My grandfather stocked a pretty decent sized pond on our ranch with yellow perch many years ago ( he estimates 25 plus). I tried ice fishing it this winter and found that the fish have become stunted (all 3-6 inches). The lake is around 80 acres and has depth up to 25 feet. And has hundreds of dead trees scattered throughout. I would like to establish a crappie and walleye population but am unsure how to do so with the excess of perch. PLEASE HELP!!

Welcome to PBF!

First thing I would do is add SMB and lots of WE and maybe NP, but I'm not a pro. They will be along with opinions/suggestions. They know what they are talking about and will not steer you wrong!

Bill D.

What do you mean by WE and NP? I apologizf I -
Am new to this.

80 acres is a big BOW! I would want to know where I was before deciding on which direction to go. IMHO,Without a lot more information first, stocking recommendations would be blind guesses at best. Has the lake ever been sampled with traps or shocked? Have you caught or seen other species of fish in the BOW?

WE- walleye
NP-northern pike

Sorry man,

Here is a link to the acronyms used on PBF.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92442

WE are walleye and NP are northern pike.

Hello, that is a BIG pond !!! I probably know less than Bill D but will babble at ya anyhow. The big brains that actually make sense should surely jump in soon.
Hope you have lots of extra $ cause to stock it in the correct ratios will surely be expensive. You will get a bunch of "it all depends" and it surely does. Depending on many variables the WE may or may not reproduce. The same is true for CC. Crappie(pronounced CRAP E) should probably do well in that large BOW. If you can bucket stock the WE, Crappie and if ya want SMB that will help the wallet.
With sooo much water you have ample room for a BIG variety of fish. You might consider CC HSB some species of pan fish besides the Crappie, Trout of some kind, NP. Musky or Tiger Musky. The combinations are almost limitless. I believe you will be short changing yourself by limiting it to 2 or 3 species and in the looong run the We and Crappie will reduce the YP to 0.
Keep askin ?s and do lots of homework before deciding on your strategy.
You might want to wait till warm up and fish it more thoroughly, who knows what's really in there. Good luck and keep us posted. A picture is worth a thousand brownie points.

The lake is fairly remote and has been in our family for nearly 50 years so I'm certain the only existing population is YP. Do you think that stocking a baitfish would unstunt the perch so to speak? I've been in contact with a few fisheries. And I feel like they are just trying to sell me fish vs help me manage.

I think I can say with confidence that, no, stocking baitfish will not unstunt your YP and solve your problem. You need to greatly reduce their numbers, especially if you are sure they are the top predator in the lake. They are probably living off their own spawn.

WE Walleye, NP Northern Pike, don't need to apologize, the only stupid ?s are the ones not asked. I am puter challenged and don't know how to direct you but there is a list of abbreviations here that someone will probably guide ya to.
I don't think you can unstunt the fish, by adding predators and decreasing the YP #s you may enable the remaining fish to grow better.
You are already wise in thinking that fisheries will tell ya and sell ya anything. Probably be wasted money if the pond is way overstocked, to expect to establish minnows is doubtful but I'm not sure. A 1-2" minnow is the perfect size for your existing YP. Eliminate a bunch of small YP Yellow Perch and it lessens the predation of any minnows added. Any fish will expend as few calories to eat as possible. So a 16" WE would rather eat a 3-4" YP than 3 or 4 1" FHM Fat head Minnows.

Sometimes I'm a bit slow. OK, most times.

ND- IMHO, if you have an 80acre BOW full of stunted YP...you my friend have a gold mine sitting there waiting to be mined. The biggest question is how much are you willing to spend. My advice, take some of that budget and hire a Pro. Your project is very big and very cool!!! If done correctly and enough $$$, that BOW of yours could be something special.

And as stated in other posts...pictures are required

mnfish has good points. IMO you have to decide do you want to manage the lake yourself or are you looking for a pro to come in and "Fix" it for you? The correction plan, when you get one, will come down to how much are you willing to spend and how long are you willing to wait.

Even if a pro didn't come in and fix it, but instead did a fish survey, found out what direction the owners wanted to take in regards to stocking, and furnished stocking recommendations based on their budget, it would be a LOT less expensive than stocking the wrong fish and having to push the reset button.

You need a short and long term plan for the fishery.

No matter what you do, fixing an 80 water hole is going to be a huge and expensive challenge.

How do I go about hiring somebody to do an evaluation? I will get you guys some pictures this weekend.

I agree here.... here....

80 acres is huge. Trap net and fish all over the pond. Make sure this is all your catching in there. I have seen this in a local pond here and it is very perplexing trying to figure out the correct management steps to take.

Find the underwater points and fish them working your way deeper. See if the size of the fish increases you may be pleasantly surprised. Just need to find the right spot on 80 acres.

Cheers Don.

Sitting at my desk with my mind wandering about an 80 acre lake full of yellow perch!! Man am I jealous.

Not sure about transporting or sales of fish from ND but that BOW may be able to cash flow or at least off set some of the expenses. You see the forum member with two dogs in his Avatar. The one with the highest # of postings....If it were me, I would PM that gentlemen as a starting point

I worry about my DIY 2 acres and you have 80! Call a pro, for sure.

If it weren't for Cody burpin me, my 1/4 acre fishery would be a carp pond.

If it weren't for Cody burpin me, my 1/4 acre fishery would be a carp pond.

I would check the depths of the lake and make sure it isn't a relatively shallow slough before stocking some gamefish. If there are good depths over 16' deep over a large area I would stock 2000 walleye 5-7" this fall and then 1500 walleye every 2-3 years depending on how the first batch does. Contact Rob Jost with the Minnesota Muskie Farm and expect to pay about $1.25 each for the walleye delivered to your place.

He can get you some crappie too. Just stock 500 of those with the walleyes just to get them started.

I think you will have excellent growth rates on your walleyes!

Do you think this stocking plan would eventually bring the YP population under control?

Yes I do think it will eventually get the perch population in check for his situation. With walleye as the only predator, I think he will get a lot of 3-5 lb walleyes relatively quick and they will gobble up a lot of perch.

In Most lakes walleyes are relatively slow growers, but in ideal circumstances they can grow very quickly!

What a great fishery that would make! I mean does the eating get any better than walleye, perch and crappie!!!!

So d o you have much of a budget or do you want to do most of the work your self??? Like N8ly said you could grow some walleye fast. for a long term great fishery you do need to establish some other feeds.

Should do a check to make sure the perch are all you have. Overpopulated stunted perch are a good sign in that area, as they will out do Greensunfish and bullheads if given the opportunity ( we have a hand full of fisheries with both that almost dry up and then refill with pops of GSF and Bh then GFP stocks a ton of perch and wham! stunted perch), that would give us the guess that there is some depth to your pond. If it never dries up and is shallow and always has water Bullhead first then green sunfish. How far are you from the nearest main drainage? a "2" foot drop in the water is ussually what it takes to keep such from swimming up stream. How is the pond filled?? Is there established pond weeds?? cat tails? bull-rush?? what is the depth?

I would argue N8ly's crappie numbers unless you think you may be able to fish it hard. Dump adult Golden shiners in as soon as possible. And other bait fishes. are there other ponds on the property that you could dedicate to biat fish??

And what weekend are the pictures coming??

what are your thouths on Large mouth or Northern Pike?? mightnot be the ideal sollutions but might be cheaper. If the crappie dont work out would you be willing to add large mouth too. because if the chemestry isnt right the crappie will stunt also.

The pond is filled naturally from springs and snow run off from the nearby hills. It has no outlet. I'm considering northern pike. But in my expierience the pike our too aggressive and will try to eat anything thus I would like to try and avoid that route. We have ponds with high numbers of fathead minnows that we are going to draw from to supplement food. Is there anything I can do to promote reproduction of bait fish or another food source? I have ordered 1500 walleye fingerlings. I would like to stock crappie as previously mentioned. But if there isn't enough food for the YP there won't be enough food to grow BCP

Make sure those WE are big enough that they aren't a snack for the YP. Look at N8ly's size recommendation. It worries me that you are saying "fingerlings".

I should add the walleye are going to be around 7 inches.

A couple of weeks ago Bill Cody and I were conversing about my plans for this spring. I caught what I thought was an excessive # of YP under 8"s and my minnow population was definitely declining last summer. I figured that I needed more top predators. I have 5WE, 8SMB, and 10HSB all fat and healthy. Bill kindly sent me the following info.
He believes each large predator can consume at least 1 2.5-4" YP everyday when water temps are above 50 degrees which in northern In is April 1- Nov 1 which is 210 days. He further explained that when the small YP became depleted the top predators would then start picking off my minnows. Thank you Mr Cody!!
23 predators X 210= 4830 YP. This is in a very monitored 1/4 acre pond. NFF has a pond that is 320 times as big as mine.
This should be one of the more interesting threads in quite awhile. Please keep us updated on progress.

NDfishingfool, I'd print off Nates stocking recommendations and tape it to the fridge to refer to at a later date. You can always add NP at a later date if the WE aren't doing what you want. It's MUCH easier to take baby steps than to have to backtrack, especially with a BOW your size.

My crazy Minnesota math:

If you have an 80 acre BOW with stunted YP then:

- The BOW most likely will be at carrying capacity
- Assuming a conservative carrying capacity of 250lbs of fish / 1 acre.
- The BOW would then contain 20,000lbs of YP
- Assuming 10 YP/lb
- The BOW would then contain approximately 200,000 YP
- Assume retail for a 3-4" YP at $.80
- Assume wholesale at 1/3 of $.80 or $.2 / YP
-The pond would then have $40,000 worth of wholesale YP

My point...None really...Just something else to think about...Keep in mind I'm usually off my rocker

MnfiSh
I'll have what your having please!


Pat

Thanks everybody for all the input. I will be adding pictures of the body of water as well as pictures of the perch this Saturday.

BE sure as 8nly suggests to do a depth study favoring a "large area 16 or more ft. Too shallow of water, too much snow cover, and too many organic inputs or plant growth can lead to low DO that YP will tolerate, but not walleye. If the lake is too shallow and walleye do not survive then resort to LMB or NP or musky. NP will tolerate lower DO than WE or LMB. With reproducing NP they could eliminate the YP and result in a lake full of "hammer handles". I prefer non reproducing musky. WE will likely not create small WE in your 80 ac lake unless it has a windswept rocky shoreline.

How many other ponds are on the property?? Could you use one as a brood pond for stocker walleye with 100 of your order?

Just thinking outloud; Stocking 1500 5"-7" walleye (18/ac) each eating about 200 YP a year (a lot less than 1 small fish per day) equals 300,000 small perch or minnows (no minnows present that we know of). We are not sure of the survival rate for the stocked walleye. From Mnfish's calc above: "The BOW would then contain approximately 200,000 YP", although these theoretical stunted YP of mostly 3"-7" would be mostly too large for the stocker WE to eat. The stocker WE will have to live on 1"-2" or maybe 3" & smaller YP (young of year) until the walleye are large enough to eat the predominant stunted 4"-7" YP.

I have a book that discussed a study about raising YP as the a single fish specie in four IL ponds to study the carrying capacity - standing crop (Dynamics of One Species Populations of Fishes). They found the standing crops ranged from 51.3 to 192 pounds per ac (mostly 94-150). Differences were attributed differences in fertilities, pond treatments, pond size, age of populations, and environmental factors (forage items & weed density). Cropping the perch resulted in increased production. Differences in population composition (sizes) occurred. Year class strengths were variable.

There are countless other ponds. Over every hill it seems. I had this talk with my brother. And I cannot think of a way to get them out. It might sound dumb, but is it possible to raise fish in a thousand gallon stock tank? I have several of those of so.

Absolutely. A lot of guys grow out there own fish. Mainly because the fish sellers don't sell them big enough for their needs.

Lots of post on here about aquaculture. Look into some of Cecil Baird's posts.

Secondly, others have built cages that reamin in their ponds to grow fish out. Don't have to worry about finding them that way!!!!

And then there are seines....... and fyke nets,...... it's a bit overwhelming actually.

Take one of those ponds, drain it with a pump. Make the bottom shaped like a paint roller tray.

A pond is really easy to seine that way.

This is kind of where I was going with my post Bill.

Biologically -There are a lot of it all depends here. I think it would be a mistake to start stocking ANYTHING just yet.

Financially- There may be a way to trade some of your perch for other game fish. So your out of pocket would be minimized. YP and a modified fyke net go together like peanut butter and jelly!!! IME- Trapping them is very doable.

I just reread my earlier post and it does read like an engineer on crack. Got a good laugh at the comment Pat!

Bill, apprx how many offspring will a mature 6" yp have in the spring in a lake filled with sticks and debris for spawning on? I have a hunch that a 6" walleye would be able to outcompete a 6" perch for available yoy... Also the young walleye will feast on all kinds of other insects and critters that would be loaded in that lake as well.

I wouldn't overthink this by raising fish in tanks, etc. I'd check the depths and stock the fish in the lake and get ready for some awesome walleye fishing. Being the only predator in the lake id have no problem with stocking up to 25 per acre initially and then every 2-3 years supplementing with additional walleye... The supplemental stockings won't have quite as good of survival rates since there will be bigger predators in the lake by then.

I've stocked walleye only lakes at rates of 50-100 walleye per acre with great success as well, but haven't had quite the same scenario with a perch only forage base... Shiners, green sunfish and gizzard shad mainly... In theory though id love to get my hands on an 80 acre lake chuck full of zillions of stunted perch!!!

Let's make some guesses for this answer. If our 80 ac lake has stunted 200,000 YP that is 2500 YP/acre. That IMO is a reasonable estimate for a one specie stunted population. In my 0.7 ac pond in 2013 I removed 1200 GSF and in 2014 I removed 3231 GSF (all 1"-6").

A stunted 6" female YP could have 18000 eggs whereas a regular 6" female may have 20000 eggs. Lets assume 70% of the 18000eggs of our stunted female actually hatch = 12600 fry/female (18000x0.70). 200,000 stunted YP with half or 100,000 as females = 1,260,000,000 (1.26trillion) total yolk fry produced/hatched or 15.75million fry/acre. Fry disappear quickly depending on predation, but most often most loss is due to lack of a proper food source for the swim up fry. In a clear water lake with lower planktonic rotifer populations (1st fry foods), easily 80% to 90% of the hatchling fry can starve without enough tiny planktonic food. This leaves 252 to 126 million surviving fry in 80 ac.

Let's assume each of the hungry stunted YP eats an average of 20 fry per day which is 4million total fry loss per day so after 40 days our 252 million surviving fry has now shrunk to 92 million 'fry' and the 126 million fry only lasted 31.5days (now a food shortage, thus stunting).

Probably only around 80%-88% of the fry starve to death leaving about hundred thousand surviving small 1"-2" YP fingerlings to replace natural mortality that occurs annually in the 80 ac lake and most all lakes, even ponds. Natural fish mortality is often estimated to be around 25%-35% so around 50,000 to 70,000 of our 200,000 mature stunted YP die of various causes of natural mortality each year and are replaced by the annual recruitment.

It is thought that this natural mortality of 25%-30% of the mature fish will die each year in your pond weather you harvest them or not. When there is no harvest then crowding and stunting occurs resulting in overall more smaller fish dying instead of fewer larger fish dying. The 25%-30% estimate is possibly more of a weight calculation than a number amount.

Bill,

Are the spawn of a stunted fish capable of going on, in the right environment, and reaching full growth potential as if the parents were not stunted?

Yes - IMO hatchlings from stunted adults will usually grow to a normal size if the fry have adequate food i.e. excess food every day as long as they live. A normal size adult and a trophy size adult are often separated by a premium or special combination of parential genetics plus lots of constant availability of daily food.

I've wondered that same question Bill.

A person would think the genetic code would still be there, although with perhaps some natural selection for hardiness in crowded conditions.

Thanks,

I guess to get the complete picture, the other question I have wondered about is can you unstunt a fish by moving him to a suitable environment and forage?

Bill D., you should be able to get them to 100% WR or maybe over that but the fish will never reach the size that it could have reached if it had ample food from day 1.