Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain New pond what to stock this fall?

Saw a few similar threads but didn't want to hijack one. I have a 1 to 1.5 acre pond that is slowly filling now relying on runoff from hills in central Kentucky and should be about 14 feet at its deepest. I am thinking that we would like to stock yellow perch and smallmouth eventually. The consensus here seems to be that stocking channel cats would be a mistake so other than minnow fish I'm not sure what else. I'm wondering what I should do this year with that in mind.

Just looking at some of the online hatcheries and I'm assuming I can go ahead and stock fatheads but would crawfish, bullfrogs grass shrimp etc be a waste if stocked in September? Anything I should do to get a jump on next spring or do I just have to wait?

Quick picture without water. Only have a few feet in pond right now:

dyrne, very pretty view, will be nice wants there is water. I will make some recommendations from what I have learned establishing a new pond. If I am wrong someone will correct me. Fatheads (FHM) will be a good start, they will last 2 years or so, especially if there is no cover.

I stocked crayfish in June, they should have babies next spring. I would definitely stock them this year, if you can source them, so they reproduce in the spring. If you wait until next spring, you will get new offspring which will not be sexually mature until the following year. This is all contingent on if you purchase vs capture wild which I and I believe most would not recommend. Most would recommend Papershell Crayfish as they have a tendency to NOT burrow.

Have you considered stocking RES for parasite control? They should not compete much with the other species and will reproduce a little to add forage. I would probably stock them this fall when temps cool a little bit.

Grass shrimp would be good but I have not stocked them so I will let someone else speak to that.

Bullfrogs will show up on their own, I would not purchase them.

Bill Cody is the Yellow Perch (YP) expert (along with many other things). I would surmise he would recommend stocking them this fall IF you are going to feed pellets. Again, tons of folks have YP ponds, so they can give better advice. I am stocking mine this fall, was supposed to this past Spring with everything else but ran into a few issues. Good luck, lots of great info here.

Gotcha so this fall then:

fathead minnows
crawfish
grass shrimp
Redear/shellcracker (maybe)

Thanks I had assumed that RES would compete with the YP. I guess I was thinking of them as bluegill but I'll look into it.

I'll have to look around and see if there are any plants I can get started this fall as well.

RES are similar to bluegill but fill a different niche. They feed primarily on insects and organisms with hard shells like snails. They do not spawn anywhere near the numbers of bluegill. The primary purpose for stocking would be parasite control. My understanding is the YP and SMB will easily control their numbers.