Some of you know I am getting my first stock of fish from Overtons in 2 weeks for my new 2 acre pond. I am getting 2000 1-3 inch cnbg...400 1-3 inch res... and 30lbs fhm. It has been suggested to me to stock 100 4-6 inch cnbg also so they will spawn all summer and so my 9 yr. old grandson will have some fish to catch. My question is will the large cnbg eat too much of my forage fish and new fry? I will be feeding pellets daily also. I will stock bass next year.I really thought a 3 inch cnbg is big enough to spawn already. How big do they need to be to spawn? Lust nervous and want to get everything right.I would love to have 4-6 inch fish but I don't want to mess things up.Just wanted to get some more input before I make my decision.

Flame, I am also curious about such things. I stocked forage base last Nov. and so I am also wondering. If forage has little to no growth in the winter, will the base be large enough for early spawning in April and May? Has this been discussed with Walt or Todd? I was tested for personality traits by a major company I worked for one time and they came back and said I have a hurry up personality Hahaha, spent all that money and I could have told them I was that way before any testing was done. lol Sounds like you might be one of the same

Yes Sir, I am afflicted and addicted!! Not to mention a little adhd. But, that being said, (was that a chicken?)anyway,I don't mind waiting to doit "right". Just don't want to mess things up.

Flame,
I visit with Todd Overton frequently about different topics of discussion...he indicated that he has no problem with the adult BG stocked alongside 1-3" BG.....I believe he has some 6" CNBG available presently as well. I think I read in a previous post that you considered getting your fish from Overton's.
stickem'

A six inch BG getting a one inch BG in its mouth would be stretching it. The experts would have to say for sure, but I would think there would be very little predation danger from 4-6" BG.

The above goes doubly if you are going to be feeding pellets. Those larger fish are going to quickly learn that eating a pellet is a lot easier than chasing a 1" BG.

If you don't mind paying out the bucks for the larger fish, it looks like to me it would just jump start your forage base quicker.

Arent the 6 inch bluegill going to eat my fhm before they can spawn good?

Flame,

From what I have learned here at the forum, my understanding is FHM are really prolific spawners. If anything, the BG would hit the FHM new spawn before the adults. Not sure a 6 inch BG has the mouth gap to take a 2 to 3 inch FHM anyway. Might want to have a pro weigh in but that is what my understanding is so far.

I doubt it. The 6" BG will likely target the half grown minnows, but they would need to be pretty hungry to go after the big ones. The BG will eat a lot of other stuff in the ponds like nymphs, etc as a preference before they will go after fish. Fish are harder to catch than bugs and stuff on the bottom. In a survey that ewest has posted several times of the stomach contents of various sunfish, it was surprising how few fish were in their stomachs. The stomach survey did not state the size of fish in the study, but my guess would be that you need to get BG up in the 7-8" range before they really start targeting larger prey like fish. If there is nothing else to eat, the BG are going to eat whatever they can get in their mouth. But if your new pond had a good algae bloom and the food chain that goes right up in size up to the FHM, I would guess those 6" BG (and maybe a lot would be 4-5") would be targeting a lot of other things besides adult FHM as their preference.

One thing I had not thought about in my previous post, the larger fish will cause quicker populations of BG fry. I thought about culling out some of my 5-6" BG that had gotten too big for my 12-15" LMB to eat. By starting out with bigger BG, you might get a quicker population that would reach size too big for your LMB to eat. But if you are wanting to get the fishery going quick for your kids, that might not be a bad thing anyway. It might just mean you would want to remove some BG earlier if it looks like they are getting ahead of what your LMB could eat.

I'm just hypothesizing. Giving out ideas. I really don't have the experience to comment on what will happen, just what I think might happen. Now the guys with experience can expand or correct my thoughts.

Again about the pellets, if you are feeding you are likely going to see a mass of FHM pushing around a pellet trying to get it soft enough to eat a bite off of it, then see them scatter momentarily and a 6" BG come up from below and steal it from them. They will bypass the FHM for the pellet. I would not worry about a small number of 6" BG doing any significant damage to the FHM's.