I have a recently finished 2.2 acre pond.
- 30% 18-22’ deep - some large rock reefs
- 40% 10-12’ deep
- rest slopped sides 3-1, big beach area, pebbled area next to beach , 60’x80’ refuge area 2-5’ deep with rocks logs and pebbles
My plan is to have a forage pond.
My main goal is to have a good fishing pond catching good sized WE, SMB, HSB, and have yellow perch as forage and a bonus catch for table. Hoping to Manage perch to be able to get a few 12”+ here and there. Also considering RES.
I have currently 6’ of water in the deep area and in July added a small amount of FHM’s not thinking they would make it. Well yesterday I walked the bank and saw a decent amount of fry and slightly larger FHM’s shooting around. Wish I would’ve added more.
I was wondering a few things.
1. Can I stock more minnows this weekend and maybe get some last chance breeding before end of August early September??
2. Possible to stock feed trained YP in spring and feed to preserve minnow population enough to have them breed next summer? If not I may do the forage pond in early spring.
3. Can I stock YP,WE,and SMB in any combination next spring if any at all??
I’ll post pics of pond later.
Your plan is predator too 'heavy' and forage fish too 'light'. For having 'acceptable' numbers of WE, HSB, and the reproducing SMB you won't have enough prey forage fish to get good growth of your small fish eating predators. As the WE & SMB approach and exceed 16" they will start eating more of the 5" and 6" YP that will curtail YP reproduction. Very likely the WE and SMB will not eat pellets which means live foods have to feed all years classes of WE & SMB. Feeding the HSB pellets will help their growth. YP are prolific but do not produce enough recruits to feed those 3 types of predators unless the total number of predators are uncommonly low such as a total of 20 maybe 25 per acre. Remember the adult YP also prefer to eat small 1"-2" fish in their diet further strongly reducing the numbers of minnows that enter the reproduction size. Young YOY and juvenile SMB will also be eating 1"-3" fish. Forage pond will definitely be needed to supplement the forage numbers. Consider also using golden shiner, if available spotfin shiner, and lots of crayfish. RES are "weak" spawners and produce low limited numbers of offspring. Do not count on them for much forage benefit. Remember each 10 lbs of forage produces around 1 lb of predator. Each adult predator can easily eat 10 lbs of forage foods per year. For 25 one lb+ predators this amounts to 250 pounds of forage fish consumed each year. IMO keep predator numbers / acre low and increase predator numbers per acre only when forage numbers of the appropriate all mixed sizes appear to be too low / few to maintain continued predator growth. Predator body plumpness in terms of relative weight (RW) also indicates predator growth, good numbers of adequate forage, and body condition. Prey fish of various sizes should always be apparently obvious to observers for a good predator fishery.
To get a better estimate of predator density one should have a fairly good estimate of the number and or pounds of forage fish that are likely to be added to the pond from for forage fish pond.
Thanks bill I’ll keep reading up.
It was suggested to me by a fish hatchery to use blue gill as additional main forage source.
I know their shape and some other reasons they were not suggested for my choice of pond setup.
I haven’t gone back to re read those posts yet. Im trying to refresh myself.
We are also considering tilapia as a forage source and possibly farming them internally in our heated barn next to the pond.
I want to add as much forage as I can.
I would stay away from initially using BG in your planned stocking. One way to help maintain fish growth with fewer forages is buy SMB that are pellet trained and you will get excellent growth from them and HSB with reduced forage amounts. Also keep your WE numbers / acre reduced until you see when you have excess forage then add a few more WE per acre. It is better to ladder stock them when using walleye. Add a few each year or two so you have several year classes preying on different sizes of forage fish as a more predator prey balanced system.
Do you have a suggestion for initial YP and RES numbers? Thinking 100 RES and ??? Of feed trained YP that could breed in spring.
Should I add small predators now Or wait till YP have recruited? Add maybe 25 WE 25 SMB and 20 HSB to start. Too many?
Do you know of any feed trained SMB in Ohio?
My plan is to creek locate spotfins (with forage pond) and Crays (later). Possibly adding indoor tilapia farm.
Sorry for all the questions. Just want to be sure.
Thanks for your help.
Since RES do not produce very many offspring you could add 200 this early fall so they might spawn for you in 2020. Do not know of any current growers of pellet trained SMB. There are some farms in eastern OH that grow SMB. Do your homework and also check with Ohio Aquaculture group. I suggest waiting until the YP have spawned before adding predators. You should build a good forage base prior to predators. SMB can be hard to locate. Note your pellet raised YP might be skewed towards females if you only buy one size so buy mixed sizes when getting them to insure some smaller males in the group. Stock YP at 150-250/ac if eating pellets.
I would first focus on HSB and SMB both 20-25/ac and then keep WE as bonus fish low density 5-7/acre until you see how the forage fish handle the predation pressure. After 4-5 years when the SMB have spawned, you will then get a good estimate of numbers of forage fish to predator balance. Let body condition and growth of the predators be your guide.
thanks bill. im going to use the guy you gave me a few years ago when I almost started another pond (land deal went bad).
I just netted crayfish, shiners, and CCS from a local creek yesterday.
With no FA and it being a new pond, would it be ok to add creek chubsuckers and crays?
I’ll send photos of crays today to confirm species but they look to be northern crays
I don’t know what the old hands will tell you but, now isn’t the time to get cheap. Get the best quality fish stock you can find or get. Saving a few hundred dollars on a 2 acre pond projects cost isn’t a good trade in my opinion. You want a great pond, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Not many times I’ve spent more than i wanted too and regretted it, But I’ve regretted cheating out almost everytime.
Don’t plan on stocking anything from creek except crays and chubsuckers.
I don’t plan on cheaping out anything else.
Really just wondering if I ID these correctly and had fun collecting and releasing w my sons.
Sorry if I came off a bit too salty, not my intent. Just very easy to have a stocking mishap and they’re in, it’s too late. Personal experience: i had my son pickup fish for me and stock them. Fish guy gave him LMB instead of HBG. I told son to take a pic of them before releasing in pond, he did but future daughter in law released them before I could look at pics. I would have caught mistake, but was too cheap to take a day off to do it myself. $30,000 pond project took a right turn into the ditch because I thought it would be easier this way.
My advise would be better stated as: measure twice cut once. Some pond actions are costly or very hard to undo. Wrong fish is one of them.
Saw a fish with a red ear tab in one of the last pictures you posted, was that native in the creek? was that a pumkinseed, longear or redear sunfish?
I’m not upset. I agree with you. Sorry I usually write quick responses. Text can easily be misconstrued
Saw a fish with a red ear tab in one of the last pictures you posted, was that native in the creek? was that a pumkinseed, longear or redear sunfish?
Yes native
Not 100% sure on type. I’ll try and look it up.
My plan is to stock RES from hatchery and not add any other Gill or sunfish.
I’ll clean up that post a bit and label photos. I would like to ID the suckers.
Editt: above post with photos updated.
For the sunfish pics
# 1 is a GSF
#2 is likely a RES
Someone please chime in on the fish ID, especially the suckers. one of the pictures shows darker 'mesh' color on the side of the fish, it may be lighting but that looks different.
Jared, the fish with the red ear tab that I'm curious about the ID is actually in one of the sucker pictures, in your organized post above it is the 4th one down under 'suckers'. You might want to add that same link to the section called 'sunfish' too since I was curious if that was a RES or something else.
Canyon
I think that is a RES
Jared, the fish with the red ear tab that I'm curious about the ID is actually in one of the sucker pictures, in your organized post above it is the 4th one down under 'suckers'. You might want to add that same link to the section called 'sunfish' too since I was curious if that was a RES or something else.
I will add that to the sunfish as well... looks like a RES...
For the sunfish pics
# 1 is a GSF
#2 is likely a RES
agree, spots look like RES. don't know if any other sunfish has those type of spots.
lighter 'orange' ear tabs can mean a RES or some sunfish that hybridized with RES to mute the coloring so I was checking on that. Also are RES native in creeks in OH? that would be awesome if that is true.
In MI the only native fish with a bit of orange on the ear tab would end up being a pumpkinseed or a PS hybrid. There is supposed to be established RES populations in a few lakes in SW MI but it doesn't seem that often that they are caught. The pumpkinseeds are common in the northern MI lakes but would only be found in a lake/pond and not in moving water in a creek.
Hey guys, don't want to be a party pooper here, but Crayfish pic #5 is MOST definitely an invasive RUSTY CRAW!!! Black bands above orange on claws.
rusty crayfish in the creek nearby is not totally unexpected
Having a rusty crayfish source to put in your pond, a bad thing?
I've never heard that they taste bad to the LMB or SMB and where rusty crayfish are present the bass population doesn't mind at all from what I've been reading about in MI
The downside would be if you had your heart set on having a very specific type of crayfish in your pond and found out that the rusty variety is outcompeting the one you had your heart set on?
I'm not a rusty crayfish ID whiz, the rusty variety in MI are easiest to identify based on the rust colored round circle on the thorax and I didn't see that clearly in these pictures
crayfish of any type fill the bill fine for a forage source for larger fish. That was the goal, yes?
The rusty thorax is present on several varieties. Rusty Craws will run everything else out in a closed environment. Only my opinion here but my choice would have been to not stock them in a closed system.
I guess it's just my concern..
Per Roundy and Snipe - I strongly recommend absolutely verifying species ID prior to stocking into fishery. Not worth cutting any corners here - it's the most critical stage of fishery development. Purchase from reputable hatchery and STILL hand sort prior to stocking. That's the advice I give all my clients...also, do not stock Rusty Crays, adults get so large they're largely invulnerable to predation and can denude a pond of all vegetation as a result of their dense adult population. They are invasive, and if found in your fishery could be subject to some bad legal mojo....highly unlikely, but still worth consideration.
The rusty thorax is present on several varieties. Rusty Craws will run everything else out in a closed environment. Only my opinion here but my choice would have been to not stock them in a closed system.
I guess it's just my concern..
If I cannot 100% identify them they are not going in. I’d rather spend the money and buy the right ones.
What do you think of chub suckers???
Is there any other way to get them in pond without catching from local waters??
Are there bad suckers to avoid?
Chubsuckers have been researched and published as good forage for SMB ponds. Researchers did not see excess turbidity from them. Only a very few if only one place (Ohio) I know of sells small chubsuckers as aquarium fish (expensive per fish). There has been a "fair" amount of past PBoss forum discussions / threads about using chubsuckers in ponds. Do a google search of - Pond boss forum chubsucker chubsuckers or lake chubsucker. Lake chubsucker is different specie than creek chubsucker. They may also spawn differently. Do good homework.
Most if not all suckers (Catostomidae) reproduce only in streams or stream-like conditions. The main problem with suckers as I see it would be if a pond has too many per acre and they roil the water searching for food that is in limited supply. Roiled water significantly reduces primary productivity and thus carrying capacity.
I have saved and read a decent amount on here about the chubsucker, that’s where I got the idea to catch them in my nearby creek.
I have not read anything about white suckers and other sucker species that may or may not be good for your pond. I was looking to see if someone could assist in ID’ing the suckers to confirm they are lake or creek (as they do look to be)
I did a little research and found most suckers get between 10-15” full grown and are not very prolific.
I do remember stealhead fishing and catching them off spawn sacs so I was concerned about egg predation.
I will probably keep them in my aquarium until I begin to get some vegetation next year then release them.
Thanks for your insight guys!
I was able to use a better google search function and find more information. It seems the sucker is a preferred fish with almost zero issues.
Except the issue Bill brought up.
Thanks again Bill
As I saw them in your pictures I saw no lake chubsuckers.
As I see your pictures I think 1&2= white sucker 3&4 = longnose sucker 5= northern hog sucker. Not positive about 3&4 unless I have it in my hand for close examination.