Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction new pond

I live in arkansas and I have just built a pond it is about 40'deep and backs up about 5 acres it has a spring running to to that supplys about 20 gpm. I have put pond shinners and blue gills and fathead minnows about 2 months and now there is about a zillion babys. when do I need to stary stocking flatheads in the pond. Thanks KDH

Hey, KDH, welcome to Pond Boss! Great to have you here. We have a few other Arkansonians (I just made that up in case you wondered!) I'm not an expert by any means, but you may want to consider waiting until spring so your forage base gets a strong head start to really get established. Those fry you are seeing could probably be gorged down pretty quickly with predators being added at this point.

What sort of structure do you have in the pond? Are flathead cats (I assume that's what you meant with the flathead reference) going to be your main predator or will you be adding other fish? What are the overall goals for the pond?

Again, welcome! And take some time to post pics of your place when you can. It's always a lot of fun to see the forum members' slices of heaven!

I have some cedar tops and some stumps. I kinda thought it might be good to wait until the got a bit bigger. I thought I might put some croppie (don't mind the spelling) in another month and then put the flathead in in the spring. whast would you think about that. kdh

Be very careful of crappie. If they aren't properly and aggressively managed, they can pretty easily overrun a pond and become stunted. They can be managed successfully, but it takes some real commitment, so just keep that in mind. Read up on them from older threads here on the forum. Try these links:

Crappie Pond

Stocking With Black Crappie

Hang on for some input from folks who have more experience than I do (that's pretty much all of them, by the way!) and you'll get some great insight. Weekends are sometimes a tad slow around here so be patient, but look forward to some great feedback. The best advice I can give you is to hang tight and not make any quick decisions so you can really get a solid understanding of what could work in your situation.