Hello to all

I have recently joined this forum and man I must say there is alot of knowledge in the forum.

I have a question and I know it has propably been beat to death, but I have been reading on hear about there have been several gentlemen that have and are attempting to stock SMB in their ponds located in the south. The ones I have been reading about are in Texas and my climate is no different since I am located in Southwest Mississippi. I am seriously thinking about trying to stock them in my pond but would like to get some opinions if it would be worth it. I am also having issues with locating a fish farm anywhere close to me as to where I could purchase.

I have recently built a pond that is 1acre give or take a few, the pond was a old holler (Ms language) that I damned up on one end and dug out the rest the levee is approximately 30' with a normal pool once achieved on the levee will be around 26'-28' with a average depth of 12' on the shallower end. I will have a diffused areation system installed and would like to add some papershell crawfish along with grass shrimp for forage. I am going to stock it with CNB and shellcrackers, I will also be incorporating a feeding program.

Just trying to get some ideas circulating around, thanks for the information ahead of time. I will also attach pictures of pond

The biggest issue with success with SMB in any pond, north or south is competition with LMB. If you leave the LMB out, the SMB have a chance.

Including aeration into your pond is an excellent idea and in my opinion is especially important in a southern pond, far more so than a northern pond. Temperature is not really an issue with SMB, DO levels is. With aeration, you can limit that issue.

As far as other concerns, you mention stocking CNBG. Keep in mind that SMB will struggle greatly to control CNBG reproduction. You are likely to end up with with a major overpopulation issue and stunting if SMB are the predator. Even with the addition of HSB, you will still have issues. I would strongly consider going with only RES or possibly another panfish species that isn't so prolific. To be honest, that will be a struggle to find another sunfish species option as redbreast sunfish(RBS) are not native to your area. Longear(LES) may be an option, but generally only reach 7"-9" as a maximum size. The subspecies of LES found in your area are the larger form fortunately but finding a hatchery that sells them isn't going to happen so they would have to be wild sourced. You may be able to source them from Zimmerman's Fish though.

Another thing I would look at is what if any bodies of water are up stream from your pond. If you have ponds that are upstream of your new pond, any high water event will likely cause fish to escape those ponds and flow down into your pond. If those ponds contain LMB, BG, etc, they will also call your pond home and mess up your plans.

Best of luck!

Thank you for the information!

The SMB should grow well in MS with good pond aeration. Since you plan pellet feeding, I would consider using HBG instead of RES or in combination with the RES. You will have population problems if you stock BG into a primarily SMB pond.

Provide extensive shoreline habitat (riprap broken waste concrete) and the crayfish will help diversify the fishery. Consider and explore GSH as a prey item. The smallies as pellet trained fish should thrive in a pond with good crayfish numbers in rocky habitat, plus HBG/RES and GSH. Be aware of the risk that after 12-18 yrs and no supplemental stocking of HBG the population of HBG could deteriorate into mutt sunfish and the pond may have to be renovated to eliminate the mutt green sunfish type of panfish. Periodically restocking of HBG and reduction of HBG offspring should keep the fishery viable. Also consider several HSB/ac to help with reducing the offspring of HBG and the HSB will act as a high quality bonus fish.

If the smallies do not 'work out' as planned, the pond can easily be converted to the standard LMB pond or a HSB pond by just adding more of one or both of these species. Adding the LMB would also pretty much solve any issues with mutt sunfish. LMB will prey heavily on the mutt sunfish thus the pond would not have to be renovated.

Welcome and we are very interested as to how smallies will perform in your southern pond. Your updates will be very educational for our members. I suspect that no fish farm in MS sells SMB. You may have to resort to mail ordering (next day) some fingerling SMB from one few fish farms that reliably produce SMB fingerlings (1"-3"). Numerous US fish farms claim to sell SMB but they frequently fail to produce fingerlings each year. Their SMB spawns are irregular and undependable.

+100 on Travis and Bill comments. Rbs would be an interesting companion panfish and the resulting hybrids with res would be a first for me to witness. Hbg will work as it does for a few of us already. If you must go bg u will need to ladder stock apex predators densely, eliminate all shallow cover, and you'll still need to manage the bg population manually (angling, trapping, seining) in order to keep up. Yolk and I are both doing this and I'm now in my 8th year and starting to see some 10-11" bg, but I don't recommend this path to anyone. It's been significant work.

Have you considered we as a bonus species? I would love to see a ms we!