Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Pond Filling Up, Fish are Coming Soon

I have just had 3 dams built- the ponds are starting to fill (1 acre, 3/4 acre, and 1/4 acre). The conservation department will stock fish free- bluegill/catfish in October and largemouth bass next June.

I have added some trees and stumps for habitat. Do I need to add anything else to create food for the small fingerlings that will be coming in October? A little moss is starting to grow- I assume that's good habitat for the bugs the fingerlings will be eating??

Should I wait to add grass carp or go ahead and add a few now?

Where are you from horseman??

johnstaci,

I've found over the years that nothing is free...free fish from a State Government often means that you also have to let the public fish your pond.....and thats only fair considering their tax dollars pay for the fish.

The answer to your questions depends somewhat on your goals/objectives for your ponds.

You might want to consider, a catfish/BG combo in the 1/4 acre pond and LMB/BG combo in the other two ponds. In all three ponds, I would add fathead minnows as soon as possible. This time of year, its generally hard to find grass carp because they are somewhat fragile to transport and stock. You could wait until fall and put one in the 1/4 acre, two in the 3/4 acre, and three in the 1 acre ponds. Some folks recommend higher stocking rate, but it is much easier to add than it is to remove grass carp.

Good luck on your new ponds!

ML- who told you grass carp were hard to transport and stock? I could only wish all fish were this easy to transport in the heat. To me bluegill are tough once the real heats gets here.

In this case I'm one of those who rec. more grass carp than that. I many times tell them less than others but 1 in 1/4 acre pond will have little to no benefit. What is negative of 4? If they clean pond then start eating fish food you can always catch them out and eat them (great btw). That is still chepaer than herbicide applicaiton. I would say if you do not like weed/algae 4, 8, 12 for each pond respectively.

Greg,

Every time I have purchased grass carp, they have to be sedated and treated very carefully. Maybe that treatment is unnecessary? They are the only fish I've ever purchased that have to be sedated before transporting, but if that is wrong, then I learned something.

However, I still think it is easier to add than subtract grass carp...they are difficult to catch. Several folks have posted here about overstocking them and how difficult it is to get them out, once in. If they are easy to transport, then they are much easier to add than subtract.

p.s. I have 1 in a 1/4 acre pond and it does a splendid job, on everything except algae and the Tilapia take care of that. I have 2 in a 3/4 acre pond and same result and 2 in 2 acre pond, same result.

While Grass Carp are sometimes (frequently?) overstocked and are by all accounts hard to fish out, I could cut the numbers of mine by at least one easily if I wanted to. They will come up to within 2 feet of me laying down on the dock to eat floating fish food. That's plenty close enough to double-tap one with a .22 before they all split.

Getting more than one? Tougher, as they spook pretty easy and are supposed to learn from being shot at.

meadowlark, strange about the grass carp dealers in your area. We lose very few of them from hauling stess as compard to other fish in the summer heat. We sometimes knock them out but this because they will beat you and themselves up when netting them out.

I agree about overstocking but anything less than 10/acre in small pond is in my opinion not overstocking. Every pond is diff and this applies as well with weed/algae potential. We stock between 5/acre (for > 50 acres) and 20/acre ( for less than 1 acre) for a general rule. Like I said the main reason is that it saves money vs. herbicides over the long haul.

Thanks for the input everyone. The ponds are just north of Kansas City. I may try redear only in the small pond. Should I put fatheads in that one?? Do redears eat fatheads??

About the stocking. It's an urban legand that you have to allow the public on your land if the state stocks your pond. A couple people at my have mentioned that to me, but the conservation dept tells me that is just a common myth. No strings attached. The only requirements are that there are no predatary fish prior to stocking and that the pond is 6 feet deep. They ask that you apply "reasonable" fishing pressure to the pond as well. But that does not mean that you are required to let the public in.

I am Grass carp over stocked in my 2 acre pond . The biolagist I used put in 23 less than 15 inches long .

I am sure that they scare the smaller fish at feeding times , they make a huge splash when spooked .

And yes they are almost impossible to catch , only one has been caught [ by Grandson ].

Theo , the 22 is a good idea , I took one out last week while it was eating floating grass from weed eating , but i used my deer rifle , man that fish did'nt even flinch when hit right above and between the eyes [ lucky shot from the deck of my house ] It rolled over and sunk to the bottom , but came to the top in a short time , that sucker weighed 14lbs. and was 35" long ! the The Buzzard's enjoyed it , to many bones for me !

Now Meadowlark,no chance of a bullet escaping since were incircled by acres of big tree's.

Harvey .

I have had 3 Grass Carp on the fishing line in the last 3 days- they all took a mealworm on a hook. Score so far is GC 3, TG 0 (two broken lines and 1 straightened hook) but, as Duddley Do-Right used to say, "I'm gaining on them!" I kept one on for 5 minutes last night. I was trying to keep him on long enough for my wife to get the camera, no dice. They only fight in spurts, but what spurts!

harvey,

23 GC in 2 acres? Was that guy selling fish or what? I'd bet even Greg would agree that's too many.

I saw one of my grass carp today. 3 years old and had to be 3 ft. long.

Meadowlark,

Well the count is down to 21 now but will keep trying to lower the count , to bad I don't live there full time .

Yes the guy did overload me , hopefully not all of them survived the stocking .

Also will try the mealworm's Theo mentioned and I finally found the Pom Poms that everyone's been talking about at Hobby Lobby , they float good and don't soak up water at all , but not sure how to add the hook so it won't show to much.

The rifle is still a good alternative but after one shot , thay scatter and you don't see them for a long time .

Harvey

harvey dupriest,

Relative to the PomPoms, if you run a needle through the center of the PomPom before placing it on the hook, it makes it much easier. Also, the best hook to use is the one designed for "egg patterns" and can be purchased at your local fly shop. In leiu of that, a small dry fly hook, or even a small bait hook would work also...needs to be short shank and small.

Once you hook one of those GC, hold on cause they have some kind of fight. They transform from a lazy docile fish to an explosion of energy. I haven't actually landed one yet, but hooked several.

How is it that you haven't lost any GC over your spillways during one of our Texas frog stranglers? I've had a real problem keeping mine in the ponds and have had to build a fish fence to keep them in.

Meadowlark .

Thanks for the info on the pom pom hook size . I can see how hard it must be to land a GP the size I have on such a small hook .

My spillway is small and very little water flows over it !

I have a bottom overflow pipe that carries most of the water in high water conditions .

Theo , are you floating the mealworms ? if not how deep are you fishing them .

Harvey

Man I don't know what a GP is . I must have meant GC .

Harvey

Meadowlark,
Im curious how did you construct your fish fence?
Do you have any problems with leaves or other debris washing in and clogging up your spillway because of your fish fence?
Every spring my two ponds get so much snow run off that the water flowing through my spillway gets deep and flowing well for up to 2 weeks if we had a snowy winter. And i know me and everyone else hates to lose our hard earned fish.

Thanks - Jighead

Harvey:

Mealworms were under a bobber with a weight on the line, depths 1' to 2'.

All last weekend, whenever I was fishing, all 5 GC would hang around at the surface within 75 feet of wherever I was at (it was kind of annoying until I started having fun with them on the line). Maybe they were expecting to get fed. Anyway, they were always in my casting zone, three times they hit mealworms fairly quickly after they went in the water.

Jighead,

I made mine out of cattle panels...the ones that have the narrow spaces at the bottom. They come in 16 foot lengths and can be cut to fit your needs with a boltcutter or your supplier can cut them. Use steel posts to anchor them in place. I haven't had a good rain/overflow since I tried this approach, but I believe it will work fine...now if it will only rain again sometime in my lifetime...

Meadowlark,
Great idea! My idea was to stretch a seine net across the spillway. :rolleyes:
How big of a fish do you think would fit through your openings?
Btw i dont know much about Texas weather but if you get monsoon rains like Arizona does the weather report says not for at least a week and a half
Thanks for sharin - Jighead

I heard that when constructing a gate to contain grass carp, you want to make horizontal slats about 1.5" apart in height. I suppose this is because the grass carp will not want to turn sideways to get through, not that it would fit anyway.

But that design allows more debris to freely flow through.

Again, this is just what I heard.

Jighead,

the seine net won't work...tried that. Its too flexible and will clog up with even small debris particles.

If you get the panels with the narrow openings at the bottom, only very small fish can get through them, no way for 6 inch or larger fish. The rigid structure should hold up and the round edges of the panels should allow small debris to pass through...but as I said, I haven't had a good rain to prove it out since I installed it.

Beat me by seconds Meadowlark
Sunil,
Another great idea. I was thinking of vertical slats but you make a great point with the horizontal slats hadnt thought of that..

Thanks - Jighead

Meadowlark,
Thats what i figured that the seine net would clog to easy. I will definetly try your idea soon and may get to prove it for you hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

- Jighead

Sunil is right on target relative to horizontal restraints. In the following link, that is explained further along with a picture of a suggested design.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fish/infish/ponds/gcarp.phtml#barrier