Had a 1/3 acre pond dug last summer. The larger end is avg depth of 10 foot and the smaller end on other side of beach is going to be around 7 foot. I put in roughly 1,000+ fhm last fall and am assuming they will reproduce this spring so i should have a good forage base.Also put in a couple dozen bullfrog tadpoles last fall. I am wanting to stock it this spring with YP,RES,BG,and LMB. How many of each type of fish should i put in? My goal is for a good fishing pond that will produce nice size fish every year for the table. What kind of size limit and amount of fish taken out each year should i strive for? I have a directional deer feeder that i am thinking about using to feed the fish with. I have put out several porcupines,trees,pallets and rock piles for structure. The following years plan is to put in a bottom diffuser.

It all depends on your fishery goals. That small of a pond won't support very many LMB, and if you C&R, they will get hook shy pretty quickly. figure 25%-30% of the sunfish population to be RES. To grow LMB quickly, stock 20 BG/RES per each LMB. If you want to grow large BG, cut that number in half. As for the YP numbers, I'll let Bill Cody tell ya. He knows YP better than I do.

Here's per surface acre stocking numbers. Adjust the numbers accordingly for your sized pond.

Growing LMB quickly - 2,000 BG/acre (with the % of RES in that number. 50-75 LMB per acre.

To grow large BG, cut the number of BG/acre in half, and up the LMB to 100-125 per acre.


That's stocking fingerling fish - i.e. young of the year.

YP will not recruit youngsters well with LMB present in a typical weed free pond.. Once the original YP stockers die (5-8yrs) YP will be rare or absent unless you periodically add larger sized YP big enough so that your largest LMB will not eat the new stockers. Other than that follow esshup's guidelines. Buying pellet trained fish and feeding them grows more fish and bigger fish, but it usually soon causes more algae problems. Most resort to chemical control of the algae. If you are interested in larger faster growing bass, an option for small northern ponds is to stock only YP and RES in the spring as one or two size groups. Then add the BG-LMB fingerlings in the fall. YP-RES will thrive for the first several years. Eventually in 6-8yrs the BG-LMB will be main fishes that control the pond. Other species will be rare or absent without supplemental stocking of the larger sizes.