Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose SMB and BG

Later this year I will be stocking 4-6" smallmouth bass in a new .25 acre pond. When the pond was finished in summer of 13' I bucket stocked 50 adult bluegill from another pond on the property with the intentions of letting them reproduce for a year with no predators. Upon researching stocking smallmouth bass I realized that I shouldn't have stocked the BG and would have been better off with GSH instead. This is going to be a kids fishing pond and I'm not concerned with trying to grow huge smallmouths. Is it possible to have a population of 2 pound smallies with BG as the forage fish? anyone experience a similar situation and if so what were the smb and bg populations like? Thanks

Hopefully TJ will chime in. The SMB will have a VERY hard time keeping up with the YOY BG reproduction. I'd stock 25-30 SMB in there when you do and keep tabs on their growth. What you are shooting for is enough SMB in there to keep the YOY BG in check. With your goals of a kids fishing pond, you still want a good population of BG to make it a fast bite for the kids. But not too many that they start to stunt.

Any idea how many Males and Females you bucket stocked? For instance, if you pulled Males off the beds, you might not have any females in there at all.

Will you be keeping BG from the pond to eat? How much cover is in the pond for the YOY BG to hide in? Anu submerged aquatic vegetation?

I'm on the fence about recommending you to stock feed trained SMB and to feed 'em.

Do you know if the BG have pulled off a successful spawn last year? I would consider throwing in 5# of FHM as soon as you can this Spring, as far ahead of the SMB as possible. If that's all that is in there (the adult BG) and they didn't pull off a spawn, depending on when the SMB are stocked, there might not be enough food in there for them.

In my experience SMB will not manage a BG population alone. They will adequately graze BG in their size range [1-3"], but 4-6" BG population will become stunted.

If you stock 20-25 SMB this Spring, they will likely grow to 2-3#, but you'll still have a stunted BG population. I would add Crayfish and think about GSH to supplement forage base for SMB.

You could stock HSB in addition to the SMB, and they will help manage the BG population and provide an additional sport species to your fishery. In this scenario I would suggest implementing pellet feeding program and if your HSB and SMB are starting to exhibit signs of poor body condition I'd bump the feeding time. This likely means they have exhausted their forage niche [1-4" BG].

NOW.....If your goal is to establish a quality SMB fishery, I'd drain and seine the pond this Spring and start over. Since it's a smaller pond it won't be much of a chore - I do this every year myself in two ponds of similar size. You have a couple other ponds to stock the BG currently present in this .25 acre pond.

If you start over, consider the following stocking plan for a quality SMB fishery in .25 AC pond:

Spring stocking:

100 Adult GSH
1000 FHM [dont have to go crazy here, they'll reproduce all Summer]
250 RES
500-1000 Grass Shrimp
100 native Crayfish

Fall stocking:

25-50 SMB

Optional:

You could substitute the GSH with stocking 100-200 YP - adds another sport species that is great table fare and helps feed the SMB. My personal experience with GSH/YP combo fishery isn't good for YP - they don't compete well for pellets against the schooling/swarming/aggressive GSH. Not sure on others' experiences, but I'd decide on one or the other.

If you pellet feed, you can always add some HSB down the road to provide an angling challenge. Even 5-10 fish supplementally stocked annually would provide a great opportunity for anglers of all ages.

WE are also an option. Fishery won't support many fish, but can serve as an occasional catch that is fun and great eating.

If you want to stick with BG, accept you'll have a stunted BG population if you plan on SMB as your apex predator. HSB might help, but won't cure the problem in my experience.

Hope this helps. If you are ever up in Lincoln let me know, I can show you my SMB fishery and the BG situation. It's a perpetual challenge managing my BG population despite high density of predators [YP, SMB, HSB, HBCP, WE]

Heed the good advice from those here with BG-SMB experience. IF you decide to remove the BG, "bite the bullet" do it right and also rotenone the pond preferably at low pool and lower cost to guarantee all BG have been removed.

I didn't check last fall whether the BG had a successful spawn. I will check this spring with a net. With 4 to 6 inch stockers will they be able to swallow a bluegill much over an inch? There is no cover in the pond at all, it is 8 to 10 feet deep in a bowl shape. Mud bottom with some sandstone. The pond is located less than 30 yards from a wet weather creek and there was a lot of evidence that crawdads found the pond soon after it filled. Hopefully they will help feed the smallies. I don't plan to remove any BG to eat

If you aren't planning on removing BG to eat, then either plan on removing a lot to feed the 'coons or resign yourself to the fact that you'll have stunted BG's. If the kids don't mind catching 4"-5" BG, then it's no big deal.

I was told that a fish producer stocks 50 BG in a 1 acre pond without predators to provide enough YOY BG to sell for the season. That's a LOT of BG babies!!!!

Here's something else to chew on. For a BG/LMB pond, recommended stocking rates are 1,000 to 3,000 BG per surface acre.

A single female BG will lay around 50,000 eggs per pound of body weight. I read that as a single 1/2lb female BG will lay 25,000 eggs. Now, granted, not all will hatch, and not all will survive. But still, that's a heck of a lot of BG!

If it was my pond, and I had to have SMB as a primary predator in the pond, with a kids pond as my goal, I'd drain, rotenone and restock this spring, leaving BG and PS out of the mix. George in Texas uses HSB and ONE Blue Cat in his pond to control CNBG - not SMB.

With you saying that you wouldn't remove the BG to eat, and want SMB in the pond, I'd go single sex BG and also stock YP and HSB. YP are more fusiform shaped, and the HSB and SMB, with smaller mouths than LMB, can control fusiform fish easier than more oval fish, like BG. It'd be interesting to see if RES would overpopulate. Nobody has tried a RES/SMB only pond that I know of.

A client of mine has a SMB/RES/YP pond, but he doesn't feed them It is aerated). There were FHM and GSH stocked in that pond too. This year there were YOY GSH, YP and RES. The pond is still relatively new, only a few years old.

I personally wouldn't mind if the bluegill stunted in the 4 to 6" range as long as it didn't cause problems with disease or overcrowding. I like the idea of adding 15 or 20 hybrid striped bass, though I may wait a year or two down the road to stock them. I do a lot of catfishing in the summer and on days when I can't find shad I could use some of the stunted BG instead. If we can catch some 2# smb and keep the kids happy with BG and smb I will count it as a huge success!

Teehjaeh, if I'm ever up around your neck of the woods I will take you up on that offer. I have a location picked out for a new pond in the 1.5 acre range that is spring fed I'm going to dedicate to smallmouth. I may not get to build it for 5 or 10 years but I'm patient and I'd love to know the correct way to manage a smb fishery. I have lots of ideas for pond projects but I can only talk my wife into so many at a time haha