Hello everyone...I'm a newbie here but have read alot of the threads on here. I am having some real trouble deciding how i should stock my pond??? I bought my property 2.5 yrs ago with a pond already dug. Eight months ago i had another pond dug 10' from the existing one and connected them by having a channel dug between about 35' wide and 5' deep...the old pond is about 13' deep and the new is roughly 10'-10.5'...it covers just a hair less than 1 acre of the property. Even with the bad drought in south east tx last summer the pond never when dry...it maintained about 8-9 feet of water. I originally wanted to stock black crappie in it because they are fun to catch and very tasty. I do know i DONT want any catfish put in the pond at all ( i know they'll find their own way in thru birds and what not). I also wanted a small amount of bass if possible but i don't really like eating them as much so the numbers of them i was unsure about. Bluegill and others like that are fun for the kids to catch...i am already in the process of buying the parts for the legendary. "RC51" aereator because i have some scum on the bottom of the old pond and a little bit of algae too...

Can y'all please gimme some help on the quantities of fish and what kind to stock to get this going...any help is greatly appreciated


Just fyi...i have seen just a few dozen little perch/ sunfish (not sure of the breed) about 3", 2 bass have caught but released and they were about 10" and only 2 channel cats were put in there by me when i first got the place but no more because i dont want the pond to get to dirty

Thanks again

Most folks will tell you 1 acre is way to small to stock crappie

Also most folks would recommend that you rotenone and/ or drain the pond before thinking about stocking. The reason for this is that you can never know Exactly what the previous owners may have thrown in there or what size it is. Your newly stocked fish could just turn into expensive fish food for the larger established residents (which may be undesirable for your goals anyway)

Hold on for the experts

Where did these fish come from that are in your pond? It's important to have a good idea what is in the pond before a proper stocking strategy can be given...

Well i also heard that 1 acre was to small for crappie unless u want a bunch of dinks ...that really sux..:-( ...oh well
As far as draining the pond that is unfortunately not an option...it serves as a watering hole for my horses also...i do know that the previous owner dug the pond and never stocked it with anything...its about 7 years old....i ran a seine thru this evening and picked up about 50 or so 4 inch bluegill..few pounds of minnows....three frogs...1 bass 10 inch...and my 2 channel cats (i filleted them)...oh and some scum and twigs...but thats all

This was done in about 5 or 6 passes in each of the pond areas

Hopefully i can honestly say i think that might be close to everything thats in there

Any thoughts

Sorry there were also about 75 to 100 little BG 2 inchers or so

Could you takes some photos of the fish you catch, so we can confirm they are BG and see what species of "minnow" they are...

I sure will...gimme a few days though since it's raining a ton this weekend down here....i will definitely get back to on this ..

Thanks a million

No problem... Look forward to seeing what you got!