This year we harvested most all BG and LMB and stocked small adult pellet-trained YP (at 300/ac). We'd like to keep our species balance as YP-heavy as possible in the coming years, and preferably pellet train high numbers of the YP YoY.

We do have at least 2 stray LMB left, a few adult BG, and will have plenty of adult and juvenile YP as predators to suppress YP recruitment, so I'm looking for a solution to help us protect good numbers of YP YoY each year from predation and to allow us to pellet train them.

I'm open to other ideas, but in my research so far it sounds like using a blocking net is very tricky and that people have had good results just placing cages off their docks to trap and raise YoY BG (some swim in as fry and get trapped once they grow too big to exit), so I'm thinking I may try the cage approach for YP.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to best do this for YP? I think specifically I'll need opinions on:
1. Cage design - dimensions (3' height, or taller?), mesh size (1/8", 1/4"?), door/opening design to allow for feeding, solid bottom vs. open mesh bottom, should I make a solid roof for shading, etc.
2. Placement - We do NOT have a dock, so I need to figure out at what depth/how close to shore to place them, and how I'm going to hold them in place. We have bears which think everything is a toy, so I'll need to attach them in a way that doesn't make them look like a fun bear toy.
3. Anything I should do for algae control (place a couple crayfish in each cage?) and water quality control?
4. Other details, like if I should put branches or other cover inside to attract the YP fry, or any other suggestions.

Bump...

Any experiences or ideas to share?

Your going places I've never been, but I can say that placing crawdads in the cages is not likely a good idea. I use a trap to cull my HBG. The trap will catch as many craws as fish usually and, on occasion, there will be a half eaten fish. I suspect a crawdad has pinched it to death and had an easy meal. No big deal to me as I an trying to get them out of the pond, but it would be a casualty in your case.

Tadpoles may be an option for your algae control. I have a few in my 30 gallon aquarium. They work the glass continuously, scraping and eating algae. Mine are bullfrog tadpoles.

I'm interested to see how this works for you. I'm planning to cage some YP this fall for pellet training.

Agree with QA on no crayfish in the cage. When I do an overnight trap soak in the creek there will always be one or two half-eaten fish when I pull the trap if any crays are in it.

Water temps will tell you how deep to sink the cage. The YP won't like the top two feet if the water is still warm from the summer weather.

A pool noodle will float a 2'x2'x2' cylindrical cage no problem. Tie a rope between the cage and the float to set the depth, and run the tag end to shore so retrieval is easy when you want to check on your babies. I don't know if a pool noodle 30' from shore would look like a fun bear toy. If you think it would maybe just tether the cage to shore and sink it far enough out the bears won't notice it.

Or maybe make the cage taller, say 4', set it in 6' of water, put a middling size rock in the cage and enough of a pool noodle to keep the cage upright without floating it?

Firstly build yourself an economical dock that will make raising of fish in any type of cage much easier. There needs to be a minimum of 1ft of water depth below the cage for adequate water circulation for better health of the fish.

I have used Playstar's commercial grade and standard pipe sleeves that worked well to support the frame of 3 ft - 4 ft wide. Used chain link posts for the upright pipes pounded into the bottom.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Search/N-5yc...lmax&NCNI-5

Get yourself a dock and I can provide more info for trapping and raising YP in cages tethered to the dock. Others here also have good experience growing fish in cages.

Thanks for all the suggestions. My life is much busier these days, and I won't personally be around home much to spearhead this effort in person, so I'll have to opt for a slightly less labor intensive option than building a real dock, at least temporarily.

My brother's inlaws gave us a small plastic pontoon boat, so now I'm thinking that next Spring I could just tell my people to float the pontoon boat, maybe have it anchored and/or tied off to make it stable enough to serve as a temporary "dock", and then we could attach a couple floating cages to the deep end of the pontoon. I think we'd tie off the pontoon at the dam, which has the steepest slope and deepest water to hopefully be able to get the cages in at least 6' of water (to give the YP as many depth options as feasible and to try to get 1' or so of water underneath the cage, as Bill suggests).

Heck, I build my dock sections for my grow out pond in less than two hours. Get 2 - 4x8 sheets of treated plywood, 4-16 ft treated 2x4s, 2 - 4ft long treated 2x4s. Throw together a 4x16 frame, put the plywood over it, add a float or two and you're set. Eezy, peezy.

Spend a few hours building a floating dock and then buy a couple cages. In my experience it takes quite a bit more time to build a cage then a dock simple enough to hang a few cages off of......

https://pentairaes.com/fish-cages.html

NEDOC, it's not the time or effort that's keeping me from building a dock, rather the length of my arms. I just wasn't blessed with the wingspan to be able build a dock for my pond in PA while I'm in Colorado. I'm transient right now as I'm trying to make a career change, but I do like your quick/express dock plan if I'm able to be in PA for a bit between now and next year's YP spawn.

I realize now that I did specifically mention the dock route being "labor intensive", so my fault for the confusion. With me being away from my pond, I'll have to be a remote foreman on any pond projects, so I was thinking it would be easier to convince the family to just drag the pontoon boat down and float it than to convince them to build a real dock, but now after thinking more about NEDOC's and Bill's simple dock plans, there may not be that much of a difference in effort. Probably just better to build the real deal.