Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Should I pass on bass ?

I have a 1.43 acre pond that was recently drained and dredged. It has filled up again, and in November 2006 I stocked it with 1500 bream, expecting to stock it with bass in March.

Now I find out that my wife and a neighbor are more interested in having a duck pond than a fish pond, and lament the scene each spring when baby ducks would disappear under the surface, the meal for a hungry bass.

I bought the basic pond management book (and although I don't have it in front of me at the moment), I think that I am pretty close to the dividing line between catfish and bass (small pond, somewhat cloudy water (9"-12" with a secchi disk)).

I guess I am wondering what my options are if I decide not to stock bass. Would catfish go for the ducklings and cygnets too? (Yep we have two black swans that will breed in a year or two.) I assume that we still need a predator for general pond health, but am wondering if I have an option for something that would eat the bream and not the small waterfowl...

And if I go for catfish, is it too late to stock fingerlings ? Would I have to stock with older fish ? Thanks for the help everyone (as always).

If you manage for large bluegill, you will have a glut of 10-14 inch bass which will have no interest in eating your ducks. I've fished ponds like this my entire life and never, ever witnessed a largemouth eat a duck. If you don't harvest any bass they will become lean and mean, which will keep your remaining bluegill fat 'n happy. I'm conservatively estimating that I've spent 10,000 hours on the water. The biggest terrestrial item I've ever seen a bass take was a mouse. If your bass are generally small I just don't foresee a problem here.

Now if you do choose to go with no largemouth, then you'd have management options like I've got. I feed the bluegill and put heavy harvest pressure on females. It works out just fine, but I also have some hybrid striped bass which probably help a little, and some yellow perch which are probably eating little bluegill in my pond as we speak. It's do-able.

Consider that in LMB crowded ponds there are usually a few fish that jump the log jam in size and keep growing on BG and small LMB. One or two in a 1.5 acre pond will sooner or later get big. They will eat ducklings.

I vote for HSB and a few CC and feed them. Take out via fishing ,seining or traps lots of small BG and a few CC and HSB before they get to big.

chatlanha, I saw your pond in the link you provided. It's very nice.

I also read the comment about the guy in the green suburban. That's a shame.

It makes me think that you may get the random fish stockings by others. Sometimes, those potential "rough" fish can be controlled by LMB. Also, somehow, I have to think bullheads will get in there too.

Of course, who would ever know if a few LMB got in there by "accident?"

If no one see's a duckling get eaten...did it really ever happen???

I guess you could ask that brood of 3 mallards where siblings 4 -7 are. They could dive down to take a look but they may not come back.

Sunil,

We mounted some placards around the lake, similar to what you would see at a zoo exhibit, giving a little jistory of the lake, and trying to say in a nice way that the lake was private property. I see people reading them all the time, so hopefully they will do the trick. Printed from my computer, so they can be changed whenever I need ...

I meant "history" ...

I've seen a duckling bobbing on the water, Sunil, and in an instant and a swirl of water, it was gone. Although I was bothered by the knowledge that it's life lasted no more than an hour, I know that my disappointment was silly because such happenings are in the schemes and cycles of nature.

The only time we had a brood of mallards on the pond was before my initial stocker bass were big enough to eat ducklings. They had about 8 littl'uns, to begin with.

The number of ducklings kept dwindling and dwindling. I don't know what got them all, although I know I rescued 4 or 5 from the drain box at one time and later found one dead at the discharge end of the pipe. I think maybe one duckling made it to fledgling status.

It's tough being a baby duck, even with no bass predation.

Hey, Chatlanha...
I love your placards. Nice touch. We have similar projects with similar goals. I am preparing to begin stocking our pond this year. After much discussion on a couple of other threads that I started, I have abandoned my original stocking strategy of the somewhat standard LMB/BG because of the fear of duckling loss to LMB. This, combined with my desire to stock YP, has landed me with the PB experts guidance to work with SMB, YP, and RES. This will be my next project.

I agree that it can be brutal. Or simply that it is brutal.

Of course, I'm biased to the fish, but it just seems like the fishery could get nasty quickly.

chatlanha, the placard is interesting, but I seem to get mixed feelings when I read it. On one hand, I thinks it's good that the history and the future of the water are being described; but on the other hand, I'm wondering if there are that many people coming by, who don't live around the pond, that the message comes off as "here, learn about what we're doing, but don't touch."

I'm right there with you as I also don't want anyone messing with my pond.

It's seems to be a unique approach, and I'd like to hear more about how it works for you.

Sunil,

We posted the sign near my duck feeder and one of the wood duck nesting boxes that I installed to create a little "habitat" for people to see. My sheet metal guy will come back soon to roof the duck feeder like he did for my floating swan feeder.

The language went through a few revisions, as we were not sure how to get the messages that we wanted across. What we were dealing with was:

1. The vast majority of the people who pass by the lake think that it is public property. For some reason unknown to me, many of them seem to treat it differently because of that perception - leaving trash, coming by at night and leaving evidence of the previous night's "session" if you know what I mean - stuff like that. So we primarily wanted something to indicate that it was private. Previously before I bought my portion of the pond, there were your standard "NO TRESSPASSING" and "NO FISHING" signs, but I didn't like the garish look of those, so I wanted something a little more pleasing to the eye.

2. I wanted to add something about the fish, because one of my new (well-intentioned) neighbors mentioned to me after we had dredged the lake and stocked it with the BG, something to the effect of "Oh it is so nice now - the next time we go fishing I can release all my catch here in the pond!", which I didn't want. I found out that in the past, this is how alot of the fish we had in the lake got there - city residents who were fisher(wo)men would bring catch to the pond.

I ran the copy by a couple of people to get the initial "gut reaction" of what emotions would be triggered when a visitor read the sign, b/c I wanted to nicely inform and at the same time let people know that alot of work goes into keeping it clean, etc. Good to get feedback from another, thanks. I would be happy to entertain critique via email that you think would give a better impression.

Otherwise...

I know that losing the chicks is a part of nature's wonder. AND, we probably already have about as many duck as we should for a pond our size. Maybe I will look into incubating the eggs and then releasing them into other areas so that they have a better chance. This is all new to me, but it has become a new hobby, made infinitely easier by the pros here at pondboss.

chatlanha, all the points you've brought up are all super-valid.

There've been a few threads where we've discussed various signs and the message intended to be delivered. Some were even as bold as "Shoot first, ask questions later." A lot of them were tongue in cheek.

I thought your approach was unique in that you were conveying a lot of information about the pond, and details about the inhabitants. If I recall correctly, I don't think anyone had tried that appoach.

How many people live in your neighborhood and have rights to the water?

Chatlanha:

My incubator knowledge is about 40 years out of date, but building (or buying) an incubator and getting a decent yield on chicken, duck, or quail egg hatching is not that difficult. We got 50% yields when I was a kid and we didn't know anything; with practice we got hatch rates up to about 75%.

Sunil,

The City has defined our neighborhood as having 232 residents. I know this because I am one of a group of neighbors trying to initiate a Traffic Calming process for people speeding through our neighborhood, and we need signatures on a petition. As far as rights, there are 5 neighbors who jointly own the pond, pretty much divided into lots based on their frontage...

The total of five w/ pond rights doesn't sound too bad. Do the other 227 feel as if they have rights to the pond also?

I guess back on topic, have you decided what you're going to do for a predator fish, if any?

to some degree, I think. I just got home tonight and found a young couple standing on the bank. Enjoying the beautiful night view, I really can't blame them, but I am wary of night visitors as they may tend to be up to less good than those who visit by day - hopefully the utility company will have power to my lot soon so that I can install security lighting.

Anyway, I plan to call the supplier I got my BG from and see what options I have from him - he is the nearest supplier that is on LA's Wildlife and Fisheries list.