Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Advice for a haphazzard stocked pond in Michigan?

We dug a pond last summer in Northern Michigan, about an acre (less .25 acre island), so .75 acre water surface.

The pond is probably 18 feet deep in the deeper areas on either side of the island. The sides are pretty steep. Probably not the safest situation for my kids, but we watch them closely.

The pond is fed by a constantly running creek, ground water, and a flowing well, which provides water to my home. The flowing well provides a steady stream (very good flow) of 47 degree water to the pond. There is an overflow culvert which is constantly dumping water from my pond into a creek, then a larger lake. I am hoping that the constant flow of water through my pond is a good thing?

Am I correct to assume that when the cold water from the flowing well hits the 75-80 pond water in the summer, it heads right to the bottom and has a similar effect that an aerator would have?

The bigger waters around here contain the following fisheries: Yellow Perch, Walleye, Small Mouth Bass, Trout, Salmon. There are smaller lakes that have healthy populations of Blue Gills and Large Mouth Bass.

So . . . without reading and digesting all of the wisdom here on this forum, I went ahead and did the following:

Stocked: 10 pounds of fatheads, and 50 six to eight inch Rainbow Trout. There was almost no cover or vegetation for the minnows, and the birds went crazy. (Multiple Blue Herons and Kingfishers divebombing the pond all day long). I didn't know any better and starved the trout for the first three months they were in the pond. Then at the end of last summer, I started feeding them Silver Cup Trout Food by hand (morning and evening). The trout went crazy for the food.

At the end of the summer, I introduced approximately 20-30 Blue Gills and 10 Large Mouth Bass from a very healthy local small lake. I caught these fish with ultralight tackle and dumped them in the pond.

The pond froze over (except where the creek and well water enter the pond) and there was probably 15-20 inches of ice and 15-20 inches of snow on the pond for most of the winter. As soon as some of the ice thawed in the early spring, I threw out some trout food and the Rainbows were jumping out of the water in a feeding frenzy eating the trout food right next to the ice.

The Rainbows are now huge, 2-4 pounds. By my estimate, there are 35-40 of them. Some of them are the size of carp, and I try to feed them every morning and every evening. We will probably be able to waters ski behind them by the end of the summer. I have seen a school of about 10 Blue Gills. No sign of any Largemouth Bass, I think they starved for lack of the appropriate sized food. I have seen 8-10 (BG?)spawning beds in the shallows.

There are now weeds along some of the sunnier edges of the pond. I put another 10 pounds of fatheads in this spring and 30 more 6-8 inch trout (10 Rainbows, 10 Browns, and 10 Brook Trout). Surprisingly, the birds have not returned (yet), but I think the fish have had their way with the fatheads.

I am blown away by all of the knowledge and information on this site. Do you think I should stock Yellow Perch and Small Mouth Bass or stick with the Blue Gills and Large Mouth Bass plan? Any other ideas (or advice or criticism). I have finally done a bunch of forum reading and subscribed to Pondboss Magazine, but I guess I am a little confused about which way to go.

Joe

Is it possible your pond is too cold for optimum bluegill and largemouth bass growth? If you can holdover trout it sounds pretty cool. If so, you have something several people on here would kill for.

Trout grow faster and can get larger than bluegill or largemouth bass so why would you want anything else?

I'm with Cecil. Having a pond that can hold over trout is really cool. In your shoes, I would fish like hell to make sure the bass are all out, try to get the out Bluegill as best I could, then start running a feeder and growing some Rainbows/Brooks.

That said, I doubt that your LMB are gone. It is possible that some died and all of the ones left were of a single gender or something, but not likely. LMB are quite resilient fish, I've dealt with plenty of small, cold lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin that supported a handful of LMB in parallel with SMB, Trout, and other more northern fishes.

First off, welcome to the forum! Lot's of questions, so I'll see if I can give you a little of my opinion.

First and foremost, it's all about what you want from your pond...

What type of fishery do you want?

What I can say is, your 10 LMB are probably just fine and are probably very happy. 10 LMB in .75 acres can be hard to catch. Not many bass and they probably have a good amount of natural food so they are less likely to be hungry and caught. With what you have stocked into your pond, you will probably be OK. 20-30 adult BG being stocked into a pond of .75 acres without adult bass will generally establish a healthy population. How big were the 10 bass you stocked?

My best guess as to what your pond will turn into from your stocking is this:
The trout are simple put and take. You stock them, grow them to a size you want and then harvest them. The odds of natural reproduction is minimal and if they do reproduce, the odds of small trout surviving is even less.

The BG will establish and as you have noted are already spawning and will quickly fill in the biomass.

Your LMB are most likely still in the pond. They didn't starve to death... Bass can live in ponds feeding on nothing but invertebrates. Just 10 bass in .75 acres will lead to an established bass population. If any of your bass were in the 10"-12" range this spring, I am betting the most likely have already spawned and will also be filling in the missing biomass.

This will lead you to a typical LMB/BG pond with some stocker trout as a bonus. As time progresses expect the need to stock larger stocker trout as your bass will make smaller one expensive candy. Keep an eye on your BG as they tend to overpopulate in northern ponds. You may want to look into stocking perhaps 30-40 more LMB in the 8"-12" range to help prevent this. In a few years though, you will then have to start becoming concerned with the LMB over spawning and subsequent generations becoming overpopulated.

Stocking yellow perch(YP) is possible. However in a small pond with steep sides, the LMB will prey very heavily on them. You will most likely have to continually stock advanced sized YP, say 8" to keep YP present in your pond. Smallmouth bass(SMB) can also be stocked, but again they will need to be stocked as advanced fingerling in the 8"+ range. SMB do not compete well with LMB. They can survive and grow in competition with LMB, but will not lead to a reproducing population. Again, continued stockings will be needed to maintain them in your pond.

Unfortunately, LMB are eating machines and either eat or out compete just about everything in a pond... Unless you kill off the current fish community and start over, you're going to be stuck with a LMB/BG pond with the ability to stock other species to keep them present.

Interested thoughts Cecil... I hadn't really thought of the pond being too cold for BG or LMB. I suspect the LMB will be able to reproduce, but their growth rate will be VERY slow if water temps stay cool.


My opinion, drain the thing or kill off all the fish in it now and start over if possible.

I wouldn't go that far, besides it would be pretty hard to do with a spring and feeder creek. Looks like the bass and gills may be there to stay but may not be a significant part of the fishery if the temps are too cold. It would be interesting if he could do a temp profile in August to see what kind of temps he has in the pond.

BTW don't you think his pond is more of a put and grow vs. a put and take? In my neck of the woods put and take is no holdover.

Yes, put and grow.

Cat&Sloane, welcome to the forum.
Sounds like a great Trout pond you have, my opinion is get all kinds of trout and grow the heck out of them, almost anyone can have YP & LMB but a pond that will support trout is a gem.

Another good forage fish is Golden Shiners, and if you add some structure they should do well.
The last of my 2 cents is to try Tiger trout in addition to brook, brown & rainbows, if you like to fish they are very aggressive attackers.

I would put some efforts in to the const. running creek, making it a spawning heaven for the trout

I geeze not those tiger trout again!

Would it be possible to put severe pressure on the LMB/BG by stocking Browns as large as possible, feeding the Browns to get them up to a piscivorous size, then reducing the amount of food so that they start hitting smaller LMB/BG hard and out competing the larger LMB/BG for food?

These guys would put pressure on LMB, (Cecil's favorite site)
http://www.thelocalhookupma.com/id13.html

Wow, thanks for all of the welcomes to the forum and great advice.

I have been dreaming about this "pond" for years and always assumed it would be teeming with largemouth bass and bluegills.

I stocked the trout as sort of a novelty/experiment. I figured there was flowing water so maybe they would do OK. As I have lived with this pond for about a year now, I interact with the Rainbows (feeding) twice each day. They are the only fish that have been caught or even fished for in the pond. They are the most fun to watch when you can get a glimpse of them cruising around during non feeding times. They are growing beyond my wildest expectations. Dinner and house guests go crazy when I say it is time to feed the fish and they watch the water erupt with huge fish jumping and splashing. The 6-8 inch trout are cheap to stock. Cecil's response makes me think that this is where I should have focused my attention. Maybe I screwed it up by adding the Bass and BG?

I don't think the pond is too cool to support bass and bluegills. The pond has two deep sections, one on each side of the island. Only the side closest to my house benefits from the cold flowing well, creek entry and water overflow. That is where I feed the trout. However, I am planning to take water temperatures around the pond later in the summer, to try to figure out what is really going on.

Cecil, when you said holdover trout, did you mean that it was unusual that they could survive the winter or the dog days of summer in a small pond? I am just curious about which is more difficult.

CJSB, thanks for all of your input. You have convinced me that at least a few of the 12-14 inch Bass I put in have survived and they probably really enjoyed this year's 6-8 inch trout. I have seen very little sign of the small trout over the past two weeks.

Adirondack, I had never heard of Tiger Trout. Intriguing, but my local trout farm (Harrietta Hills) does not carry them. I would definitely throw some of those in my pond if I could find them. Maybe, I should stock some more brown trout, but the larger ones are more spendy.

Here are some pictures.

Typically the hard part is getting them to make it through the summer not the winter. In most ponds the water either gets too warm or the deeper cooler water gets oxygen depleted in the summer. Looks like winter is not a problem for you as long as your feeder creek keeps some water open and coming in.

Here's my biggest brown out of my pond. Just shy of 12 lbs. My neighbor is shown holding him as he got off his mower and helped with the landing net. Unlike yourself I had to pump in well water as my water is not artesian, nor do I have a cold feeder creek. You're very fortunate.

Awesome fish! I will definitely be stocking some more Browns.