So I have owned this pond now for two weeks. I have fished it a bit. Maybe 2 hours each week 4 hours total. I have used worms, minnows, all types of lures and so on. I have caught 1 grass carp 10 Bluegill about 6" or more. The same number of Bass all about 10-12 inches. The picture of the bluegill is about the smallest one I have caught. Other then the minnow trap I set out today for maybe 20 mins and had about 25 fry in. I think they are bluegill fry and small fish?

We have started feeding the bluegill. Floating catfish feed. Even got an auto feeder.

The people that owned this 1.5 acre pond before us never formally stocked it in the 20 years they owned it. They just caught fish at other places and put them in here.

So far what's the opinion on what I am catching? Is all well or am I missing Somthing.

Fish and minnows

I am no expert, they will be along shortly, but I think 4 hrs of fishing is not enough to tell what might be there. Larger fish can become smarter and harder to catch, so continue on your gathering information, have some fun doing that. The pics of the fish in the trap look like bg, but they could be res, or hbg or some other type of sunfish or brim as we call them down here. Need better pics up close and personal. But the trap sample looks encouraging when it comes to forage fish for your lmb. And if you continue to catch only the size of lmb you reported, you could have to many lmb and a shortage of forage. Keep sampling Have some fun doing it

Since we are still waiting on the experts, I'll throw out my opinion.

You're catching fish, so that is a good thing. Too soon to say much more than that. It will take a year or so to figure out where you are at, unless to do an electo survey. My guess would be to start keeping 30-40# LMB/year if the previous owners didn't manage the pond.

Also lot of info under the managing fish forum.

I think before any advice can be given, "your goal" needs to be determined. For example, lots of small bass is normal if you want big BG.

I agree that you need to fish this pond a lot more. If the water temps are cooling down ( 55?) then it will make it that much tougher to get a good survey by fishing. Also, try fishing for different things. Like next spring/summer try for catfish.

Read a lot here on different types(fish combinations) of ponds. Read a lot on how to take care of them, the water, plants, etc. This will keep you busy and not worrying about the pond till you can fish it more/better and when you finally decide what you need/want, you'll be better prepared.

Welcome to the forum.

It will definitely get fished a lot more. Just right now two hours or so a week of constant fishing is all I can do. Drive truck for a living and gone all week. Then we are also working in the house and moving in. We are not living there yet.

The goal of the pond and why we bought the place is to grow protein for my wife and an I. We are kind of peppers. That's our number 1 goal. Second is enjoyment of fishing and management. My wife is a stay at home and will enjoy tending to the fish like feeding them and 3rd is paddle boating and maybe swimming.

We are Orthodox Christian so that means we do not eat scaleless fish, but I do enjoy catching them and think a few are beneficial. I also have no problem giving them to friends that do eat them. My wife enjoys feeding. Them and catching them.

When I fish I typically have 3 rods in. One set up on a bobber with earth worms. One on the bottom with a night crawler and the other with a lure casting. Just have not had the time yet to fish with much else like stink bait and so forth.

I really like Bluegill. They are fun to catch and seem to be rather hardy. I really could care less about bass, but have enjoyed catching them. It's really the first time I have ever caught them. Other then an 8 pounder I caught about 25 years ago. I think friends we have over will enjoy them as well.

So I am thinking mostly a Bluegill type pond with some predators fish like bass and a few catfish for the fun of catching and feeding. It's 1.5-1.75 acres 16' deep in the deep area. With lots of rocky gravel substrate. We love perch and crappie but have been told the crappie a for sure no.

I will defiantly use the minnow trap more and get better pictures. Just read didn't have much time the other night as it was getting dark.

We did have the water tested. Not a real good test just hardness and PH. Going to get a full chemistry done. Water was extremely hard and PH was 7.00

If you want to be really serious about the food this pond can supply, I think you would look at trout, tilapia, catfish. I don't know if tilapia are allowed in your state, I don't think they are. The other types of fish besides these will certainly give you meals, but is harder to push the envelope to achieve the number of meals. Trout you will have to shell out bucks every fall to stock, but by springtime you can get a lot of poundage in the freezer before they would die off late spring. Catfish grow fast, but is that a fish you can eat? I started a thread years ago about what owners get back from there ponds, I will try to relocate that later. I have recently come across a few places around here that are growing LMB for food production, and it looks impressive. They are pellet trained, and they mostly buy fry to stock, and then harvest all by netting and then start over again. That is something else for you to look into. Can you seine (net) the whole pond and harvest. It gives a lot more options if you can. Also, could you drain it easily, it's another similar to seining. Your goals are similar to mine as for food production. It isn't going to be easy, and may not give you the amounts you are initially thinking, unless you really get serious. You may need to start over completely to achieve your goals, but that's Ok if you get what you want/need. Meanwhile, use what you have to start experimenting and learn.

Edit:
Found the thread. Here is a link.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=362400&page=1

Here's another thread about having a pond to grow fish to eat.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=15629&Number=196000#Post196000

I would not stock catfish, they aren't *necessary* and they will take up biomass that could be utilized by fish that you can eat.

I strongly advise to put in an aeration system, get a good fish feeder and feed quality fish food. That will allow you to grow more fish, and if things go south you just need to harvest a lot of fish out, preserve them, and then the pond can survive without air/supplemental food.

Putting the correct cover in the pond in the correct places will help the pond tremendously. A client has a bathtub for a pond and it's a constant battle to keep the predators down and even then, they don't have WR's over 90 because of all the exercise they get looking for food.

To have food production as a primary goal you will need to run it like a production pond not a recreational fishery. That requires much more active management. HSB are an aquaculture type food source.

This is kind of interesting. From the actual prepper standpoint, I think BG would be the best renewable food source. You could use LMB to keep numbers in check, but if you needed to depend on them for a food source, you would reduce/remove the LMB and increase your BG harvest. You would be the main predator.

At first, this was the path that I thought it would be for me and my goals. I have recently been thinkingthe opposite, the bass might be the best way to go. Feed the bass and harvest them. With the BG, you need to have/clean lots more, you need to harvest small ones, because you don't want to take the larger breeders. There are other factors that are pushing me in this direction too.

HSB are not allowed in my area, so I can't speak on how they are in this scenario. Heard they are good for it.

As far as the habitat/structure in the pond. It should be thought about carefully because the need to seine. It can impede or prevent it all together. Sure you can have aeration and push the envelope, and when it's crashing harvest as many as possible. But when fish get in that scenario, are they that easy to "catch". Better have a backup plan in place for harvesting. To me, a good pond for harvesting should be drainable or nettable.

This is just for the "prepper/pond as a food source" line of thinking. I know most wouldn't want to do this, but it is interesting to think about..... Just in case

I wouldn't think LMB could produce enough to be a viable year round food source based off the #s per acre. If it takes 10# of BG to make 1# of LMB, and BG spawn 4-5 times per year, why not skip the energy to raise the LMB? You could fertilize for cheap, so wouldn't have to feed. Again, this is strictly from a prepper point of view, where restocking every year isn't an option(HSB, CC, tilapia), and harvest is very heavy.

On a 1.5 acre pond that could support 100 LMB. For those LMB to grow 1#, they would need to eat a 1000# of BG. You could only harvest 20 LMB per year or w/o bass you could catch 1000# of BG every year..... Correct?

The pond will be just 1 of 3 sources of protein. Poultry that we raise will be first and foremost. Venison will be second and fish third, we Currently consume 6 deer a year. Zero pork, maybe 10 pounds of beef and almost 150 chickens a year. We hope to cut down on the chickens and eat more eggs and use fish more for the meat source. We have lived this life style for 20 years with out having fish readily available other the. If we had a great weekend fishing for crappie and that was a real treat. The fish will not be our only protein source.

In the warmer months, look at Tilapia.

While not on the table very much here in the USA, Common Carp can be raised too.

I think for the prepper, the way to go is BG and LMB combination. How they are managed is up to each persons circumstances. This core can be strayed from with other types of fish, but they all are not that dependable. This philosophy has been discussed in a few other threads, but I feel any other types of fish are not a realistic approach if things got really dire. If there is no electric, a reliable aeration becomes more difficult. What about storage of a fish that has to be all harvested at one time, like tilapia. At least with BG, LMB one could go to the pond, at almost any time of year, and catch a meal. I don't think I would rely on more than one meal ( for two people) more than once a week. Anything more would start to become iffy unless managed like Ewest said.




All I know Brain is that I can harvest more LMB than that. And this is just a preference to me, but I rather clean 10 LMB in a 12 to 14" range rather than small BG to get the equivalent. As Ewest told me when I first started, balancing this combo so either grows sufficiently, is like walking on a knifes edge. Which ever fish you would want to lean towards for the staple fish, you need to manage it carefully.

Here's one thing I think is hard to avoid. To get more than one meal a week, Either BG or LMB is going to be need feeding. Perhaps I am wrong about this. Those 1000# of BG you refer to, are of a smaller size (3-4") that a 12" bass can eat. I sure wouldn't want to clean that size. Now if you tried to raise more BG instead of Bsss, at what size does the BG no longer benefit from fertilizer and they need something more substantial? I would say at 4", thats why if you want Large BG you start harvest the bass when they get 14-15". That leaves more food for the BG. If you would increase the number of 4" BG to grow a bit more for harvest, their growth would slow unless you added feed for them of some sort. So I see it as needing to feed either types of fish, if you want more.

That is. Ore what we are looking for. Not as a primary food source but a secondary. A meal or two a week would be great. We do not want to be wasting time or animals by having to clean fish that are not of proper size, but in a pinch could. Cat fish are not an option due to our Orthadox Christian values. Yet, trout are for a winter add in to help substain our freezer meat if its worth the time. We have a trout farm 25 miles from here that will stock us at a fair price.

In my experience, trout are much easier to catch than LMB or BG during the winter or when the water is below 55°F-60°F.