Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose where's the bass?

i have a 54 acre lake in n.e. ark. pond construction was done sept. 10 2001. was full of water dec. 10 2001, with a average depth of 7 feet. there are 4 clumps of willows (20 trees each clump)and rest of cover is man made (approx.
4000 wooden pallets anchored to poles or the bottom). march 2002 i stocked 39,000 coppernose, 13,000 shellcracker, 13,000 native bluegill, and 3,250 channel cat (all fish were fingerlings). november 2002 i stocked 3,500 2-3'' f1 largemouth
bass and march 03' i stocked 800 1-2'' pure florida largemouth. i have had two automatic feeders going twice a day (april-november) since the bream were stocked march 02'. also i stocked 2000 pounds of fatheads a week before the bream.
everything in the lake seems to be thriving except the bass. bream range from the size of your hand to millions of fry. catfish range from 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds. i have seen no bass feeding on the surface all summer and in the past week i spent two half days trying to catch a bass to see how big they were and haevn't caught a single one. where did they go? did the catfish eat them. i have ordered an electroshocking device that should be in later this week. if there are no bass present when i shock should i eradicate the catfish before stocking the bass again or just stock bigger bass? if the later, how big?

I stocked 50 3-5 inch bass in my pond this spring that has 2 year old cats up to 3 pounds plus and I have the bass feeding on the mosquito fish and fatheads on a daily basis. So not sure if your cats got them of not. My bass have already doubled in length, my daughter caught one fishin for bream.

Bob

It sounds like you did your homework. However a few things I have questions about. How big were the 65,000 "bream" when you stocked the f1's in Nov? The reason I ask is because at this stocking rate intermediate size bluegill eat about the same thing as 2-3 inch bass. The bass could have straved and I have seen this happen in a few situations. Also can I ask about the timing? Why did you not stock the original bass in June after the initial stocking in March? If the f1's were stocked in NOv they should have been much bigger than 3 inches. Is this a misprint you stock 2,000 fatheads a week. There is no reason to do this if you have a good forage base already established.

One last thing, you ordered the shock equipment????? Do you mean you ordered a consultation service from a professional biologist? If you ordered the equipment you better know what you are doing I have done it for 10 years and still find things I did not know about shocking and then you have to properly analysis your catch to know what that means. Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to get some answers to help you out.
Greg

greg grimes,
in november when i stocked the bass all the bream were 3-4'' and getting two feedings of 1/8''
36%feed a day.
i wanted the fatheads (i stocked 2000 pounds
one time) to multiply a couple of times before i turned the bass loose on them. by the time they had a good spawn the water temp was too warm and no one would haul me the bass.
i did order the shock equiptment myself. it is very hard to find anyone to do this in this area. a good friend of mine has done this for the arkansas game & fish for 10 years, he will oversee the shocking. from what i could gather the machine cost about the same as a private firm would have charged for one shocking.
thanks for your input

Just wondering what brand/model shocking equipment you are going with. I've thought about this myself, but the equipment I've seen is terribly expensive.

it's a smith-root 1.5 kva with about 20 hours of use. cost 1500 including shipping.

Just out of curiousity, if you don't mind me asking.... How much did all of the stocking cost? Is this your own private lake or a collaboration? Seems like a huge amount of fish but 54 acres is alot of water. Did I read your reply to Greg correctly? -> 2000lbs of fatheads??
Holy moses!

Normally I wouldn't be concerned with that amount of fish in a lake that size as far as any starvation might be concerned with the sheer volume of non-fish forage that would be available, BUT, that line of thought for me is based on an established pond. One that was so 'young' when stocked may not have had time to establish any sort of forage base beyond the fatheads. Of course 2000lbs is a heck of alot of fatheads and should keep everything fed for a while. (Again as Greg said at the sizes mentioned the young bass would have alot of competitors) I would highly doubt the catfish are responsible for consuming the bass at least.

gbrasher, that was you. :p I called Todd about the 1.5 KVA and he said he thought it was sold. I'm not sure where in Arkansas you are but I have done one job out that way for $1,000. Maybe keep this in mind in the futre. The problem is now you have to get the proper generator then setup the boat then you will need a holding tank, and fiberglass dip nets. Good luck with the shocking and let me know what you find out. I would suggest no more than 25 bass/acre from 8-14 inches if you find out you have none. If you can not find a source of these let me know.