Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Finally found my crazy, madness pond site.

Bit of a recap, I asked back in 2006 or 07 about managing skinny bass in a pond that had big BG, dozens of GC, the occasional WM, RB, and some old CC. Bluegill, Largemouth Bass, Grass Carp, Warmouth, Rockbass, Channel Catfish just to clarify. The biggest bass was a 7lber I caught the day before Easter but usually the bass were never bigger than 12". After 2 1/2 years of harvesting bass it got to be that some were reaching 13"-14". Now that we have this property I no longer go back and fish there anymore.

The property I live on is the side of a hill with a slope in the open land with some hills in the forest and a larger seasonal creek on the border opposite of the road. The two places that we have to build ponds are at the top above a secondary creek that flows over a rock shelf from one direction and through our upper pasture from the other side. Farther upstream in the forest there is a hole that keeps water even in droughts so we believe there might be a spring but it doesn't flow much water. We have some pasture in the upper portion and it is close to the houses too so it would be ideal for a water supply. Based on one of my estimates we could fit a 1/2 acre pond without going to far into the forest or moving the pasture. Down below we have another spring beyond the pasture that holds water during droughts and there is room for a pond in the former forest that was claimed by the 2009 Jan ice storm. But that is a future option. The lower pasture is actually pretty swampy year round so we may have to divert the runoff just to keep mosquitos down.

The property had ponds before we lived here but after they checked for coal they were filled in and the property was only used for hunting after that. The land isn't fertile and we won't be fertilizing it. We get plenty of rain and we get large amounts of runoff. We have plenty of clay but there is a shallow rock shelf so I'm pretty concerned that we'll be limited by depth or the pond will leak especially below the rock shelf. I'm thinking that for the upper pond I'd like to have a silt pond put in the pasture above the actual pond since there are animals in the pasture and I understand that is not good for drinking water. One of the houses have a leach field near the top of the watershed but I am going to finish out a ditch to completely diver that off from the pond watershed. I'm going to have the wider part of the creek below the pasture widened and deepened to maybe get 7-10' deep with 1/2 acre. There would probably be a sloping beach from the east side but a steeper bank on the opposite side. I'm going to use rocks and tree limbs from the property for structure.

We have a dozer guy to dig the pond but from what I can tell he isn't a pond expert. For example his pond was too shallow, 6' in a small area just before he had to redo the dam from leaks and it was down 2' so maybe 8' deep which is way too shallow for Kentucky. He does know heavy machinery and he claims to have well over a hundred years worth of experience in a dozen different fields from lumber, to plumbing, from house construction, to farming. 100 years at least from my dad's math . I believe there is a saying that any dozer guy can dig a hole in the ground and it can be a pond but it takes a good pond guy to build a good pond. And considering he stocked his pond with *gasp* Hybrid bluegill and in addition to his dam problems I think I'll take his advice with some salt. What worked for him may not be what we want/need.

We are sharing the property and therefore the pond. So I've been trying to adjust what we actually need to do from what I want. Sportfish like bass are't a big priority. We're pretty close to Lake Beshear and Barkley/Kentucky so I'm not looking for a trophy fish pond. I'm thinking of experimenting with black crappie since they're good eating and they don't get too big. The old lake would have been a good place for big crappie but my grandparents never did anything to it so I gave up on it. I considered yellow perch but they are non-native and therefore illegal to stock in Kentucky.

I've tried to think of a good forage fish base but the best plan I came up with was to stock 5lbs of fatheads, a couple dozen gambusias, and 100 redears in the spring(maybe fall for the redears). Then in the fall stocking 100 Black Crappie, 30 Rainbow trout, and 100 Channel cats. I'm not too sure about the rates for Channel cats or rainbows. Channel cats are cheap and rainbows are seasonal so that is why the channel cats numbers are high and the rainbows are low. I believe that normally it would be better to stock more rainbows but they're just a trophy fish anyway and too many would just be a waste until I know for certain how trout fare in the pond.

I've included a picture, the property border was already there so I just left it and painted lines for the large seasonal creek and the other runoff creeks. Our watershed is mostly unused land but our neighbor does do some haying of fields and he might use chemicals. I would hope he wouldn't but it's his land. The left pond that is where I'm looking at putting the upper pond and the shaggy mess to the right is where I'm thinking of for the second pond. I don't want the upper pond on the drainage from the neighbor's land since he might use chemicals and we've had green sunfish in the creek a couple times so I know his ponds has GSF.

I'd appreciate any tips advice on the upper pond primarily since we're pretty close to getting that done. I've been building this pond in my head and on paper for years adding up stocking rates and prices with different fish so I'm pretty excited. I waited until the year of to actually ask here before I got too excited. I value all of your advice and even your guys' experiments. So I'd appreciate any help you all might have.

I just wanted to add a quick edit; I'm looking at 50 Redears, 50 Channel Cats, and maybe 50 Rainbow trout for 1/2 acre. I know the recommended rate for Crappie/Perch is 300 per acre. So 75-150 Crappie/Perch sounds more reasonable, the soil is probably infertile but we'll be getting a test before too long.

And considering the results I had on a 4 acre lake, keeping numbers down in a 1/2 acre pond should be easy. I'm more concerned that the pond won't produce enough meat to make any difference. One meal a week would be real nice, but that's 2lbs of meat, 4+lbs of fish for the whole family. If we harvest all the fish above 6" that might help keep the pressure off the minnows. I'm even more unsure of a good food base for yellow perch that won't get eliminated from the pond. I suppose plenty of thick cover would help but then we'll have more snags :P.

Thanks to KG4KBU for pointing out that yellow perch are in fact legal in Kentucky. I've been partial to yellow perch as an alternative to crappie. Regular spawns might help but they have smaller mouths so shad won't work at all.

I read some of the newer crappie threads including Docfish's 3/4 acre crappie pond and reread ML's crappie thread. I'll probably look at the yellow perch threads before I call it a night. I already know of the small YP/SMB pond experiment in NY, I think I'll check that one first. It's been a long time since I posted, I still had my old signature.

Allcha, I sent you a private message about the fish you're looking for.

I'd sure suggest stocking Hybrid Crappie instead of straight Black Crappie so you won't have to deal with the inevitable overpopulating and stunting that will occur sooner or later. That could nearly ruin your plans for the pond producing edible sized fish.

Not even considering it, hybrid panfish are a waste of time/money IMHO. I need a medium sized panfish that will spawn readily and can eat a wide variety of food. Crappie/Perch aren't hard to catch either especially when they're hungry. I live less than 100ft from the pond's potential location so it's going to get plenty of attention.

I'll probably be talking to the others about yellow perch since they will eat their own and have better spawning habits.

Tilapia would be more of a problem since I'm not stocking a predator fish. Tilapia are harder to catch, reproduce rapidly, eat only phytoplankton(sp?), and they will die off in the winter .

This is a foodfish pond. It would get grossly out of balance if I ever stopped managing it.

If you're looking for a pond to produce eating fish and nothing more, stick with the tried and true LMB/BG pond with possibly CC as well. Allow the LMB to become abundant and stunted. This will lead to many edible sized BG and LMB and if you stock CC they can be a bonus food fish. YP are possibly but require very heavy management and BC very difficult to manage often leading to many 4" paper thin fish so small they can't be eaten. The LMB/BG combo is tried and true.

That certainly is a good idea. But that skips "how it can be done" and goes right to alternatives.

I'll at least think about it some more before I develop the final plan. Thanks for contributing.

That is the problem, there is no tried and true way for it to be done if it can be done at all. You can try any of a number of things, however the outcome is not near as certain as the tried and true LMB/BG combo.

I don't disagree, infact, I agree whole heartedly. BG/LMB is the #1 combination. I'd at least like to consider other options though. I'm planning on heavy harvesting here. Between cannibalism, catfish, maybe trout, and us, 1/2 acre of yellow perch should be no problem.

I'm thinking that Golden shiners would make good forage but they get pretty big. From what I know Yellow perch become mostly piscivorous around 6" and 1-3" minnows like fatheads would get plenty of pressure. The market size for perch is 10-12" so maybe Golden shiners would be a good choice for forage to get perch into that ideal market size. I'll eat smaller fish no problem though. I figure it's either stocking golden shiners or artificial feeding.

I've chatted with Mel Taylor from the Smarfishfarm and he's offered to look at the site. Hopefully it's a small job because I can't afford to take up too much of his time . Getting a soil sample and a topo map is still on my list of things to do. I don't know if we'll ask our dozer guy to dig the pond yet but with the wet weather it's going to be awhile before it's safe to dig.

The most recent assessment I could make of the pond is it'll be somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4 acre depending on how far we go into the forest. Someone waterwitched the upstream portion of the creek and it has pretty heavy underground current. I can concur with this assessment since we've seen plenty of signs of underground streams; sinkholes, water flowing from underground.

What species are high on your list for the table? If you are willing to do a lot of manual thinning, as in netting and trapping that opens the options up substantially and you can add fish that otherwise wouldn't be recommended...

Sorry for the delayed response. Rainbow trout and Catfish are on the top of my list for edible fish. I've eaten LMB too and while at 9-12" bass are easy enough to fillet they're nowhere near Catfish for flavor. Trout are expensive so if we do stock them it'll be limited to a couple dozen in the fall as a bonus fish. Catfish get big fast and they're cheap so we might stock a couple dozen but they get predatory once they get bigger. If we do go with Yellow perch then we'd probably skip over stocking CC completely.

The reasoning for going with a more modest size fish like Perch/Crappie is so that less of their forage takes up space. GShad, Tshad are notorious for consuming a large part of the forage base that would otherwise go to sunfish like bluegill or yoy bass. A predator like LMB would eat up larger perch and need a good chunk of the pond capacity for spawners. HSB and Walleye don't maintain populations in ponds so they would need to be restocked. It's not a trophy pond, so we'll be fine with perch.

I'd be fine with trapping and netting out young perch if they get too numerous. I could probably grind them into pet food too. I know even 2" fish are still edible, doesn't mean I'll eat them that small .

If you are looking for a different route the YP and SM could be a good combo.

You mentioned Crappie. The good crappie ponds/lakes around here that produce big crappie are also stocked with white bass/shad/catfish. Seems that is the combo to have but it has not been tried a lot in very many smaller BOW's. Could be a potential experiment with your pond as growing crappie has been successful on a few small ponds so it can be done.

HSB have to be re-stocked but not every year if you have a big enough supply to keep up with crappie recruitment. Of course you could play with the number's since you will be actively managing the pond. They have a 7-8 yr. shelf life.

Reading back through this post, I had pause to consider your goals for food fish and some of the comments.

Crappie in a pond this size could produce some nice size fish, yet when the Crappie have that inevitable "boom" spawn, the entire fishery will be stunted rather quickly...It would take an Army to remove a couple hundred thousand (or far more) 3 inch starving crappie when it happens in a half to 3/4 acre pond...Preventing Crappie from overpopulating and stunting a pond takes very diligent and labor intensive management. Angling alone by only a couple individuals will not prevent it.

I noticed you discounted Hybrid Crappie...I offered that suggestion as an economical alternative if you wanted the angling enjoyment and as a way to avoid the inevitable overpopulating and stunting that will happen with standard Crappie. Whether it is a waste of money to add some fish to catch as needed every couple years versus the costs of draining, re-stocking and waiting for fish to mature every few years is the more economical is a question only you can answer. The angling pleasure is always priceless, but when does it become work?

I never mentioned tilapia at all, but they definitely do not eat "only" phytoplankton...in fact, they eat extremely little phytoplankton and in a crappie pond, Tilapia may well be the only fish that could produce enough forage by utilizing food sources no other fish can in the pond to delay the pond's eventual stunting after a boom crappie spawn. Tilapia are used as a tool to support other fish in most waters in the most economical and natural way, NOT as a sustainable pond fish...they just also happen to taste great.

If you want this pond solely as a food fish producer, making it easily drain-able/seine-able would be the best option, but adding the fun factor of fishing is what you want...Right? We just through ideas and options out there for you to consider.

Red Flags popped up and sirens blasted in my mind when I read you suspect and have evidence of underground streams!..These can make building a pond very problematic if not impossible to build. I would STRONGLY suggest you try to get an NRCS agent out there to do some bore sample to see if a pond would even be economically feasible in the site you want it built. Streams UNDER a drainage system means it is a "losing" stream and overcoming that will be expensive at best.

More food for thought...in your location in western Ky, you can purchase catfish in the 8-12" size for under $.30 each plus your fuel/time to pick them up in central Arkansas.

There are no set rules on how you wish to reach your goals, it's always a learning experience, but having the wrong info or conditions sure won't make reaching those goals easier. We all want a pond that is just how we like it...getting the fish, weather, soil, terrain, and infinite variables to cooperate is a real bugger though.

Contacting the NRCS is on my list of things to do next week. We have underground streams to be sure it's just a matter of if they're under the pond location. I've since shifted the pond's location northward to avoid tying in with the secondary creek since the watershed for that creek is closer to 30 acres and it does get the occasional green sunfish . I'm hoping we can get the max depth at least 10' deep. We would need the old drainage creek dug out to ensure there isn't an underground creek underneath it. The creek is close to 6' already we would need to dig down to 13-14' to get a good core and then the 2' of clay to make 10' of solid water.

Ideally the pond would be sustainable over a longer period, but if we have to add some fish every couple of years that would still be acceptable. Shad would be out of the question and Crappie tend to grow better with them. Yellow perch don't grow too big here anyway, the state record is just over a lb. I've still got a long way to go and I still have to present a plan to the other families, it's a shared pond afterall.

I really appreciate your guy's help. I've already figured out a few things to do, a few not to do, and remembered a few others I'd forgotten. If it wasn't for you guys I'd still think that yellow perch were illegal to stock even with instate fish :lol:.