So a friend of mine has a 1/2 acre pond. Population is BG and LMB. Recently, maybe two years ago he had something happen. From what he tells me it was almost a total fish kill. Now the pond is heavy with underfed bass and extremely light on forage.
I wanna help the guy out, hes retired and doesnt get around so good anymore, so harvested about 20 lmb between 10-18 inches in early summer. Here we are a couple months later and still no bg to be found.

First thing that comes to mind is stocking bg and adding cover. Hes a nice guy and frankly I enjoy fishing his pond wih my kiddoes so I called a few places to see if I could get 100 adult CNBG for a decent price. The only ones who answered the phone was pondking out of gainesville and they tell me they can get me the fish in late sept at a good price.........but im not much on waiting. Im very tempted to take the kiddoes perch jerking at the local lake and hual a few buckets of bg to the pond and maybe sink some trees to get things goin.


Is this a completely bad idea? If not, what would be the best way to go about it? Should we just wait and pick them up from the fishery and maybe get a couple pairs of floridas?


Thank you for your insite

James, go ahead and do it. Read up on how to give them a salt dip/bath before putting them in the pond, and I would net them out of the bucket, do the salt dip, place them in a larger container (like a 100 gallon watering tank) that is filled with pond water (or well water that has been brought up to temp and oxygenated) to recover, then dip them out and put them into the pond. Take the water that they came from the lake, the salt dip water and the 100 gal stock tank water and dump it where it won't go into the pond. Make sure that the BG are larger than 1/3 the length of the largest LMB in the pond. Also try and get both sexes of BG. Just finding bedding BG and yanking all the males won't help the pond much..........

You do that so any parasites, plant pieces or anything else that is not in the pond now from getting into it.

I once stocked a bunch of adult Golden Shiners like that, but I dind't do the dip nor kept the water out of my pond. The next year I had to treat the pond with Fluridone to kill the Eurasian Water Milfoil that was starting to show up. That plant was in the lake where the GSH came from........

My hunch is that pond king does not want to supply fish right now because of the heat and the high mortality associated with handling, transporting, stressing the fish right now. To them it's a high chance of customer dissatisfaction.


Keep in mind that they pack fish in oxygen bags and you can transport them in coolers to stabalize temperatures which is going to be a lot more stable/less stressful than what you are planning on doing.

I think it's only a month and you are going to be happier with the results if you wait.

James, I would be patient and wait until I get the desired fish available - no telling what you will get out of a local pond. I am picky about fish I stock in our ponds and would be the same for anyone's pond.

Have you checked with Bob Waldrop of Tyler Fish Farm or Overton Fisheries?
They are the only growers in the area that I am aware of that hatch their own CNBG - Overton grows them out to adult size - don't know if ready or not.
I made the mistake of "bucket stocking" BG from neighbors pond and Arkansas fish truck intergrades many years ago and regretted it.

IMO, you will do your friend and those who follow, a favor by selecting the best brood stock available.
George Glazener

You guys raise some pretty valid points. It seems like alot of work to do it right and then theres still a little bit of risk. I think I will wait. At least then I know what im getting and I can pick up a few RES while im there.

Thank you all again for your expertise.

wait for a cool day, use a large cooler with your pond water and an aerator local fish do much better than store bought

James, as you are waiting for the fish this would be a good time to build/install the cover you mentioned. Then it's all ready for when the fish show up.