Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New Guy, New Pond, No Clue.

I'm a new pond owner in VA and am overwhelmed with the info on this site. I'm about ready to stock and have a couple of questions. Any suggestions/help would be very much appreciated. Our pond is about 5 acres, 15' deep at its deepest and 4 feet at its most shallow. A small creek feeds it and we have installed a Vertex 2XL system. We want to end up with a clear fishing/swimming pond without too much ongoing maintenance. I've placed 10 conctete septic distribution boxes w/ multiple 2" holes in the bottom as initial structure.

My question; A hatchery I've been in contact with recommends the following per acre for new ponds.100 LMB, 500 red & blue gills, 100 striped yellow perch, 100 black & white crappie, 100 channel catfish, 100 breeder shiners, 100 rosey reds, 1000 fathead minnows, 100 snails, 100 creyfish, 100 tadpoles, 1000 daphnia, and 10 koi. The fish are 1-2" with the shinners 3-4". They suggest stocking these all at once to establish a natural balance. If this mix seems right I'd probably do it times 3...what do you think?

Hi Ken, and welcome. Sounds like you have a fine pond.

THat's just about the most unusual stocking recommendations I have ever seen! The koi recommendation blows me away. The daphnia and snails will "just show up" anyway, for better or worse. 100 rosey reds would probably be useless stocked long before the rest.

The real experts will soon chime in, and will steer you right... and will possibly suggest you consult another hatchery. Best of luck with that awesome pond!

Welcome to Pond Boss Ken! The good news is that there are many guru's here that will answer your question, the bad news is that I'm not one of them!

Like you I am a fairly new pond owner. I highly recommend that you purchase some of the books offered on the Pond Boss site. Specifically "Basic Pond Management" and "Raising Trophy Bass." I have learned quite a bit from these books.

One of the books recommends that you establish a forage base before introducting many preditor fish. But don't take my word for it, I don't know what the heck I'm talking about, all I did was sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

P.S.
I believe that it is a Pond Boss law that you have to post photos of you pond as soon as humanly possible. Well maybe it's just more of a rule or stern suggestion or persistant urging. Or perhaps I just heard it from one of the voices in my head but the point is I wanna see a photo of your pond.

I agree that that is one of the most unusual stocking suggestions I have seen.

I also agree that the snails, tadpoles,and daphnia will show up on their own.

I don't agree with the recommendation that it is best to stock all varieties of the food chain all at once. If I were to stock your pond I would let the aforementioned start showing up on their own and stock the following the first year:

Beeder shiners, rosey reds (only if you want variety - they soon dissapear once you have predator fish as they are easy to see and quick snacks), Fatheads, and crayfish.

You have to know what you are interested in fishing for and what conditions you want for your pond. I would not add the channel catfish or koi if you want a clear swimming pond. They tend to muddy up the water quite a bit.

As for mix of predator fish you can have a bit of variety but I would only add them after the food chain has been established, otherwise you will not have many of the baitfish left after the first year.

I personally would not add LMB, red & blue gills, yellow perch, and black & white crappie all in the same pond all at once. I think that I would reduce the variety and if I wanted YP I would add them the second year and then the year after add the gills and LMB. Once the LMB goes in then all below on the food chain watch out!! Thus in my book they would be last to go in.

I agree that I would ask the true experts what they would do and how many of each for your size pond. ( I personally might think about a grass carp to help keep the weeds down, but only after things are esablished and you have a weed problem )

I hope this helps a little bit. Good luck and welcome to the forum

Ken, be glad you found this site, Man!!

With a 5 acre pond, any mistakes could be difficult to clean up.

If you want a good fishing pond, and Largemouth Bass are what you want, the solid way to go is to develop your forage base first by adding fathead minnows, golden shiners, and standard-true bluegill first, and many times a year before the introduction of predators such as LMB.

There's so much more to talk about, but hold off on stocking until you learn more.

I don't think you can trust the Fish Sellers to tell you what you want; they may be fine to buy from once you know what you need.

Hi Ken, i'll echo the above cautions....dont stock yet til you do a little more research, here and through available books.........

you stated your objective "We want to end up with a clear fishing/swimming pond without too much ongoing maintenance." this is critical to choosing the proper fish populations......here are a couple things i've learned here at PB

(1) you need to establish your forage first, then put in predators, this can easily take over a year

(2) there are a lot of threads here suggesting crappie is not a good idea in that size pond especially if you want the ideal LMB situation,

(3) and IMHO i would avoid the cats if you want clean swimming and low maintenance (down the road).....

its good your asking these questions here before you stock. you need to plan carefully now to minimize undesirable conditions 2, 3, 5, 10 years down the road.

my feeble 2c....please let the experts prevail......

What gets me is 100 snails. We put in redear to get rid of snails!

Greetings and felicitations, Ken.

Excellent advice in the posts above this one. More to follow below it.

A few questions to help further refine your goals:

Do you know what kind of fishing/fish you are interested in? Do you like to eat fish, and if so which kinds?

Do you know what species of fish are present in the creek entering your pond? If not, you should find out ASAP before stocking the pond. The volunteer species entering the pond from the creek can make a huge impact on what species are desirable/possible to have in the pond and on what fish you could/should/would have to stock.

How much time will you spend at the pond (do you live there or is it a weekend/once a month place)? How much time do you think you'd like to spend fishing? How much time and money do you think you'd like to spend managing the fish population of the pond? There are very few (arguably no) "set it and forget it" stocking practices, but some combos of species require a lot more attention to manage than others.

How clear do you think you'd like the water to be for swimming? The clearer the water, the less plankton found in it. Since the plankton is 95% of the food chain base for your fish, less plankton means fewer pounds of fish supported in the pond. So to an extent, you need to decide if fishing or clear water for swimming is more important. In our pond, having the vast majority of the surface free of "pond scum" (filamentous algae) has been agreed to be clean enough for swimming. If we can't see our fingers with our arms extended underwater, tough.

Ken welcome. You have a great opportunity to have a outstanding pond with a little work.

Hold off stocking for now , while you work through your goals and wishes for the pond.

It sounds like the hatchery was trying to sell you " everything including the kitchen sink ". Not a good idea. Start by asking questions here and learning the basics.

Water quality and forage base are the keys to a successful pond. I have never seen or heard of a stock and forget pond plan that produced a good fishery. Here are a couple of links to basic pond management and 2 are near you. This forum and the books and mag. by Pond Boss are a wise investment. Some of the info in the links below is dated and is general and not tailored to your pond.

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/Pond_Management/index.html VIRG.

http://www.ncwildlife.com/pg03_fishing/images/PONDMAN5.PDF N. Car.

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p1428.pdf Miss.

Many thanks for the input. To answer a few inquires; the creek is fed by several springs and begins about 3/4 of a mile away. On our property above the pond we have placed 3 rip-rap check dams to trap upstream silt that may head our way. There are a few minnows present but I don't know what they are. Within some sort of yet to be defined reason, we'll do what it takes to best manage this opportunity. For now, we are there about 10 days a month. I appreciate everyone's comments and have visited and printed the links noted for weekend reading. We'll check in on Monday!

Welcome to PB Ken! While you digest the information posted so far, can I ask you for some help?? You posted about rip-rap check dams to mitigate silt concerns. Care to elaborate on these structures?

Can you talk about the amount of stream flow you are dealing with, the size of the rip-rap dams (length, width, depth), size of rip-rap being used and placement(distance) of the dams from the pond inlet. Any links to information on these types of structures would also be appreciated.

Ken - It sounds like you got your original stocking recommentation from Zetts in PA or WVA - correrct?

Ken, keep reading and hold off on stocking. You're not going to accomplish a lot by stocking at this time of the year. I believe by springtime, you will be much better equipped to evaluate and deal with the recommendation from someone who makes his living selling fish.

I further betcha that by springtime you will reject most of what the fish hawk says.

Ken,

I'll offer a slightly different view, based on my experience here in East Texas.

Perhaps you have much lower winter temps than we do in East Texas, but in my area, no question, I would get the forage base in right now. I would stock BG and RES along with a good helping of FHs. Regardless of your eventual plan for the lake, you are going to need the FH's and the BG.

I've seen very good growth in BG stocked in the fall here in East Texas(as late as Dec.) and as a bonus, they are ready to begin spawning immediately in the spring when temps allow.

As a precaution, you might want to stock only say 25% of your forage now...if you are worried about winter kill. It isn't much risk to stock 800 BG, 200 RES, and 10 pounds of FH's. The potential gain in time required to get the forage established is well worth the risk, IMO.

For your area, the VDGIF recommends stocking your forage in early fall. My thought would be, that even though early fall is past, it would be worth the risk to at least try to get a portion of your forage base in now...but I trend to be impatient.

On the other hand, take your time deciding on the other fish, the predators,etc. Read and assimilate info and make an informed decision based on your desires for the pond.

Ken the determination of whether to start stocking forage in late fall is based on your area and pond. It is all about the ability of the forage fish to be in the best possible condition for spawning in spring but yet be acclimated to your pond and also to take advantage of the best growth period of a new pond (soon after it has water). It is a balancing of these factors. It varies north to south because of the harshness of winter on small new fish and the amount of fat reserves needed to survive.

Like ML I have had good success stocking fish even into December because of relatively mild winters and warm water temps in the 45-50 degree range.

Because a few BG and FH are cheap I would lean toward stocking some now (10 to 25%). On the BG I would try to get both 2-3in. and 3-5in.

Again, thanks for the helpful info! Bill, Yes, Zetts in WV. Other than revenue, why do you think they would push their new pond "recommendation". Based on everyone's response, it seems this could do nothing but hurt their long term business. I talked to the "Fish Wagon" people from Arkansas...funny, they say VA is one of their best states. Has anyone worked with this company?

Our check dams... it seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. The creek bed is about 4-5' below the top of the channel, we stacked in a mixed load of rock (12" to 2 inchers) at 3 locations about 3' tall, bank to bank, and 300' apart. The last one is about 200' from the where pond water begins to back up. The mini dams (forebays?) are porous but water does back up slightly, enough I thought for sediment to settle out. We had a good rain (about 5" within a week) the water was moving and fairly muddy. The water was visibly cleaner after the last dam. When the sediment builds up to a point we'll scoop it out. Hopefully, our upstream "capture" will keep some of it out of the pond. This is not a big creek, maybe 15" wide.

From the info learned here, I think a forage base will work for us now with LMB introduced late next spring. Sound OK?

Ken, like Ewest says, it all depends on your area. Those guys are in a little warmer climes than we are. Check with Universities with the same approx winter temps that you have. Ask questions. I like the idea of acclimating over the winter if they will grow.

As for stocking predators, I have said many times that a bass should be able to go to sleep with his mouth open and wake up with a full belly. Stock when you feel that your forage base is just getting a little heavy. With BG and fatheads, that doesn't take long in warm weather. My gut feel is that you should hold off on stocking bass until next fall.

Ken if you stock a good % of your BG as 3-5 in. intermediates between now and March say 30% then it would be ok to stock 2in LMB in June. Be sure you get 2007 year class LMB not left over 2006ers. I would stock 50% of the LMB that way and then the other 50% in late summer at 2-3 inchs. IMO it is best to start LMB in an understocked amount ( 70% of recommended #s). It is easier to add more later at 6-8 inches if needed than to take them out if there are to many. Add the FH also.

Ken,

Thanks for the reply on the check dams. Keep us posted as your project progresses.

Maybe others can comment on this, but my coppernose blue gill bite me when I'm swimming in my pond. If I stop moving and I'm just sort of standing or sitting in the water, they bite me on my back something fierce. I have a few moles, and they go for them every time. It's to the point that I have to wear a t-shirt to swim in there.

Is it only coppernose, or do all bluegill do this? If he puts them in his pond, will he have the same problems? Especially if it's a swimming pond.

Eddie

Yes, bluegill will do this too, the key is to keep moving while you are in the water.

It's not just moles, either.

Bruce,Bruce, Bruce you are so right

You're not wearing the proper personal protective equipment: