I have a new 1/3 acre pond. Last spring the fish supplier near me put in 20 lbs of FHM and then in July put in 50 LMB. There were thousands (seems like) of FHM in coming months. Then after the fact I read that 25 LMB and 5 lbs of FHM would have been sufficient. Anyways come Sept/Oct there wasn't a FHM left. Zero. Of course I assume the LMB ate every last one. He was supposed to come back in Oct/Nov to stock HBG but never showed. I didn't call him since I had to call him 3 times before he showed the first time.

So now I am worried that if I stock HBG on my own this spring that the LMB will eat every last one of them. Think I should catch around 25 LMB before I stock HBG and throw them out? What are chances that HBG will survive the LMB anyways this spring? or would I have to stock large HBG instead of the 2-3 inch ones? Any thoughts are appreciated...

How big are your LMB now?

What else went in the pond? BG? CC? RES? I've never heard of someone stocking the sustainable forage fish AFTER the LMB. Given that plan and the guy not following through with a later promise, I'd probably find a different resource.

If all you have put in your 1/3 ac pond so far is the LMB and FHM, I'd recommend wiping out what you have and starting over as opposed to trying to fix what you've got. It will save you both $ and time.

I agree with Bill. How big are your lmb? I would think your Idea of trying to remove half of your lmb would be s good idea. I only stocked 50 lmb in my 2 acre pond but they were 4-5 inch long when stocked. You should probably stock as large of bluegill as you can afford. I believe more fhm might be just a waist of money. I believe bluegill should have been stocked BEFORE any lmb were introduced but you just have to play with the hand that was dealt you possibly by a misinformed dealer. Just my opinion. Others will chime in to help you. We all understand your frustration. Good luck. We really need to know how big the lmb are??

The LMB were about 3-3-1/2" when stocked. I caught a few in late Fall and they were about 5-6". I'm going by memory though but seems like they grew a lot after cleaning out those loads of FHM. The only things stocked initially were LMB and FHM. There is no way I can start over for many reasons..especially since the pond was completed in Aug 2016 and it still has another foot or so to fill because 3/4 of it is all Dam.

My county has their annual fish sale late April. The HBG sizes are 2-4" At the time when I questioned my supplier he said that he has been in business for 15 years and never had a complaint. Maybe this will be his first.

With the fhm gone the lmb would wipe out any small 2 inch bluegill you put in. Blue gill can start spawning as small as 3 inch in size.However many fry they produce... 50 lmb will consume most of them.I still think you need to eliminate as many lmb you can...and stock a lot of bg in the 4-5 inch range. IF like you said you can't clean out and start over. Make sure that pond has PLENTY of cover or brush for the fry to hide in to at least have a chance!! Cover is VERY important. Just my opinion

I have the cover. Guess I'll be fishing right a lot after the ice melts to eliminate a lot of LMB before I stock, Hopefully they should be fairly easy to catch like in the past Fall. Then stock plenty of bluegill as big as I can get and hope for the best. Thanks for the input.

Hey Scott,
I'm no expert but if you stock the small HBG, you will lose most if not all of them to the LMB. It is also worth noting that HBG won't reproduce and it is recommend to stock CNBG over HBG when looking to establish a forage base.

Thanks for the tip on the CNBG, thats one of which my county sells. I'm putting in an aerator this summer, right now the ice is pretty thick.

Guess I'll be the only one on the forum that hopes I get a fish kill this winter from the ice! There is also another fish supplier not to far away that maybe will have bigger CNBG that I can try....

i would build a small cage, about 4ft square should be fine, and add about 200 bg to it. the bg will grow super fast if you feed them daily. release them once you feel they are large enough to survive the lmb. i would also catch about 40 of the lmb out before they have a chance to spawn.

Great idea. I can make one and feed them every day but just wondering what size mesh to use? Got to get busy making one now I guess.

Maybe a dumb question but If the mesh is to big for the fry, when initially stocked what would stop them from swimming and getting nailed by the LMB or would they return to the cage anyways? or should the mesh be small enough that even the fry can't get out when first stocked? My county says the CNBG would be in the 2-4 inch range when picking up so any idea what a good mesh size would be since I can't see the size of fish ahead of time?

Not that I know anything,but if it was me I would probably just use what we always called 1/2" rabbit wire that we always used on rabbit pens when I was a kid.

On building fish cages, most sites recommend either plastic or woven mesh or plastic coated wire. This is to prevent injuries. Galvanized wire is rough, and many fish will be scraped and die.

here is a pic of my cage. these bg were not put in the cage. i throw a little food in there daily and the bg just start hanging out. i can't remember how many months it took to grow them this size, but it wasn't very long. the square pvc piece is my feeder ring. it keeps the feed from floating out of the cage. i bought 3/4" plastic mesh and some special pvc fittings.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/lHcIwCEO0rDu7Rpv2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tVC2ZJnqMZMPsu8Z2

Firstly lets educate you about BG and CNBG. BG is pure strain usually northern bluegill whereas CNBG are coppernose southern adapted bluegill which are not sold to my knowledge anywhere in OH because we have ice covered cold ponds and CNBG have very poor survival in OH. Your local SWCD is using a local fish supplier as all Ohio SWCD do. Often SWCD fish suppliers provide fish on smaller part of the size range of 2"-4" which means in my long experience most will be 1.75"-3".

It is pretty obvious the advice to stock 50 bass in 0.3 acre (150/ac) was designed to have you return on a regular basis to buy more minnows to keep your bass at least alive and maybe growing. FYI each LMB at 8"-12" for good growth can easily eat 1200-1500 FHM per year which extrapolates to 25 bass eating 36,000-38,000 FHM per year or 108 lbs of FHM! In another example if your 50 stocker 3"-4" bass had all the FHM they could eat last year they would now be 10-12" long not 5"-6" which shows they were way underfed and now stunted.

FYI - adding HBG (hybrid BG) will NOT result in enough small HBG offspring to allow your 50 bass and even 25 bass to grow in 0.3ac. HBG are mostly males and the few females that are present do not produce very many small HBG per female. HBG offspring are considered by many to be inferior in terms of good growth which is why you want the bass to eat almost all the offspring from the HBG parents. Thus if you have 25 bass in 0.3 ac those bass should keep the HBG offspring to a minimum but the bass will not get any larger than 12"-13" due to not enough food. Been there saw that often. The only ways to circumvent this is to have pellet eating LMB or stock pure strain prolific BG.

At this point IMO, your best plan is to not buy your fish from SWCD and find another fish farm in eastern or central OH that has the next larger size of BG or HBG as in 4"-6". Messing with growing small sunfish in a cage is going to be more trouble than it is worth to you - IMO. Those fish farms with 4"-6" BG-HBG do exist and are only a hour or two away south and west of you in NE Ohio. All you need to do is show up with money and they will bag, box, and pack the fish for your return trip home. With larger fish stocked in April you will get quick fish reproduction (late May-June) to start feeding your 20-35 bass this year - not next year as the 2"-4" BG would do.

Remember the HBG are considered a put and take, periodically restock fish. You don't plan on their offspring surviving and reproducing because the youngsters will cause interbreeding problems and inferior growth in later generations. If you decide use HBG, stock at least twice as many HBG as you would BG because you want some offspring to feed your bass. Feed them a high quality fish food and both or either 'BG types' will /should grow well from 4"-6" to 5.5"-8" by fall 2018. HBG will initially grow a little faster than pure BG. Read from our Archives and study all about HBG here:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=256325#Post256325

BE aware that HBG as adults are somewhat more aggressive than BG and will have a tendency more often nip at idle swimmers. So if you have small girls or a very ladylike wife HBG could be a mistake for your pond.

Another option is to not want larger bass and use your numerous smaller bass to keep most all HBG offspring eaten so the stocker HBG grow big so you have a trophy panfishing pond where the bass are mostly 6"-13", always hungry, willing to bite and easy to catch - a great kids fishing pond.

I agree with Mr. Cody about having a trophy panfish pond. I think you will be very limited on bass quality. And i never liked the idea of hbg due to the gsf offspring.
It was almost impossible for me to get 5 inch bg after the otters got in my old pond and that is the reason i built the cage. It was no problem at all for me to raise bg in it. And like the picture shows, i have just left it in the pond and had them take up home in there numerous times. My friend has a 30 acre quarry that he is stocking with my fish. He comes ever so often and lifts the cage and gets the bg. It probably didn't help, but i released those in the pic back in my pond. My thinking was this might offset a season of inbreeding, but that is a whole other subject.