Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hope I didn't find this site too late-----LOL

I originally posted this under Questions and Observations before I looked around enough to seen this section. Thought maybe I would get more input here. My summer project was building a 4+ acre pond on my property. Bought an old D7 Cat and built it on weekends by myself. It is fed by a running stream. I don't think the stream had hardly any trash fish in it other than native minnows since it originates from springs which at now at the tail end of the pond. The water is currently going through the spillway at the same trickle as the original stream. I put up a fish barrier across the spillway before stocking. The pond is also fed by several other springs. Hopefully, this will help the pond stay at adaquate water levels during the summer months. I left the timber standing on the edges of the original streambed and piled numberous brush piles for cover. It has about 2 acres of completely cleared open water. It also has brushy and grassy areas in a lot of the shallow water. The deepest part is about 26 ft off the damn in the original stream bed. It filled in early November. Don't have one of those disks you guys talk about but, I can see a white fishing lure down to a depth of about 2 feet looking straight down off my floating dock. I stocked it in early December with 500 channel cat 6-8", 500 channel cat 8-12", 800 coppernose (medium 3-5") 600 redear (also medium), and 22 lbs of fatheads for the initial stocking. Been hand feeding once a week but haven't seen any fish eat yet. But, walking around it you can see literally thousands of minnows in the shallow grassy areas. I love crappie so I'll confess that a couple of weeks after initial stocking I added 100 small (1-2") Black Crappie. Wasn't going to put any bass in until next spring. But after finding this site I guess I probably better get some LMB in pretty quick. Here in east Texas, bass usually find their way into your pond somehow anyway. How many bass and should I go ahead and stock them now or wait until next spring?? How many would you guys recommend? Also, did I overstock or understock the other species and was the crappie stocking a bad idea?? Hope my ignorance is not too expensive mistake. I also plan to add an automatic feeder this spring. For this size pond is one feeder adequate? Sorry for so many questions, but you guys seem to know your business. My main goal is good family fishing with good specie variety.

Thanks,
RatherBFishin

RatherBFishin,

Just noticed you didn't get any replies..so here's one, from a fellow East Texas DIY pond enthusiast.

Did you make a mistake? Well, stocking the crappie was a mistake, in my book. I surmise you are thinking you need to add the bass now to help control the crappie. The problem is that your forage base hasn't had time to establish itself. Put the bass in now and they will have a hey day on everything including the crappie...and you may be left with no forage base. Its kind of a quandry, but I think I would wait on the bass until late late spring, at the earliest.

Feeders are great...consider two or three at well separated locations.

RatherBFishin, welcome to the forum. From everything I've read so far, the most important question isn't your goals but rather how much time, effort and money are you thinking of putting into your lake? If you're thinking of adding feeders, that tells me that you plan to spend some money. Don't feel bad about that, most of us spend much more on our lakes than we would like to admit.

My first suggestion is fairly basic, add a bunch of breeding size bluegills and redears as soon as you can. Get as many as you can find and/or afford. I would guess that few of your crappie will survive predation by catfish. You could add LMB that are large enough to eat the crappie but not large enough to eat the bluegill and redears if you want to get rid of the crappie.

I personally don't have any problems with crappie in our 4-acre lake. However, I keep adding two-year-old predators and they crop the young of everything very efficiently. This doesn't cost nearly as much as you might think. Everyone tries to manage them as if they were bluegills and when it doesn't work, they blame the crappie. Crappie aren't the problem, inappropriate management techniques are the problem.

RatherBFishin,

I'm interested in your pond location as related to the huge rains we get on occasion in East Texas. I have a similar site on my place in East Texas that would back up about 7 to 10 acres of water but I have been afraid that the frog strangling rains we sometimes get (10 plus inches at a time) would wash out any dam, let alone the fish. I've seen my little streams turn into raging torrents of water with unbelievable volumes of water in them. Interested in your approach to this problem and your comments. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies guys. I've been on vacation and haven't been logged in lately. Since the original post I've added another 600 Coppernose and believe or not I'm finally seeing both bream and catfish feed about once a week now. Was worried for a while. I plan on adding the LMB this spring. Hopefully the 8"-12" catfish have preyed some on the 100 1"-2" crappie. LOL. Meadowlark, my spillway has handled several hard rains, a couple of em 6" to 8" in just a few hours. I built the spillway about 22 ft. wide and it was running about 18" deep during the hardest rain. Water stayed about 14" from the top of the dam during this event according to the water marks. If it gets any closer I will probably widen the spillway. Spillway is in natural clay which I lined with 6"-9" riprap rock. This is a great forum. I subsribed to Pond Boss but I guess I missed the deadline for the current issue as I have not received it. Again, thanks for the replies.