Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain LGMB YP and BG

I know this has been covered many times and I've done lots of reading and exploring on here but I just wanted some opinions and expertise for my specific application.

I have a 2.5 acre pond in Northeast OH. It's 10'-12' deep in one end and roughly 4-6 ' deep for the majority of the pond. There is a shallow end on the entire south side that fluctuates year round as the water level goes up and down.

I stocked 15 white amur, a few thousand FHM, 300 YP, 200 BG and 100 Red ear blue gill in fall of 2016. Right now all of the fish are growing fast and the minnow population seems strong. I also see that I have what appear to be chubs that have gotten to be about 4" long. There are no real predators in the pond. I am considering introducing either large mouth bass or catfish but not sure which would be the better fit? My main goals with the pond are to have a source of fish (primarily yellow perch) to stock my freezer with and cook up year round. I am not sure that I want catfish stirring up the pond, but I like the fact that I can take out whatever catfish I put in. I am concerned with introducing large mouth bass and that they will wipe out my yellow perch population before it is ever established. When I stocked the YP they were small about 2-4" and now they are about 4-6". When would be a good time to add bass and how many bass should be added?

Welcome! First off your stocking numbers seem low so adding a lot of bass would not be smart. For your pond I would actually wait another year before stocking predators so this year's YOY can grow. The perch will prey on young bluegill. I can't advise you whether or not to stock bass because bluegill need bass and perch can't have bass.

have you thought about small mouth bass instead?

The FHM may not last long when the perch get bigger and when you add another predator. The YP can really clean house on the FHM. You should wait a bit and consider building your forage base figuring in a day when you come to the pond and wonder where the FHM went. You can't add them easily later when the YP are big and the other predators are present.

Can you add another shiner species such as spotfins which I understand are readily available in OH and/or golden shiners? Golden shiners are easy to source and some of us have had good luck with GSH/YP only ponds (with a few bonus fish in much smaller numbers). now is your chance to build that forage diversity.

Catfish may be harder than you think to just catch back out when you are sick of them. Consider other predators that may be easier to put and take such as SMB and if allowed, HSB.

+1 on SMB or HSB for predator species. Don't underestimate the predatory power of 300 YP especially because they outnumber the bluegill.

YP will feed on young BG especially when the weather cools and the BG slow down. Supp feeding would be a plus. Would not use LMB. SMB or HSB would be much better. More FH or another small minnow will likely be needed. I would try to avoid CC.

Thanks! I think I will avoid adding LMB and CC for now. I will look into the Hybrid Striped bass and Small Mouth options as well as introducing some other forage fish. What stocking numbers of the HSB and SMB would be recommended for a pond my size?

It depends on the size of the fish available. I would try to find advanced fingerlings 6+ inches. Start researching places to find them in your area.

We are kinda in the same heat units. I have found that emerald shiners are great for the perch. They are really fast and have spawned in our small pond. They are boom or bust depending on the year. Not sure what makes them boom but trying to keep notes each year when we see them spawning. It happens just at night in a huge bait ball.

We have common shiners as well and they do very well and better then the emerald shiners. These are faster then the fat heads and will last.

I am not sure what is up with our perch pond just yet. I am beginning to think that the large shiners are eating many of our young perch fry. We are seeing some yellow perch recruitment but not what I would expect after four years of only perch.

Do you know if your Bluegill have pulled off a spawn this year yet? Do the FHM (fatheads) have any spawning habitat in the pond?

With that low of a stocking rate per surface acre I wouldn't add any predators until the fall of 2018 if you have not seen any reproduction yet.

If you have seen reproduction, I'd add 50 SMB and 50 HSB this year and another 50/50 next Fall.

Are you feeding the fish in the pond?

Yes, I have stocked FHM twice. Once when the pond was very new and still filling up (only about 4' of water in the deep end) I put in a few thousand. A few months later I put several thousand more. I can see that there are lots of FHM and I can also see lots of small bluegill. I pulled two of the largest snapping turtles i'd ever seen out this year too so I'm not sure what impact they had on the fish population but they may have eaten some.

I feed them pellets about once a week. It's hard to tell what is hitting on the pellets sometimes but I mostly see bluegill.

Before you get to settled on advice or a plan that includes HSB, look into whether you are allowed to have them. Like me, I am thinking you are not allowed. It's due to the Lake Erie watershed.

So I called the Ohio dept. of wildlife and the response I got was that as long as the pond does not have access to a public waterway stocking HSB is legal. I think I may hold off and put a handful of more mature perch in that can spawn next spring and tons of GS and FHM for now.

Same rules apply in MI. I'm surprised more folk don't stock them in OH and MI.

Update: I was tempted and ended up adding more FHM, GS, 100 more YP and 50 HSB. That brings my total YP count to 400. I may add a few larger YP this fall but not sure...I have been feeding them pellets about once a week still. Most of what I see are the Bluegill and minnows feeding on the pellets. The BG are getting big fast. Water temperatures are still up as we are abnormally warm for this time of year. I think next year will be a good year for the pond as far as growth..

Congratulations on the HSB decision! Using HSB as your apex predator (or one of your apex predators) will be a very great opportunity for you to teach others about this type of fishery. Having the smaller gape than the LMB and the very low likelihood of reproduction (never say never..) you will have a pretty fixed variable on predation.

With 400 YP you have plenty of opportunity for YP overgrowth so it will be good to have your HSB in the pond now to start preying on YOY YP in the spring. You didn't mention what size your HSB stockers were?

If the YP are 5-6" you could see ribbons this spring even if you don't stock larger YP this fall. The decision would then be, do you keep the ribbons and let the YP 'self-balance' with the HSB, or do you try to remove most or all of the ribbons to keep your YP in the 'hundreds' and not in the tens of thousands numbers for the growing season of 2018.

If there was a chance of a limited spawn from the YP next spring at ice out because few of the original stockers are mature enough, then that might just work out perfectly and you wouldn't need to buy larger YP this fall.

Having another growing season to keep filling out your forage and see how well the HSB due on their growth filling up on minnows would be a great opportunity. I suspect by next spring the 100 YP you just added now would still be too big for the HSB to eat?

The HSB were in all around the 4-5" size range.

The originally stocked group of 300 YP were 3-4" last fall from Fenders located in OH. They are now easily 5-6" so I would say that there is a good possibility they could spawn this spring which is exciting.

The 100 YP I most recently stocked were only about 3-4".

How large of a YP will the HSB eat?