced pond and increases the forage by adding shad & shiners.
On the surface it looks as if this could work, and I'm sure it's possible. BUT .. managing such a pond without damaging the quality of the huge bass will be extreemly difficult. When the new owner introduced an additional preditor he should be prepared to diminish his trophy bass fishery. Like Greg said it all depends on your goals.

As many of you probably know you all are discussing a very complex topic and one that still needs more research. Lots of variables affect carrying capacity and standing crop.

Standing crop defined as poundage of one or all species present in a water body at a specific moment. Standing crop can be quite variable in the same water body.

For example, Standing crop of all fish in Ridge Lk in IL was measured 9 times in 27 yrs. LMB and bgill dominated the fish community. After each census all bass of useful size for angling were returned and bgill numbers were reduced to usu. 200 per acre of the larger individuals. A small feeder stream allowed a few bullheads, g.sunfish, and minnows to enter the lake. Total weight of fish per acre at each census showed:
Yr... Tot.Wt/ac
1943 = 48.7
1945 = 72.3
1947 = 256.3
1949 = 140.2
1951 = 163.8
1953a= 116.9
1956a= 199.6
1959 = 247.4
1963 = 240.9
a = Drawdowns were used to estimate impact on fishery. Source Mgmt of Lakes&Ponds, by Bennett

Highly variable results from this long term study which indicates to me that none of this stuff is real dependable or our "rules" or guidelines are probably not "definate" and much still needs to be researched and learned about management of the aquatic system.

Bill, Do you know how they measured the standing crop? How accurate are the numbers?

Standing crops were measured by draining the water and seining of all remaining fish. In other wards a total census was taken each time, fish were sorted and desirables were returned to the lake after each census.

Again, I respectfully disagree with the idea presented as carrying capacity. At times, my disagreement with this idea was not respectful and for that I apologize. This discussion is not trivial nor is it just a word game. Rather, it goes to our basic understanding of biology and our management of our lakes. In some cases, I will take my examples to an extreme to help illustrate them better.

I grew up on a farm in Nebraska in the 50’s and 60’s. There, I learned about carrying capacity in terms of the number of cattle that we could put on our pasture. Most farmers and ranchers can quickly tell you the carrying capacity of their pastures. This could be called the natural carrying capacity. However, since they must produce more income from this land, they often fertilize, irrigate or manage this land in many different ways so that they can raise more cattle. Sometimes, they take this another step and bring in supplemental feed so they can raise more cattle on this land. We now have an even higher carrying capacity. Taking this idea even further, we bring in all of the feed and have a cattle feedlot. Going even further, we squeeze these cattle into a semi-trailer to take them to market. The extreme of this idea is sardines in a can. This is the maximum carrying capacity of anything, it is its volume.

So far, we have kept the species (cattle) constant. Let’s change the cattle a little bit. Over time, we bought cattle that converted feed to body mass better. Also at this time, I was in college studying ecology and evolutionary biology. This got me thinking. Our pasture and the way we managed it hadn’t changed but the carrying capacity had. If carrying capacity was a constant, this wasn’t possible. I was finally able to figure out that carrying capacity really wasn’t about our pasture but was about our cattle’s ability to use our pasture.

This is the point. Carrying capacity isn’t a measurement of the resource. It is a measurement of different species’ or group of species’ ability to use that resource. To use an extreme example again, cattle could use our pasture very well. Fish could not use it at all. This had nothing to do with the quality of our pasture but rather it has everything to do with the vastly different abilities of these two species to use this particular resource.

This understanding has tremendous implications for managing our ponds. There is a very great difference in different fish species’ ability to use the resources in our lakes.

LMB have a very poor ability to use the resources in our lakes. They are good at using larger animals as food but very poor at using very small animals and plants as food. They are also very poor at converting food to flesh. Let’s illustrate this better by comparing carrying capacity, usually measured in pounds per acre, to a pie. And let’s use your lake without doing anything to it. If you put just LMB into your lake, you will have a very small pie. Gizzard shad are very good at using the resources in your lake (if you are far enough south for them to live). Your lake hasn’t changed but now you have a very large pie. This is also true for any combination of species. Different groups of species will use the resources in your lake better or worse than other groups of species. That means that the particular group of fish species determines the size of the pie. In general (with many exceptions), the more species, the bigger the pie meaning the more total pounds of fish per acre.

Now, let’s say that my understanding of this concept is incorrect (heaven forbid). I have been known to be wrong on more than a few occasions. Your lake supports about 300 pounds of fish per acre. Without fertilizing or feeding, that is your lake’s carrying capacity, maximum carrying capacity or whatever words you want to use. You can divide this 300 pounds between a few species or many species but you still won’t raise more than 300 pounds of fish per acre. Let’s say that your goal is to raise very big LMB. If the normal understanding of carrying capacity is correct, then it is a complete waste of time to add a forage species to your lake. The weight of this forage is taking away from the 300 pounds per acre that would be in the LMB otherwise.

None of this negates any of the research that has been done with fisheries management. Nor am I advocating putting every species we can think of in our lakes.

Seldom does anyone manage their lake to produce the largest pie they can. Rather, they manage to produce a certain crop or experience. Our 4-acre lake is designed for use by kids, handicapped and elderly people in groups. Therefore, I manage it to produce the largest number of good-sized fish with the greatest diversity possible. That means no flathead catfish or northern pike because they would eat everything in my lake and I would end up with a smaller diversity. The point is that I am not just putting different species in this lake to have more species. Rather, I evaluate all of these species to see how they might work together to meet my management goals.

Hopefully, this illustrates my understanding of the concept of carrying capacity better.

Norm,
I am convinced you have a very good grasp on carrying cap. of a pond/lake as I understand carrying capacity. I think the problem has been in some of us (including me) in trying to convey our thoughts. I'm not a LMB/BG guy. I don't put it down it's just not what I want. I like diversity. It would become boaring if every pond we fished only produced LMB/BG.
However I do understand how it could become difficult for the guy that wants HUGE LMB to manage to that end if he had to contend with other preditors.

tritonvt,
Dave and Ric answered your questions, but here goes. You wanted to know is it possible to have enough forage so you can stock preadtors without restocking forage. The short answer NO. As Cody mentiuoned very complex. I'll explain it this way. My example before was with an addtional predator when you want to grow bass.

This time we will use another recommendation I make alot. Stock threadfin shad in bluegill/lmb pond as an additional forage to grow more bass. SOme folks may think cool I'll stock the shad and that will mean if I grow 200 lbs/acre of shad I can grow 20 lbs more bass in the pond. Wrong the 200 lbs of shad will feed on zooplanktoin that would have otherwise went into aquatic insect production that was consumed by bluegill. therefore the shad take away "some" food from the bluegill. How much?, not sure. However the addition of 200 lbs of shad woild outweight the fact the bluegill production was reducded by say 50 lbs. Get it???

As Norm said you can produce more shad than other species. Why b/c they are closer in trophic status to the amount of nutrients than the predators who have several layers in the food web b/f they get fed. So add this to your answer, you can only produce so many pounds of forage b/c you can only fertilize so much b/f you have a fish kill. As Dave said this is an environment where you have waste and disease outbreaks. I hardly ever work a fish kill where a low fish populaiton was invlolved unless from some toxicant. Most of the time it is because some fish dealer said they could grow 2,000 lbs in their 1/4 acre pond with fertilizer and a feeder. I can go on and on and I probably am not explaining this well anyway.

Norm "there is" a point where there is a carrying capacity. It can be raised by supplemental feeding, fertilizing, adding a diffused air system, then a surface aerator, more forage that occupies a differnt niche. However at some point you have reached the top and before you get there you have made things more difficult with numerous species.

Norm I get your point and applaud it. I love to work with folks who like other goals thus stock several species like yourself. I also like helping folks grow big bass or big bluegill. However, I don't want any new readers to think from your post there is not a carrying capacity, there is. I think you understand so maybe it is just the term you don't like. Reread Bob's post. Maybe it is b/c I'm a biologist but I like the term carrying capacity it makes people understand they can only have so much of something no matter what they do. whether it be whitetail deer or fish. Go for it raise the bar that is what I hope I'm doing for my clients, but realize there is an end point and many times pushing it too far will led to trouble.

For me, managing a high diversity lake is extremely simple and easy.

Most of the people fishing our lake are kids, handicapped or elderly in groups under the supervision of parents or professional staff. Most of them have very little, if any, fishing experience. If they have fishing equipment, it is usually heavy enough to catch a whale. Therefore, I furnish all rods, reels, tackle and bait. We use inexpensive spin casting reels with a single circle hook, split shot and bobber. Most of the fishing is from a covered bridge especially made for use by people in wheelchairs. My management goal then is to provide a quality fishing experience for these people.

This is what I think they want for their experience. First, they want to catch a lot of fish. Second, they want these fish to be good size so they can tell their friends and family about them. We try to make sure that everyone has a picture of themselves with a big fish. Lastly, they love counting how many different species they caught.

We have very high fishing pressure on this small lake. If we allowed fish to be taken from this lake, we could fish it out very quickly. So, the first thing we did was to make this lake totally catch and release. We catch many of these fish 25-100 times a season. The most important thing we did to reduce catch and release mortality was the use of circle hooks. They are amazing, especially with pan fish.

Next, I manage this just like everyone else does to produce large panfish. The only thing different is that I have so many forage fish to control. I do that with lots of different species of predators and over stocking predators. Most of our panfish are large so they help control the fry and fingerlings.

Lastly, I don’t expect any of the predators to reproduce in my lake. It is great if they do, but I don’t count on it. I treat them all as if they were wipers that I have to constantly replace. It’s no harder or expensive to constantly stock LMB or catfish than it is with wipers. SMB are more expensive so you have to decide how much they mean to you. They mean a lot to me.

There are a huge number of advantages to constantly stocking the predators. I don’t have to worry about the crappie fry eating the LMB fry. I don’t have to worry if I get a good year class of something. If I decide that I want more of something, I just buy it. If I get too many forage fish, I just buy more predators. Most of these predators are the size appropriate to managing for large panfish. However, I’ve purchased a couple of “WOW” fish of each species.

Does it seem like it would be a lot of money to purchase these fish? I don’t smoke, drink, gamble or run around. This is my hobby. Compared to the amount of money most of us have spent on our lakes, this amount of money for fish each year is insignificant.

Bits and parts of this type of management can be used in many situations. Hopefully, this might provide more ideas about ways to manage our lakes.

Boy!
This is all new to me! I have always wanted diveristy, but it seem always a big no no by the experts, so I realy did not mentioned it.
I thought I had a grasp on this carying capacity (or what ever you call it), Until I read Norm post. Some of the stuff he say makes a lot of sense to me. I always thought that different fish occupy different parts of the lake. But other parts he talks about, when mentioning "Big Pie" I am totaly confused...

My thoughts right or wrong were always that your pond can only produce a certain pound of forage and therefor inturn can produce a certain number of Predetor fish. If you can produce 200 lbs of forage, then that means they can be all blugill or you can split it up into many different speices, but at the end of the day you only get 200 lbs. This is unless you add some sort of catylest to the system, like a feeder, then you increase your "carting capacity".
This the same with the Predetors you xxx number of lbs per acer, I can be one predetor or lots of different predetors. If want to increase this number then you have to elevate your forage base.

Me personally I want to have a diversity and still grow large bass. My Idea is to stock less than the recomended rates of LMB and add three other predetors..

Whew!
Lots of information. Can be confusing.
Simply stated....carrying capacity is what life a given environment can support at a given time.
Here's an absolute...carrying capacity changes. It has to. Growing season changes, species variety changes (as some creatures eat plants, other creatures eat those creatures), fertility changes, photoperiod changes. Therefore, carrying capacity must change, or it will die. Here's another absolute...carrying capacity cannot be accurately measured. Nutrients feed plankton, which feeds insects and small fish, which feeds larger fish, which feed larger fish, which feed larger fish, and so on.
Each level results in energy conversion, and energy loss, as well as waste, some of which is converted back to plankton...recycled, if you will. This system is dynamic, changing, rolling, molding, onward, downward, upward...all the time. These systems are affected by nutrient load, sunshine, temperature, birth, death, attrition.
So, to keep it simple, fisheries guys like me look at carrying capacity in categories such as bass. Carrying capacity of largemouth bass is different in lakes with no forage, and clear water, than in lakes with a strong plankton bloom and diverse forage fish populations.
Carrying capacity is relative, and relevant for those people trying to monitor and manage growth of particular species of fish. To increase the standing crop of game fish, increase the carrying capacity of the environment that grows their food. And, be sure to use species of fish that fit each practical niche in that environment, to enhance your target species.
In other words, for example, in the south, we use bluegill, threadfin shad and redear sunfish as forage for largemouth bass. Each species fills a different niche in a pond.
But, go north too far, and you can forget threadfins and redear. But, you can have yellow perch with bluegill, if you are feeding the appropriate predator fish with these prolific spawners.
Carrying capacity is a circus...many rings juggling many things.

This is my vote for B. Lusk to write an article about Norm's lake and the diversity of fish in Norm's lake and how it works for him. Included should be how Norm manages fish and several or numerous pictures of Norm's happy customers with different or each type of fish. Pictures would be fun to see if nothing else.

Others may want to try and duplicate Norm's version of fish diversity. Of course this is all dependant on Bob and Norm agreeing.

I smoke, drink, gamble and run around. I'm thirty two and look ninety. The reason I'm constructing a pond is so I'll have something to do whem I'm no longer able/interested in smoking, drinking, gambling and running around.

You go Dudley!

Dudley, I just thought I was an accomplished BS artist. You just might send me back to my day job. Or, are you accepting apprentices?

Cody, Good idea on the Norm pond article. However, I would never recommend stocking several of the species he mentioned. It is great to think outside the box. However Big POnd already is excited about Norm's pond and I can tell you Big POnd if you stock several of the species he mentioned you will be very sorry you did.

I'm really not trying to be negative. Lots of folks would love to have the fish Norm talks about, but I don't think they would like the work it takes to keep it in balance to produce decent size fish of several species. Once again it is about your goals. If catching lots of diff fish is fun, go for it. If goal is for good growth of any one sepcies this probably not the best and sure is not the easiest route to take.

I woke up last night thinking about Norm's pond/lake and what he has done. I made some important notes. After Christmas when I get back from a visit, I will provide more thoughts about his pond ecosystem and hopefully give people more to think about and consider before rushing out to get more types of fish for their pond. Stay in touch for more later.

I was really excited about this post! Norm has about 12 different species in his lake! Greg you are right, it would be wonderfull if we could easily run an operation like this, but in reality we can't. Greg what species would you absolutly get rid of?
There are certain spciese that no has ever seemed to comment on like: Fresh water drum, white bass, and Rock Bass? How do these fish do in lakes and ponds?

I am in the process of building an 8.2 acre lake at around 30 feet deep. I got all the leagel paper work from the Core and Georgia safe dams. The thing I am worried about now is construction and cost this is far more important than what you stock.....
When I do get around to stock this lake I will have all three bream red breasted, copper nose, and redear. Then I might add shad. Then 50 bass, 10 hybrid, 10 black crappie, and 7 to 10 blues per acre... this would give a conservitive 80 predetors per acre. This is about as diverse as I can get. Might add a feeder or two for the forage base...

Awww shucks, guys. It weren't nuthin. I knowed i weren't the only one alive with his priorities in order and with his face buried in the cornucopia.

Big POnd with your goals in mind I think you are thinking on the right track with your mentioned stocking regime. Add fathead minnows to your list for initial stocking. You can also add crawfish to the mix. Several of the species mentioend will do poorly in our southern climate and I know of no sources (hatcheries) around here that would not be cost prohibitive for many of the species. My advice do not stock green sunfish, redhorse or other sucker species. I would also advise fertilzing and supplemental feeding to maximize forage base. This will allow more food to reach predators mouths.

This post was edited and modified again on Jan 01, 04.
Here are some of my thoughts about high fish diversity in a pond and some things to keep in mind when attempting to develop a pond similar to what NormKopecky is doing.

1. Norm seems to have a unique pond situation. Numerous fish species (20+) in his small lake of 4 acres works for what his goals are: a. catch numerous species, b. easy to catch fish and lots of them, c. does not expect predators to reproduce, d. catch and release.

2. Since I am not familiar with his lake, I have to make a few assumptions which may likely be wrong. Hopefully Norm will respond and supply some needed details.

3. My first question is about his predators. In his Dec 21 post: "Most of the predators are size appropriate for managing for large panfish". How does Norm keep most of them predominately in the smaller sizes if there is no or very limited harvest? Without harvest and assuming an average life span and normal mortality, existing predators with adequate food should continue to grow (but maybe slowly) to large sizes. I suspect Norm has a "fair amount" of pretty large predators who have been escaping the hook&line and are feeding on appropriate sized forage. Possibly the larger predators are not biting and not being caught. With limited reproduction, I assume that high numbers of smaller predators are due to regular stockings of subadult fish.

4. QUOTE from a NK post. "There is a very great difference in different species ability to use the resources in our lake". Based on the fish Norm has listed as present, I propose that there is also a great deal of niche overlap among many of the fish species that Norm has in his lake. The niche overlap may not occur all at one time by all the same sizes of fish. As many fish grow, they utilize different niches, different foods, and use different feeding areas. Also some or often many types of fish are opportunistic feeders and can utilize different niches or food sources at different times, providing the food has not already been consumed by someone else. More on this later.

5. Condition Factors or plumpness of fish. I suspect that numerous fish of Norm's are on the skinny side or at or below average weight. There are also probably other fish (large predtors) that are plump. Presence of skinny fish, I assume is due to Norms comment that some of the fish are caught 25 to 100 times per season. Hungry (low condition factor) fish are easier to catch. Typcially the same fish does not rebite hooks this frequently unless they are either really dumb or very hungry and hunger overpowers their instinct to be caucious or wary. Most fish learn fairly quickly to avoid hooks and unnatural looking "baits". I think many fish in high density & crowded, competetive conditions just exist and do not really thrive. Thriving fish are typically fat and growing "normally" and some people also include reproducing as a requirement.

5. Many fish are opportunistic feeders and some are specialists that can become more opportunistic when necessary. Fish can and do feed on other food items when necessary, providing someone else in the other niche has not already eaten or depleated that food. For instance many fish feed on different foods when their typical or mainstay food is in short supply or the season is "wrong". Example, walleye will binge eat hatching mayfly larvae during the mayfly emergance. But if another species of fish sucker / redhorse in another niche has already consumed the majority of that food as its preferred food, then what is the walleye to eat during lean times? The bottom feeders have sucked most of the mayfly larvae out of the sediments. This also can apply to many hatchling or juvenile fish. They feed primarily on zooplankton and small foods. But if you have a species of adult fish that feeds primarily on plankton & small items in the water column in your pond they are consuming / grazing lots of the zooplankton out of the water column and leaving it relatively barren of optimum sizes of zooplankton for the numerous young hatchlings. Adult bgills who usually eat insect larvae among weed beds often resort to eating zooplankton esp during winter when few insects are available. Bgill will also feed at times on certain types of snails when other food items are scarse. If zooplankton populations are low or not present in adequate numbers due to other species of plankton eating fish being present, what is the bgill population supposed to eat during winter? Snails were previously grazed by redears or pumpkinseed sunfish. At certain times, Catfish and suckers are known to feed in open water high off the botttom. Examples of niche overlap among fish species are numerous.

6. #5 also leads us to: over eating of the forage base. Over grazing of the forage base by several species of fish all eating the same type of food in several niche overlap periods results in few food surpluses being present. In "lean times" many fish that rely on this type of food surpluses have nothing to fall back on for supplimental food resources. Thus they get skinny during these periods. Skinny or stressed fish are vulnerable and more susceptable to disease and parasites compared to plump well fed fish.

7. Food Production of a habitat has limits to the amount of food it can produce. Adding more consumers does not create more food in the habitat. Addition on more types of consumers causes more of the previously uneaten food to be consumed which I contend moves the habitat more toward overgrazing of reserves that would have been eaten by existing fish during other food scarse periods. Fertility determines amount of food producion. Whenever overgrazing occurs, the habitat quality and production ability is sometimes compromised. Thus over eating a forage base can have ecological implications or negaive impacts on the habitat or system. For instance, over grazing a pasture kills the grass. Dead grass no longer holds the soil in place and erosion occurs. Dead grass provides no habitat for lots of invertebrate organisms that live in the grass canopy and thatch. Some birds & field mice would have nested in thick or taller grass. Over grazing or over eating the food resource caused these things to occcur. Similar things happen in aquatic habitats when they are over grazed. Over grazing underwater is hard to see from above.

8. Norm's pond management is approaching more of what I would call an aquatic zoo rather than a balanced system where all fish are thriving. However this technique works for his special goals. A whole bunch of different fish species put together in a limited space and frequent restocking of sizes larger than fingerlings. Note, that zoos, for a reason, do not put all their animals togther in one big pen even though most have different niches.

9. Example. Lets say we have a 5 acre pen with growing grass / vegetation and a net over the top so nothing escapes. In our 5 acre pen we put piles of big rocks, piles of broken concrete, brush piles, some standing timber & tree limbs, some tall grassy areas, maybe even a small natural low growing area of shrubs, a bare sand area and an area with large gravel, some bare ground area and two watering holes. Sound familiar? Now lets put in our pen 300 house mice, 200 field mice, 100 chipmunks, 100 norway rats, 80 hamsters, 50 guinea pigs, 10 squirrels, 10 ducks 10 canada geese, 20 chickens, 3 owls, 5 muskrats 3 beaver, 5 opossum, 20 rabbits, 2 goats, 3 raccoon, 4 fox, 4 coyote, 8 house cats, 8 dogs(2 poodles, 3 doberman, 2 cocker spaniel, 1 German shepherd), 2 mountain lion cubs, and 2 wolves. We add no food on a regular basis. What will happen after one month, two months, one year? All these animals have different niches but many eat similar things when placed into a standard habitat with a limited number of niches in 5 acres. The only way we can keep any sort a balance and the orginal diversity in this "zoo" is to continually replace the disappearing or thinly populated species. In this land based example we will see the losses, but in our pond or lake we do not see the losses or changes in fish sizes and density that occur so the reality of loss is not as dramatic as it would be in our terrestrial based example above.

10. Most pond manages and advisers who advocate simple stocking plans of relatively low diversity combinations do it to try and achieve a balanced, self-maintaining system, so the populations are relatively easy to manage, so that too many grazers do not over graze the pasture, and so good growth of all fish can occur. Lower diversity stockings are easier to manage and cost of replacement fish is low due to the spawning fish in balanced conditions are replacing those that are lost to harvest or natural mortality. With proper management, larger fish will be produced so a harvest can occur for sport or food. Since Norm mainly practices catch and release I assume the higher cost of restocking and replacing fish, that he mention earlier, is due primarily to losses caused mostly by predation. This refers back to why I thought Norm has some big, fat preators.

Summary. This is not a pro or con position of what Norm has done with his pond. What he has done seems to work well for his special situation and neees. It can also work when fish numbers, regardless of how many types are present, are NOT allowed to get too crowded or abundant.

I also recognize that in some habitats there are food items that are not being eaten. But when "regular" food items become in short supply, often sometimes existing fish will adapt or learn or to utilize these unexploited food items. However this is not always true because some fish are not adapted to eat certain things. Example. In Lake Erie the invasion of Zebra mussels created attached layers of small mussels on all underwater surfaces. It did not take numerous species of fish long to figure out that these were edible (To name a few, catfish, perch, bgill, sunfishes, sheephead, suckers, carp, sturgeon, and round gobbie have had Z.mussels in their gut).

I've tried to present additional ideas to consider when you are thinking about adding numerous fish species to a pond or lake. Many different fish feed on similar food items during the "off season", during different life stages or when "times get tough".

I welcome all comments and additional discussion.

Greg I'll do as you sayand add fathead minnows, I just wish I had a lake to add them to. These loggers are really leaving a mess!!

Bill I totaly understood what you are saying, I defenitly do not want be half as devirse as Norm is, but, what about high diversity, and low numbers? What I mean is, a few number of each species, so that the sum of the whole group would equal the rate a normal bass pond?
The biggest danger to Norms pond to me is the crappie.
Not only does he have black crappie, but he has white crappie as well all in the same pond!!

b_p, Good point. High diveristy with low numbers can work. Crowding and over abundance is usually where the problem lies. Where most pondowners run into problems is when fish reproduce, proper thinning is not done and then overpopulation and over crowding occur which then puts too much pressure on the food resorces.

With numerous species stocked together one or two types seem to reproduce better than the others and their young survive better than the others and then problems start occuring. Probably what helps out Norm is his frequent addition of juvenile predators who keep abundant young fish thinned out.

Big POnd not the right thread for this, but with the loggers in place are you creating an underwater fieh haven? I really hope you are leaving some cover in the right places. Hopefully I will one day see the project. Video tape some of the work. It will help you once the pond is full of water. ALso, I may want to use it one day in a video I'm thinking about putting together. Happy New Year everyone!

For those of you interested in Norm's pond, I may be able to eventually report some more information.

I have not actually been to his pond yet. However, this upcoming fall, I will teach my advanced fisheries management class (for graduate students who plan to be fisheries biologists). One of the things I like to do is have all students do some sampling, and learn to write a management plan. Norm has indicated that I can send a couple of the students down to his pond for their class project. I'll have them electrofish and trap net the fish community, and work up the sizes, condition factors, and relative abundances for the various fish species. I'm especially looking forward to comparing condition of the various predator types, and seeing what prey supplies might actually be there.

With Norm's permission, which likely will not be a problem [:-)], I can share the sampling overview with the Pond Boss group.

Dave

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Our whole family was able to get together and we loved it.

We don’t charge anything to have people fish here. I’m retired and this is our way of giving back to our community. We try to give a very good fishing experience to people that normally wouldn’t get it otherwise.

Bill, I really appreciate your detailed thoughts on this subject. Now I would like to get everyone’s ideas on how to manage the situation I have. Imagine that you are hired by a local nonprofit organization to manage their 4-acre lake. They want to provide a quality fishing experience for kids, people with disabilities and the elderly. They especially want to “turn kids on to fishing”. In their minds, this is what they want to have happen. They want everyone should catch lots of fish and they want this fish to be big enough that the kids get excited about them. And then they would like everyone to catch a good selection of the local fish species so that the kids can learn what they are. They have given you a big enough budget to buy fishing equipment, bait and some replacement fish. They certainly aren’t giving you enough money to stock the lake every week. Lastly, they have put a lot of money into making this lake and they want to see it used and used a lot.

I don’t have a board of directors telling we what to do (my wife excepted) but this is about the situation we have accepted. This is how I’ve tried to manage this situation. How would you manage this situation differently?

The first thing I did was to think of this management as the simplest terms possible. That is a bass, bluegill and catfish lake with a small wiper component. Since it is easier to catch bluegills than bass or catfish, I decided to manage for large bluegills. That also allows the size of all of the fish species to better fit the fishing equipment I bought. There was also had one other problem. Between natural and catch and release morality, I couldn’t afford to loose many more fish from the lake. Once I got a fish to a size everyone liked to catch, I had to do everything possible to protect that fish so that we could catch it again and again. This formed my basic management plan and the one that I continue to follow.

Then I did one thing different. I started managing groups of species as if they were just one species. That gave me a forage group, a bass group, a catfish group and a small wiper group. To this (because of our northern conditions), I added a walleye/yellow perch group.

The forage group consists of bluegills, hybrid bluegills, black and white crappie, rock bass, pumpkinseeds and green sunfish (which I wish I hadn’t added). All of these species work together as a forage panfish group. So far, I’m not doing anything different than anyone else does when they have a bluegill/redear sunfish combination. I’m just doing it with more species. Again, this is nothing different than a natural southern lake with bluegill, redear sunfish, warmouth, black crappie, white crappie, green sunfish and redbreast sunfish.

The bass group consists of LMB and SMB. The catfish group has channel catfish, freshwater drum and shorthead redhorse in it. The wiper group has wipers (23 individuals), white bass (about 50) and goldeye (17 individuals). I manage each of these groups exactly the same as many of you do with single species. The total numbers and size structure of each of these groups is about the same (hopefully) as is appropriate for raising large panfish.

So far, what I’ve done is nothing different than anyone does managing a LMB, bluegill, channel catfish and wiper lake. We can make this difficult and complicated but I try to make it all simple.

The walleye/yellow perch group is the least successful group in our lake. Because of their size and shape, everything eats yellow perch. However, the only good prey in this lake for the walleye are the perch. What this means is that we don’t have many perch in our lake and the walleye grow very slowly.

Over time, I’m sure one or another of these species will tend to dominate each group. However, with only 4 acres, I can seine, trap or remove by other means any species I wish and achieve any balance I want. The only group that I can imagine my needing to manage intensively is the forage group. The people fishing this lake enjoy catching all of the forage species. Unless some species gets wildly out of control, I don’t think I’ll have to do too much management with this group.

A small lake like this is not conducive to reproduction by walleye, wipers, white bass, goldeye, catfish, drum or redhorse. So automatically, I’m committed to continually stocking these species. That leaves the LMB and SMB. They might reproduce naturally but I’m committed to not letting the predator/prey relationship get out of balance. Stocking fingerlings of these species, in general, is a waste of time. They end up just being expensive forage. That’s why I stock subadults.

I don’t think that the number of species has much effect on the growth rate of most fish in this lake. What makes a very big difference is that I overstock predators on purpose. This is consistent with growing large panfish. This means that the predators are hungrier than they probably would be otherwise. I view this as a positive. It also means that the predators grow slower than they probably would otherwise. This is also fine with me. Some of the biologists reading this can comment about longevity in slower growing fish.

I don’t think that the comparison to a zoo is accurate. I would compare this to an aquarium where all of the predators are of similar size and temperament. The difference is that we are raising the food for these fish right in our lake.

Is this “natural”? Of course not! But if you look at all of our lakes critically, there is very little “natural” about them. Most of the lakes themselves are man made. Many of the fish species we use are not native to the areas we are putting them. Florida strain LMB did not naturally occur in Texas or California. And the fact that we actually manage our lakes is not “natural”.

Do the people that fish our lake really care that the fish they are catching were stocked and didn’t grow up in the lake naturally? No. Do many of the fishermen around the country care if the fish they catch were stocked or not? Do fishermen care that the salmon in the Great Lakes aren’t native? In most cases, these issues are irrelevant.

The more I think about it and watch our lake, the bigger fan I am of nonbreeding populations of predators in small ponds. It costs a bit more but managing the predator/prey relationship is so much easier this way. Also, if we make a mistake or change our minds, it is much easier to change with nonbreeding populations.

In general, most species are in good condition. Next to the walleye/yellow perch group, the open water feeders of the wiper group seem not thrive as well as other species. There really isn’t much open water forage. The goldeyes are the thinnest followed by the white bass. The wipers can always find something to eat and are thriving. I’m going to let the white bass die out since most people can’t tell them from wipers and just go with wipers. I want to keep about 20 or so goldeyes in the lake just for something different.
All of the species of the bass and catfish groups seem to be doing well. Of the forage species, both species of crappie tend to be thin. I like crappies and will see what I can do to improve their health.

This is an extreme situation and it forced me to think about things differently. In so doing, I’ve had to develop ways of managing this lake that may have applicability in other situations.

I’m very much looking forward to have Dave Willis bring his class to study our lake. And yes, Dave, I do hope you can spread the information you gain from this lake as widely as possible.

As I said earlier, I think Norm is managing his lake pretty good for the goals that he has established for his lake. My earlier discussion was to generate thought for pondowners who are stocking new ponds so they could be better informed of consequences or possible repercussions of their stocking plan.

I also agree that nonreproducing fish are easier but not necessarily cheaper to manage. And maybe even cheaper in the long term. I advocate it as often as possible when appropriate. However many pondowners do not want to spend much effort of money yearly or even every 2 yrs to replace fish or suppliment populations. Many are primarily interested in catching not managing. It's not a priority for them or money for restocking is limited.

Nonreproducing fish (predators and some panfish) also allow you better control of habitat grazing so there is less chance of overgrazing. Control is a key element in management or population manipulation.

I agree most all stockings and management are artificial in artificially created water bodies, i.e. the term fishery managment. When introduced populations are left to develop naturally or they are allowed to be indiscriminately harvested they usually go out of balance one way or another. In natual undisturbed settings, nature will eventually adjust unbalanced densities. However most people are too impatient to wait for nature to make the adjustments and / or they do not like the way nature does it.

I would not have stocked Norm's lake a whole lot differently other than maybe leaving out one or two problematic taxa. Norm is learning that certain combos do not compete well with a diverse mixed fish community. Some species are more adaptable at surviving with other species competition than others. For example his walleye/perch species are not flourishing. Under different conditions the walleye-perch could be the dominant fish and the others would struggle. His crappie are not doing real well as far as body condition. Ideal forage items or conditions for these fish are not optimum. But then can survive.

I sort of like his philosophy of grouping similar types of fish species together based on feeding behavior / adaptations. I even used his same stocking concepts once in one of my ponds. When my goals chqnged, I wound up draining and restocking. One gets a real education when they drain a pond where lots of various types fish have been stocked into it over the years.

Also in Norms case slow growth of predators can be good. Slow growing, smaller predators have to eat smaller forage items compared to significiently larger bodied fish of the same species. Smaller predators are helping produce larger panfish.

Norm had some background knowledge /education of what he was doing before he started. He mentioned ecology class. Also Norm mentioned that he is COMMITTED, he does population sampling and population thinings adjustments when necessary. Plus he has some money to put toward his "project". He did not just start adding his favorite fish to his lake. Overall I think Norm has done a good pretty good job of stocking appropriate fish species based on his goals which is why I recommended PBoss magazine do an article about his lake. Some others may like this type of catch & release and variety fishery and would like to learn how to be as successful as Norm has been.

Every community needs a lake that is used for kids, handicapped and elderly fishing. I’m not kidding about this. Think about your community. We already do a lot of different things. We have kids fishing days. Here in Sioux Falls, SD Fisheries puts trout into a swimming pool and lets elderly catch them on a special day. In Des Moines they stock a city lake with large bullheads and have a huge kids fishing day. This is all great and I hope that we can add to the ways we can bring fishing to people, especially kids.

There are many organizations, local governments or private individuals that might want to provide this type of fishing to their communities. I’m thinking about the Izaak Walton League, fishing or sportsman clubs or maybe someone that is retired like me. If people get the idea that this is possible and needed, how will they manage their lakes? Typical fisheries techniques aren’t really designed for this type of fishing. The best size of lake for this type of fishing is probably less than 10 acres. That is exactly the size lake that Pond Boss is developing expertise in managing.

The walleye/yellow perch component of our lake isn’t doing well. However, in South Dakota, everyone is walleye crazy. Even if our walleyes are 14 inches and skinny I’ll keep them in the lake just because everyone is so excited that they caught a walleye. Around here, catching a bass doesn’t mean much to most people.

I’m making an assumption that the people that subscribe to and read Pond Boss just don’t dump a bunch of fish into their lake and let it go. For the many people that let their lakes go, the simplest system is the best. For Pond Boss subscribers though, some of these ideas might be applicable.

To me, a game fish is any species that is easy to clean and easy to cook. I hate this bias. When many people in South Dakota catch goldeyes, they slit their throats and throw them back. In Canada, they are considered the tarpon of the north and Winnipeg smoked goldeye are considered a delicacy. When people catch a goldeye in our lake, I get all excited and congratulate them on their catch. The same with drum and redhorse. The redhorse are so brightly colored it is almost like catching an ornamental fish. Skipjack herring just barely get to South Dakota but if I could get them, I would put a few in the lake immediately.

When I talk about having these different species in our lake, many people think I’m talking about hundreds of them. In fact, I’m only talking about 15-30 individuals. That is enough for people to catch them sometimes but not enough that they affect the dynamics of the lake that much.

There is one other variable that many people don’t consider. Our lake has very high fishing pressure. This fishing pressure affects how we have to manage as much or more than many of the other variables.

The most important thing this lake has forced me to do is analyze why things work or don’t work. Then I write down every way I can think of that might help make the situation work. Maybe some of these ideas will help you also.

Here are some things I’ve had to manage: crappie populations, managing groups of species, high fishing pressure, use of other species than LMB and bluegills, keeping fish biting all the time, stocking subadult fish, costs of managing a lake and much more.

Ok...I have been studying this post very carfully and I have a couple of questions...
1) Which species of Norms lake can survive in the deep south? (Georgia)
2) The two species that I think will hurt the most are the White crappie and the green sunfish, why stock both Black crappie and White crappie?

3) It seems very hard to me to put crappie black or white in a class of just pan fish, because they are predetors, I would think they would eat more than bass. So really you have White Crappie, Black Crappie, and green sunfish eating on the forage base...This has been the biggest problem with these guys all along, they eat as much as bass and multiply like crazy. Remember I said "eat as much as Bass" "but not like bass" in other words Crappie can put a dent into a fry of bream minnows while bass will try to feed on the bigger more adult bream.
4) How would drum fish do in a southern pond like north GA what are there draw backs?
5) what are red horse?

Norm I once again think for your goals your doing a great job. I look forward to seeing David results. I just don't want folks to think that if they want a pond for kids or the handicapped they need one like yours. VERY DIFFICULT TO MANAGE. A pond stocked with bluegill, redear, channel catfish that is maintianed bass heavy with lots of skinny bass, fertilized, and with a fish feeder is hard to beat. It is great for kids that can catch numbers of large bluegill, small bass and some catfish. I can see the only advantge of all the species being a diversity for the folks who fish it frequently. Otherwise low diversity is what I would recommend for a kids pond.

On carying capacity,
There are two things that I think have been some what overlooked so far.
First, every lake has a maximum. No matter what you do your lake can only produce so much algae.
Second, trophic levels. Plankton is the first trohpic level. About 99.99% of the mass of a trophic level is lost when it is consumed. i.e. 1000 pound of plankton equals about .1 lb minnows. Diffrent fish eat diffrent parts of the lowest trophic levels. A school of gizzard shad feeds in open water and BG feed in cover. They utilize somewhat diffrent habbitat and so thier net production exceeds that of just BG.
But to directly answer and earlier question, No your forage base can never be large enough so that diffrent predators do not compete. The predators, if reproduction occurs, will simply expand untill they reach the limits of thier enviroment.
The limits of thier enviroment include food availability, and food availability is directly tied to the limited amound of plankton in your lake.

b_p and all: There are about 12 species of redhorse in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Redhorses (sometimes called mullet)are a group if very similar looking, laterally compressed fish in the sucker family. I consider them with a more high back than the cylindrical shaped suckers. They have a sucker type mouth like a white sucker & positioned more underneath (bottom) than a carp mouth. They suck/strain their food (mostly invertebrates and small mollusks) out of the bottom sediments. They can get up to 14 pounds but most range from 1-7 lbs. Many species are not present in the deep south, but 1 or 2 species have ranges extending into TX and Mexico. Most are stream spawners and thrive better in streams than lakes. Those in thriving in lakes have streams entering the lake. They typically do not do very well in polluted or turbid waters. For a picture go to some of the web sites listed in this forum.

What is a goldeneye? I checked on some of the sites, and what I saw seemed more like an aquarium fish. I didn't have time to do a full search though.

A golden eye is an aquarium fish, but a Goldeye is not. Hioden Alosoides is a wide ranging game fish. It is found in turbid rivers and small lakes accross the northern US and south of the great lakes in the missouri and missippi river drainages. Fishbase.org link
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Hiodon&speciesname=alosoides

I buy most of my fish from a dealer in Nebraska. He told me that in terms of dollars, he sells more subadult and adult fish than fingerlings. He also said that this percentage is continuing in favor of larger fish. The sizes of these larger fish are 6-8” bluegill, 8-10” yellow perch, 10-12” crappie, 10-15” LMB and 5-12” wipers. He sometimes gets larger fish and they sell immediately. Please note that he sells lots of larger panfish.

He uses a number of perspectives to sell these larger fish. The biggest, of course, is that after spending all of this time and money on a lake, it is crazy to not spend money on the fish. It is the same as building a big new house and sodding the lawn rather than seeding it. You might find this reasonable in stocking a new lake. After all, a person can get immediate fishing this way. Most of us don’t want to wait a couple of years to start fishing in our new lakes.

He isn’t just selling larger fish for initial stockings. These sizes of fish can very easily be stocked into existing lakes. He uses these perspectives. You wouldn’t expect to buy a car and not expect to spend money on continued maintenance. Having a lake is no different. There are continuing costs of aerators, feeders and stocking fish to maintain the predator/prey balance.

Another comparison he makes is to the average fisherman. What does it cost for each fish caught. Consider the cost of the boat, tackle, gas, motels, licenses etc. and then divide this cost by the number of fish caught. As you can imagine, the cost per fish is quite high. It makes sense then to spend money on fish for our lakes.

If people in your area don’t want to spend money for larger fish on continuing bases, it is probably because they have been sold on the idea that they don’t have to. It is then a matter of selling them on the idea that spending money on our lakes on a continuing basis is part of having a lake.

I have heard that the average MN fisheman spends $100 dollars a pound to catch walleye. Norm's fish look pretty cheap in comparision.

Norm I guess I wish I had more folks like you around here. I sell fish, but a properly balanced, managed pond does not require regular stocking. If your goals are geared a certain way occasional stocking may be necessary. When talking about trophy bass where you have poor bluegill and no shad, it is necessary for example. However it is alot cheaper to produce your own fish via fertilizing and fish feeding than stocking. WHat you said is the attitude I would expect a fish dealer to take.

Norm, It APPEARS to me that you are overstocking by filling so many of the niches in the pond. What is your water quality like?

Dave: yes, having very good water quality is essential to what i'm doing. I have two very large diffuser type aerators, each of which is rated to handle 5 acres.

Greg: it might be cheaper to feed and raise a person's own fish from fingerlings but it isn't nearly as fast. Plus, as fishing pressure increases, it physicially isn't possible to raise enough fish to replace the number of fish removed. As you know, it costs thousands of dollars to make a lake. A thousand or two dollars for fish each year is miniscue compared to the cost of the lake.

Cost is always relative to how much you have to spend, what may be reasonable expenses to you may not be to others. I would have to drain my pond if it required a thousand or two a year to maintain.

Norm good point. I thought it was catch and release though. Exactly how much fishing pressure does it get?

For me, this has been an extremely interesting discussion. I’ve now come to a number of conclusions.

I had been casting about for information about small lake management. I’ve concluded that I’ve found a home with Pond Boss. These chat rooms about different subjects are invaluable!

I think that current small lakes management techniques work very well for many people. The goal now is to spread the practice of these techniques even further.

Unfortunately, these techniques work poorly in other situations. I think that small lakes fisheries management techniques will expand dramatically to work with these other situations.

The concept of “plug and play” is starting to dominate many industries. Fisheries managers use this concept in put and take fishing. Many hunting preserves use this technique when they raise game birds and waterfowl for hunters to shoot. I think that this type of management will become more prominent in small lakes. Many lake owners have the money to stock adult fish and let their friends and family catch them.

Along these lines, more people are going to want to start fishing their new lakes just as soon as they start filling. I think that the techniques for establishing the micro flora and fauna and stabilizing the water chemistry needed to support fish very quickly will be developed as a general management technique.

Most put and take fisheries require very short-term management. There isn’t enough food in the lake or stream to sustain or grow these fish for the long term. One of the exceptions is trout or catfish lakes where the fish readily eat pelleted food. I think that more people will decide to use a modified form of this type of management. The modified form is using adult or subadult fish but also having natural reproduction of predators and growing the forage in your lake in addition to feeding the fish.

Pond Boss has many chat rooms devoted to crappies. Obviously crappies thrive in southern waters. The problem seems to be with the management techniques and their application. I predict that managers will develop techniques to manage crappies as easily as they do bluegills.

Speaking of bluegills, I think fisheries managers will start using other species for forage for LMB. From what I read, the lakes in southern California use trout as forage. One of the problems with bluegills is that they sometimes grow bigger than the LMB can eat. This is wasted energy in terms of LMB production. Species that are smaller but still very prolific might work better.

Another prediction is that owners of small lakes will start to want many more and different species in their lakes than the usual group. High diversity lakes such as I have will become much more common. Lake owners will discover that it is no harder to manage these high diversity lakes than it is anything else. Generally accepted management techniques will be developed to manage lakes this way.

I think that the bias to using only a few species will decrease. This isn’t a very radical idea. We now have catfish, crappie and carp fishing clubs and tournaments. Many more people will conclude that catching and releasing a LMB isn’t any different than catching and releasing bowfin, gar, goldeyes, skipjack herring, freshwater drum, members of the pike family or any number of other species of fish. People will also discover that many of these species are quite good eating if prepared in methods other than frying. Along with this will be a demand for these species to stock in small lakes.

Another thing that I think will become more common is the use of nonbreeding fishing in our lakes. Wipers are the most obvious start of this trend. Many people stock, grow and harvest catfish. This also requires periodic restocking. The species that I think has the most potential for expanded use is freshwater drum. Anyone that enjoys fishing for red drum in saltwater will enjoy their freshwater counterpart just as much. They would take the place of catfish or a person could have half catfish and half drum. It is highly unlikely that drum will reproduce in most of our small lakes. Many people will discover that managing nonbreeding species is very easy.

As with everything else, money is important to this discussion. I drive an old Ford van and an even older Dodge pickup. Still, I don’t begrudge people that want and have the money to drive new pickups and SUV’s. The same is true with spending money on our lakes. Keep in mind that having our own personal fishing lakes is a huge luxury expenditure.

Many businesses and individuals accept the idea that when the build a new place, that the cost of landscaping is just part of the total cost. For many of these people, stocking their new lake with large fish immediately will be a no brainer.

This will create a demand for subadult and adult fish. This type of industry already exists for trout and catfish. I think an industry will develop to raise many more species of fish for the market as well as stocking in lakes. In particular, I think that a demand will develop for LMB, SMB and walleyes from the subadult to the very large sizes. I especially think that demand for large individuals of these species will develop and that many people won’t hesitate to buy them.

None of these ideas are all that radical. All of these things are being done now. The only thing different is that I think that these things will happen sooner rather than later.

All of these ideas present tremendous opportunities for people that raise and sell stocking fish for a living. More importantly, all of these different types of small lake management present all of us much more variety in the ways we manage our lakes.

Well put Norm. Each pond boss needs to decide the best way for them to spend thier funds. This is ofcourse a personal and unique decision. If someone is happy with spending the money on put and take let them do it, it is probably the most reliable way to manage a fishery.
There is a pond here in duluth,mn that is owned by the city. It has black nose dace, suckers and probably a few small brookies. Each spring the MN dnr stocks 500 10" brook trout in chester bowl. I heard that each fish cost over $10. Several thousand other 10" trout are stocked in other small ponds and streams in duluth parks to offer city kids a chance to catch keeper fish. This is a substantial investment for the very temporary but huge increase in catchable fish. But it fits the budget and managment goals of the MN dnr so they keep doing it year after year.

Norm, thanks for making me think. My goal is, has been, and will be to raise some big fish and create some sort of ill defined ecosystem. You are planning on catching keeper size fish. There is a lot of difference but you are starting out where I want to end up. Just a different methodology.

Norm...what about Blues, where do blues fit in your managemnt scheame? I know you have room some where in that 4 acres of your for blues...come on now..

I'm assuming you are talking about blue catfish. If I could get a few (say 5-10)I would certainly stock them. It would be fun to show people the difference between them and channel catfish. However, I don't want to let them get too big and start eating everything. Therefore, I would continually stock about 5 each year or two at about 1 lb. and remove the very large ones. However, flathead catfish, northern pike and common carp are out because they get too big.

I forgot to mention Gregg that I do make all of the pan fish catch and release. The only reason I wouldn't add green sunfish again is that they don't get as big as the other pan fish. However, now that I think about it, they really get hit hard by the LMB and catfish so we see very few of them.

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question Dave. We have three catfish that are about 10-12 lbs. The biggest LMB and SMB are about 18" long. I would love to have 4-5 individuals of each species in the 3-6 lb. range. I would also love the have 3-4 walleyes in the 5-7 lb. range and 3-4 drum in the 10 lb. range. This is just to have a few "WOW" fish. Most of the predators must be in the smaller range though to control the pan fish. First and foremost, I want everyone to catch lots of fish and it is easier to do this with pan fish than it is with predators.

Yes, Ty, various state fisheries often spend a lot on put and take but not always. Nebraska has many urban fishing lakes. All LMB and bluegills are catch and release but they stock catfish and have a limit of 3 per day.

Bowfin live as far north as northern MN. For more on the amazing Bowfin visit:
Fishes of Minnesota
http://www.gen.umn.edu/research/fish/fishes/bowfin.html

William: I really have to be careful with fish that will reproduce. They can dominate a small lake like mine too quickly. I do have one long nose gar in the lake and we see it sunning itself occassionally. We are at the extreme NW edge of bowfin range and I would like to have a single male bowfin. We also have a single highfin carpsucker and a single blue catfish. No northern pike because they are too common around here and I wouldn't want to get a breeding population going.

This is an update of our multispecies lake that we started in 2000. An article about this lake appeared in the July/August 2004 issue of Pond Boss magazine.

This lake is at Worthing, SD, 15 miles south of Sioux Falls, SD. It is a quarry from which clay has been mined. The first half of the lake was dug out and piled up in 7 islands and a large berm around the island. The other half of the lake has been hauled away. As someone wanted clay and would pay to dig it and haul it away, the lake got bigger. This lake was finally finished in 2005. The final lake has 4 acres of water and about 1½ acres of land in the 7 islands.

The species stocked in this lake are: LMB, SMB, HSB, white bass, rock bass, bluegill, hybrid bluegill, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, white crappie, black crappie, channel catfish, walleye, sauger, yellow perch, freshwater drum, goldeye, shorthead redhorse, white suckers and sterile grass carp. This is a total of 20 species.

This is a put, grow and take fishery except that we really don’t take any fish to eat. If I can get one more year of life out of a fish, that is one more year before I have to replace it. This achieves our goal of giving kids, handicapped and elderly the opportunity to catch a wide variety of species. We want a very high catch rate of moderately sized fish.

In 2004, Dave Willis had a couple of his students survey this lake as part of a class project. They found that the only reproduction was by the bluegill although by fishing, we have found very limited reproduction by LMB. That means I must add every other species to keep up their population.

We have two Stren feeders using Aquamax 600 feed. We see LMB, SMB, HSB, hybrid bluegills, bluegills, goldeyes and catfish using this feed. I’m assuming that the redhorse and white suckers are also eating the pellets after they sink.

There are two parts to my evaluation of our lakes. The first is how do different species contribute to the fishing experience of our guests. The second is how do different species compete with the other species.

This is my evaluation of different species in terms of their contribution to the experience of our guests. I’m listing the species form most to least in their contribution.

SMB: easy to catch, fight well even at a 10” size and are an attractive fish.
HSB: same as above.
HBG: very pretty, fight very well, aggressive. Most of our fish are 9-10” and look big.
BG: not as pretty or big as HBG but more plentiful. Easy to catch in summer on small worms.
Rock Bass: dependable, big red eyes that are fun to show people. Many fish over 10”, which is trophy size in SD.
Crappie, both black and white: seasonal in spring and fall. In season are easy to catch and all are over 10”.
LMB: lower catch rate than other species but we always catch a few with each group. Usually the biggest fish caught by each group. If we actually fish for them, we have lots of 15-20” fish.
Walleye: in the cooler times of the year, we catch quite a few. Everyone is walleye crazy around here and so it is a big deal that they caught them.
White suckers: fairly easy to catch with worms on the bottom. Fight hard and are pretty.
Channel catfish: are too big for the fishing tackle we use. We will probably set up one rod heavy enough for them. Fun to watch feeding on top.
Goldeyes: aren’t usually found in the part of the lake where we take our groups. Probably the most fun species to catch in our lake.
Pumpkinseeds: absolutely beautiful and we catch them occasionally.
Freshwater drum and shorthead redhorse: both beautiful species that fight hard. We catch them occasionally with worms on the bottom.
White bass: probably not enough open water forage, out competed by the HSB.
Yellow perch and green sunfish: almost eliminated by predation.
Sauger: only about 5-10 in lake and we catch them occasionally as something different.
Sterile grass carp: we see them occasionally but have never caught one.

The most important thing that we notice after 5 years is the complete dominance of predators. This is especially true for baby fish up to about the 2-inch size. After 2-inches, the LMB, SMB, walleye and catfish take over. Actually, the really heavy competition for forage occurs for the forage occurs for the prey under 2 inches.

In any situation, there are always winners and losers. In our lake, yellow perch and green sunfish have almost been eliminated by predation. Most white bass have died, probably due to a lack of forage. In the cool parts of the season, the walleye, sauger and crappie do very well and are in very good shape. Towards the end of summer, they are very skinny. The LMB, SMB, HSB, HBG, BG and rock bass are always in good condition. From feeding, the catfish are extremely fat.

From all of this, I’ve come up with the following restocking plan. Bigger fish are always better than small to survive predation.

Bluegills reproduce enough for a self-sustaining population.
SMB, at least 50 per year. Must be at least 8” to survive predation. I have a small grow out lake but will buy them if I have to.
HSB, about 50 per year if I can get them. Must be at least 6-8” to survive predation.
HBG, I would put in 100 a year if I could get them. Very difficult to find them at the 5-6” size.
LMB, I want to watch the lake more. We might be getting enough reproduction now.
Rock bass are a great species in our lake. I’ll put in 50-100 per year. Must be 5-6 inches.
Walleye must be at least 14 inches not just to survive predation but also to move up to a little bigger size prey. 10-20 per year.
Sauger, as I can get them which is not often.
Crappie about 25 black and 25 white per year. Must be 6-8” to survive.
Channel catfish eat a lot of pellets and take up a lot of biomass in our lake. I’ll add only 5-10 per year.
Pumpkinseeds are beautiful and I am trying to raise them in a small grow out pond along with SMB. As many as I can get.
Freshwater drum, white suckers and shorthead redhorse are all fun and the white suckers will reproduce producing forage although almost all of their young will be eaten. Ten to 20 of each per year.
White bass, I would try some more but mark them to see how they survive.
Goldeyes, I love them! I will put in 10-25 per year just for me, they are so much fun to catch.
Yellow perch are probably close to gone from our lake. If I get a chance, I’d put in about 25 each year just to get their very early spawn.
Green sunfish are close to gone and I will just let them die out.
I don’t know about more sterile grass carp. I’ll just have to see how things go.
Paddlefish, if I can get some pellet-trained ones big enough to survive, I’ll do it. People would love to watch them.

This is a very long post, I know, but maybe something in here will give someone else some ideas.

Thanks for the update on what is in many ways a special project, Norm.

Posts like this are my favorite item on the forum. It's great to know what others think when it comes to overall philosophy of pond management. It's also great when people document happenings in their pond. All of you newbies or lurkers take note! You can make a great contribution to this forum just by taking notes and writing down observations. Norm makes a great contribution to this forum through his knowledge and vision, but even if he just took notes like he does, this alone would help everybody out.

This is very interesting reading and I printed it out to study furthur. Thanks for the great information and observation.

Dwight

Norm :

Great job. I don't have any idea how you keep so many species with out having total chaos in the pond. Do you do seine surveys? How do you estimate natural morts. (other than fish caught and kept). I assume some guests keep fish. Do you keep a mgt. plan ( ie.-- I want/need to take out 20 LMB , 15 crappie, 50 BG etc. this year). I would be interested in how you reach that decision and on what info you base it.

Ewest (and others) -- we'll probably do another electrofishing survey this upcoming fall (September around here), and check on the reproduction of various fishes. Norm likes to have the students see his place.

ewest, no, no fish are kept ever! I use this lake for kids, handicapped and elderly fishing in groups. The lake itself is located on property we own where my wife's business is located. She has 50 employees. The employees and their friends and families can fish this lake any time they want as long as the employee is there to protect the property.

Many of our employees really just want fish to eat. This is especially true of the big catfish and HBG. Rather than trying to control it, I just don't want to set the precedent. Therefore, we just make it a flat statement that no fish are allowed to be taken from the lake for any reason. It makes everything simplier.

Norm :

How do you determine the populations so that you can tell what is there and what to add ( mort. rates) ? Does Dave do that via the shock surveys or is other data used ?

ewest, I use the "by gosh and by golly" form of scientific measurement.

Actually, I can do a bit better than that. I've kept pretty good records of what I stocked and then am assuming a 20-40% annual mortality rate. What is harder to work with is that I am still working with many of the fish that were stocked when they were small in the initial stocking. Beyond that, I look at what we are catching and how each species contributes to the over all fishing experience.

A harder part of all of this is just getting the fish at big enough sizes to escape predation.

This might all sound like a lot of work but it's no more than someone with CC or HSB must go through.

Norm :

Thanks for the report. Those seem like high mort. rates on adult fish in your described situation (with a 6 yr. old pond in your area). I do have to remind myself that all things mort. in the end and that this fact should be added to the % equation. Do you think that most of the adult fish in your pond are caught once a year or more or less. Catch rate morts. are quite hard to get a good read on for me. Studies are all over the place ,which is expected.

Sources of good quality adult fish from reliable sources are hard to find unless you can catch and id them yourself. But it seems to be getting better here at least for some species.

ewest, there is such a difference in mortality rates for different species. We catch many of these fish 25-50 times a year. Remember, we only fish from two spots and the fish in these areas are caught over and over again. The fish in other areas are caught seldom, if ever.

SMB and HSB are the back bone of our fishery so I'll stock more of these and less of other species. After these two, HBG and rock bass are the next two most important. Lastly, everyone wants to catch a walleye so I have to restock them.

What I'm doing is no more than planting a garden every year. I look at what grows in my area, what people like to eat and adjust accordingly.