Added a box of "Brooder" size Golden Shiners to my pond today.
These silly shiners started darting about like madmen. They weren't being chased (at least initially) but just seemed to want to dash around crazily.
I suspect most will be expensive fish food shortly as I saw one being chased and eaten by a bass.
Think next time I will get a lot of the smallest grade shiners and hope a few of them survive to breed.
Search here for habituation. Any time you stock into a pond with existing predators you should think habituation (short term protection). It makes a huge difference.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthrea...ds=habituation&Search=true#Post22246 http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthrea...ds=habituation&Search=true#Post26019
I didn't look at ewest's link but chemistry of the water itself can cause enough shock to make them crazy.
Part of the problem with boxed fish is the toxic situation that is created inside the bag..when opened to air.
Nothing wrong with brood-sized fish if done right, and I release at night after tempering and a salt dip then back into well water.
Habituation is another advantage of a forage pond. CNBG will eat small shiners, but not the larger.
Wish I had received them today - bought some shiners locally and tried them as bait. Water temp dropped a few degrees and the bass and crappie were not biting.
Ordered a fish cage so I can habituate future hatchery purchases. Let my neighbor and his kid fish this afternoon and the kid caught a small bass with a fat belly - think he was dining on shiners.
I manged to get a source with live delivery of shiners at 10lb and stocked aprox 70 lbs of shiners in April.
Observed the bass chasing them into shallows and feasting on them for a few weeks.
It appears the bass probabbly ate the vast majority - if any survived I haven't seen them since April in spite of plenty of weeds for them to hide in. Hopefully a few have survived and will breed some smarter shiners.
Oddly the 10lbs of fathead minnows I stocked last year seem to be sucessful in surviving in the pond. Can spot them in shallow water - not huge numbers but clearly they are reproducing.