Hi all I'm a new member and looking for advice. Sorry for the long intro.

My parents built a new 1/2 ac pond that is about 5 years old. They originally stocked it with FHM, YP and HBG. It was great for a few years and then got over populated with HBG. They were told that the HBG were sterile and we soon found out that was not the case. So they asked me to assist them in what to do next.

The pond is 1/2 ac, 18ft max depth with steep banks on 2 of the sides. It has two air diffusers, they use a blue dye to keep the weed growth down. Most of the bottom is clay with some weeds around the edges. The pond is fed from a well that pumps ground water into the bottom of the pond. There are a million FHM, the HBG are about 5" with a few 7-8". The YP don't seem to be doing well as they get floaters of the big YP pretty often in the summer. This maybe due to the ground water discharge with no DO and high Nitrogen. Interested if this maybe true. Also I recently got rid of a lot of the stunted HBG from trapping and fishing.

Their goals are swimming, eating fish, low amount of weeds, and good fishing for their grandkids. And probably not having to stock every few years.

Here are the options as I see them, please let me know if you have any other ideas.

Option 1: Stock with 150 5-7" BG and 50 5-7" LMB. This is the easy button. Thoughts are that the LMB will wipe out a lot of the remaining HBG and the BG will eventually out compete the stunted HBG if they are remaining. The disadvantage is the YP will probably get wiped out and there's no going back with the LMB.

Option 2: Stock SMB instead of LMB with more YP and hope that remaining HBG don't eventually over populate the pond. I do prefer SMB over LMB, I don't know why but I do. I live in Wisconsin so I can't plant red ears as sometimes done. I've read a lot on this forum and it seems that SMB might be possible, but my worry is the remaining HBG and the SMB not being able to get rid of them.

I wish we could do BG and SMB but realize that is not recommended. I keep going back and forth but as of now I'm thinking that this is a small pond so I shouldn't be dreaming of a large population of large bass anyways. That we should just go with option 1 since small ponds and BG are made for each other.

Thats enough of a book for now, I've got pics of the FX generations of the HBG if anyone is interested. I appreciate every ones incite and this seems like a great place to learn a lot. I'm excited for the journey ahead. I got a subscription to Pond Boss and can't wait to get my first issue.

I personally don't think largemouth are the answer here. They will fix the problem temporarily and then you'll have a ton of stunted lmb's when they wipe out the gills and fhm..........How about HSB? Maybe 20 to 30 HSB would allow things to get back on track and they likely won't reproduce.

I like the idea of smb but if they won't help thin the gills down, there is little point to them.

Thanks CJD,

But I'm in Wisconsin and we are only allowed to plant native species, so that means no RES or HSB

HBG typically are mostly males so reproduction is usually pretty low, without a large apex predator present I'm not suprised that you had reproduction. If it were me and I wanted YP I would stock SMB and work on removing the HBG offspring from the initial stocking.

Sisu,

Welcome to Pond Boss.

One hungry Norther Pike could do a lot of damage to those HBG -- but only one!

Your other option might be walleye. Our friend Bill Cody and a few others may have some suggestions on that. They would probably preserve your yellow perch.

I am a fan of HBG. Because they are hybrids, they have that hybrid vigor that makes them very very aggressive. If fed, they grow very fast and very big. I have them in one of my ponds. When I put them in, I added about six small SMB. I have put HBG and channel cats in each season for the five seasons. I also have hybrid striped bass in that pond (HSB). I've never had an issue with them over populating, even though they do reproduce every season. At this point I have to keep the HBG in a grow-out pond throughout the first summer to keep them from getting eaten by the predators in that pond.

Your option 1 may be your best option at this point. You just have to decide if you want a few large bass, a number of large bluegill, a mix of medium bass and medium bluegill.

Good luck.
Ken

P.S. With a name like Sisu, I assume you are a Finn. If so, you will overcome!
Suomi poika Knute

If you could get someone who could successfully sex some adult LMB and put some male only in they would take care of the HBG young until the LMB died of old age. Making sure you had only males would be the trick.

Also I noticed you said nothing about a feed program. Adding a fish feeder will not help with the over population, but it will almost double your carrying capacity thereby making the fishing and edible size fish much more productive.

So if you like the HBG (I do), something to eat the young without creating new problems ( like over production of LMB young) and adding a feed program to make the fish already there grow faster and thrive would be the way I would approach it.

On the other hand, if you added just a few LMB, they might also over populate some day, but you could also fish the young out aggressively and eat them just like the HBG. The limited reproduction of the HBG would likely give you skinny bass (because of lack of HBG reproduction so lack of food) but you could also add feed trained bass if you had a feeding program.

I'm no expert so these are just some ideas from another pond owner.

maybe walleye and a few Smallmouth Bass .....

You can always add LMB later if the SMB do not work out. Once you put in the LMB you are stuck with them.

Ok if you go with option 1 you will of course have to have LMB cause that's the only thing that will keep your BG in chk your HBG will more than likely kinda go away as they just don't reproduce like the BG does.

I like your option 2 but like CAT says I would put 1 Pike in there with them eventually or a couple of WE. Man I wish I could have WE they taste awesome!! Lets see 1/2 acre pond. I would go option 2 with about 4 to 5 WE

I have a LMB, BG, RES pond and every once in a while I catch what I think is a HBG... As I do have a few GSF also. I love it! I too have come to the conclusion that a pond of 1/2 to 1 acre is more of a BG pond than anything else but my LMB and HSB help maintain my population quite well. And I also end up with some nice fighting LMB and HSB in the process.

I'm not sure why so many folks are LMB haters.... they maintain your ponds BG population they are pretty good fighters and a blast catching on top water!!! And not bad eating in the spring and winter months... What more do you want.... except WE..

RC

LMB = BG management device

Sorry I am late to this thread.

I have a question or 2. Are you sure you are dealing with HBG ? Studies prove YP eat a lot of small lepomis (BG , HBG etc.). You noted large YP which indicates they are doing ok. I have not encountered stunting in HBG offspring when any substantial predator was present (YP , WE , HSB , even CC). The HBG just do not produce enough offspring to do that absent some unusual situation (like BG or PS etc.). Any of YP , HSB or SMB can control HBG offspring under normal situations.

Yes please post pics of HBG and other fish.

I'm with ewest, something doesn't quite add up. You're seeing HBG recruitment AND increasing FHM numbers? How many YP are you catching? Is there an excessive amount of vegetation?

Thanks for all the help guys to answer some of the questions...

Catmandoo...lol this is the first time someone has mentioned they knew what Sisu is. So good catch,I'm 50% finn, although I've never been to Finland.

My dad does get a lot of enjoyment feeding the fish every night, so they are being fed With Purina Aqua chow, after my reading here I recommended he switch to Aqua Maxx for the next bag.

While there is perch and they are reproducing I don't think that they are doing well population wise. All of the floaters that they find are 10+ with one 14.5". I'm suspect that it maybe the well that gets pumped into the bottom of the pond. They do have two air diffusers so it may or not be D.O. Since it's well water I was told that Nitrogen can also be a problem. If the large YP are hanging out on the bottom, the could be getting the affects of the well water. That is also why I'm hesitant to go with Walleye. I asked if my parents would be interested in moving the water output to splash down into the water. The said at a last resort they would consider it.

I read that planting a wild fish can have diseases and unexpected guests. I also read that a northern pike would eat the bass and the large BG. Causing more issues.

I do like the idea of sexed LMB, but don't know of anyone around here that could do that.

I've read Managing Wisconsin ponds and they say that LMB and BG will both over populate in WI. Stating that in WI, the LMB will not eat as much of the BG as necessary resulting in too many BG and LMB

I've heard stories of LMB becoming hook shy and not being able to catch them, that's kind of a bummer.

Ewest...I know very little about this stuff everything I've learned is in the past 2 weeks. I would say I'm pretty sure they were HBG. There wasn't any noticeable reproduction for a year or two. Then bam lots of offspring. I would say almost all of the F1 generation were caught and used in fish fry's. There was a total of 2 or three plantings of HBG. I thought for HBG the first generation won't reproduce much but after that it's game on and reproduce as often somewhere between BG and GSF. I'm not much a perch fisherman. Most of my fishing is for trout in streams. Now most of the YP we catch with worms are around 6". I caught 4 around 10" last week and thought I would catch more but didn't. However they maybe all on the bottom in the center of the pond?

My uneducated assumption was that the YP numbers are too low and the FX HBG were too small to eat the FHM. I would say there is very little vegetation, only about 3' from shore. My mom doesn't like weeds and removes as much as she can.

Since we do like to eat BG, that is why I was leaning towards BG instead of HBG, just so don't have to plant new fish every year. Basically if we had the BG we would just eat the bass and the Medium sized BG. We like the idea of a self sustaining pond.

I will locate some pics and post them.
first attempt: It appears to have big eyes.


This one it's eye is looking down so looks smaller than it is


These are the big guys in the pond. Zero fish were kept last year. Do they look like stunted HBG?

Perch seemed to bleed very easy, hooked on the lip and was bleeding from gills. A little flopping on the grass turned into a bloody tail? YP are very well fed and always fat except for the 4-6" ones.

I know what Sisu is. It is a high quality Finnish Diesel engine used in Agco tractors. Gutsy, very good engines.

If those are HBG they appear to me to be mostly GSF genes. If you happen to have somehow introduced a few GSF, they may be the culprits doing all the reproducing.

GSF, in our neck of the woods anyway, can swim upstream or downstream in the shallowest of water during big rain events. They are like "the little engine that could".

If most of what you are catching look like those two, I think you have GSF contamination. The good news is, LMB really like to eat them assuming the LMB are big enough. Small LMB the GSF like to eat.

This is my saga with GSF in my old pond. The good news is by introducing advanced size BG and adult LMB I was able to turn the pond around fairly quickly.

100% GSF

Sisu engines

They call them AGCO but they are Sisu made in Finland

look like green sunfish to me. I am no pro but I don't see any BG features. Maybe you could add a few Male only BG and get some of your own Hybrids.

They look tall for a pure greenie, and I think the mouth gape isn't large enough. I believe they are GSF dominant, HBG. Could well be F2-3.

The pond is isolated so only way GSF could have made it in is from them being mixed in from the fish hatchery. Would one be able to tell difference between HBG F4 vs HBG Fx + GSF offspring? Going back to my genetics class wouldn't it be possible to have HBG Fx offspring that have mostly GSF traits?

Yes.

of GSH X HBG back cross..

SPRKPLUG, what do you think about adding a couple pure male BG?

One other thing I recall from my previous reading is that the "normal" HBG is the cross from a BG male and a GSF female. That cross has a very high ratio of males and very few females.

As I recall though, the opposite cross of GSF male x BG female has a higher percentage of female HBG. Still slanted towards males but more potential for females.

I'm not familiar with how fish farms handle their brood ponds where they raise these fish, but I would think some farms might be better than others in the precision and care in producing these hybrids. Maybe there is a chance you got HBG that had a higher percentage of females than normal.

Looking at the fish again, I think sprkplug is right. There may well be some BG genes in those fish. All it would take is one GSF female contamination in your original HBG stocking to make a lot of GSF looking fish over a period of years using the HBG as the males.

This points out the necessity of having some sort of apex predator to control the offspring if a person is going to have a primarily HBG pond.

Catch some more and post more pictures if you are in the mood. This is interesting and I'm sure you are not the first nor will be the last with this problem so it may be helpful for others.

GSF or more likely high % GSF. One thing is clear no matter the genetics. The fish are reproducing at a high rate. That must be dealt with.



"wouldn't it be possible to have HBG Fx offspring that have mostly GSF traits" Only if the back cross or out cross was a very high % GSF.

Childers -- " ...F1 hybrids, seven were predominately males (RB, BR, and BG were 97 percent males; WG were 84 percent males; and RG, GB, and BW were approximately 70 percent males), two were approximately 50 percent males (GR and RW), and one was predominately female (GW was 16 percent males). Ricker (1948) determined the sex of 428 BR F1 hybrids in Indiana and found them to be 97.7 percent males."

We really don't know much about FX +s. At what point do certain traits disappear or significantly reduce. For example skewed sex ratios. If a given fish is an FX that is 1/32 BG and 31/32 GSF has the sex ration trait moved from 97% male to 55% male. Don't know. With some species the FX can be sterile.

Hey snrub I have to admit I didn't know that Sisu was an engine, but I guess it would be a good name for an engine.

I will post more pics this weekend as there is some variation in colors. This is what I'm leaning towards now and tweaking option #2.

Thinking of planting SMB, YP and HBB instead of BG. The SMB and YP would eat the HBG offspring and keep them in check. I would create some better structure to prevent the FHM population from being wiped out.


Could this work?

My only reservations of stocking often is introducing an unwanted fish or disease.

In case you did not catch it, the crosses that ewest listed the first letter of the cross is the male. So BG is bluegill male and GB is the GSF male.

The normal HBG is created as BG cross so is mostly males. The GB cross could be 30% female.

If you stock SMB, and you don't have the control that you want, you can always stock LMB. I'd think about stocking SMB.

As for the well water, if the water has Hydrogen Sulfide in it, then that could be contributing to the YP deaths.

Any way to bounce if over rocks or mix it with the air before it enters the pond?

The border between Illinois and Wisconsin is roughly the northernmost reaches of RES survivability. Anything further North will need Pumpkinseeds if stocking RES/PS is desired for snail control.

I agree, looks like a high percentage of GSF genes.

SMB would have less of a chance of predating on large YP, unlike LMB. LMB will out compete SMB in a pond, so like I said earlier, you can start with SMB and always go to LMB, but you can't go the other way around.

If the goals are swimming and eating fish, I would not stock pure strain BG. I'd leave the pond as is and maybe if 35-50 SMB don't control the GSF in the next few years, I'd think about stocking another 20. If the GSF population drops off, I'd remove some of the SMB and restock with HBG and replacement YP to replace the large floaters. Keep feeding a good food too.

They have to harvest fish, that is part of the management tool too!

essap the line from the well is buried from the well into about 10' of water. It is possible, but maybe difficult to move the line. Any kit that I can buy to test the well water for Hydrogen Sulfide or Nitrogen?

As requested here are some more pics that I think show more BG traits. I think I maybe getting the hang of noticing the different traits.



For some reason I think this next one in interesting. You can see the vertical bars and color of a BG but more of the shape of a GSF.



This one looks to have the colors of a GSF, but you can see that the body shape is taller, more like a BG.



I'm interested in learning the traits of the different fish so if I'm not on with my assumptions please let me know.

Talking with my parents yesterday they said they really wanted the YP, so I told them that they would have a better chance of a YP population with SMB then LMB. So looks like we'll be going with SMB, YP, and HBG.

The top two pictures look like pure or high % GSF, the bottom pic looks like a Hybrid GSF/maybe longear sunfish?

Is there any way someone could go diving in the pond, attach a tube to the pipe from the well in the bottom of the pond and bring it to the surface, turning it into a fountain?

See here for different pictures of HBG:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=256325#Post256325

As you can see, there are many different colors and shapes to them.

Here's a thread about sunfish in general:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92482#Post92482

Esshup I'm going to go with hybrids on all three.

I have a number of times caught a fish in my old pond and said "that is a GSF" only to catch a real honest to goodness GSF right after and then say "nope, that last one was a hybrid". Those first two may look like GSF, but I do not think they are pure GSF. A pure GSF will almost have the body shape of a LMB and a mouth to match. If you look at the mouth closed on a GSF it will come back fully to the front of the eye or a little better. I don't think the mouth is quite big enough in his fish.

USGS green sunfish

I would not argue the point too hard though because I could be wrong (and have been many times )

I thought of the same thing as you did Esshup on putting an "L" and running a pipe up to the surface. Putting anoxic well water out into anoxic pond bottom water doesn't seem like the best thing to do. But I also thought as an alternative after installing the "L" he could run a flexible pipe up the slope of the bank to the pond edge. There he could make a pile of rocks and create a waterfall over the rocks. By installing a "T" and valve a foot or two under water, in the winter he could open the valve to let the water come out under any freezing to keep from freezing the waterfall pipe up and plugging the system. The "T" might even be situated so it shot up to open a hole in the ice.

Just some ideas to consider.

Another thing I previously brought up but think bears repeating, what if in the HBG he stocked there was a single, lone, female pure GSF contaminant.

Think what would happen genetically if that single female GSF was providing lots of eggs for those HBG males. I would think that a 50-50 BG/GSF hybrid male paired up with a 100% GSF female producing a 25/75 BG/GSF cross would end up with a lot of fry that looked very much like a GSF.

I also think getting one or two GSF contaminants in a load of HBG might not be out of the question for some fish farms.

After all, in one batch of RES I bought from a fish farm the kid counting them out into bags could not tell the difference between a minnow (either FHM or BNM) and a RES. I also separated out of the so called RES what appeared to be hybrids with a lot of GSF in them. They went in the old pond and not my forage pond. So with summer help and all, I can see where a fish farm might "mess up". Probably not the really good fish farms. But are they all really good?

See Lepomis (sunfish)trait chart below.