Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Fatheads...challenging a theory

I've read on the forum on several occasions the theory that Fatheads are only for new ponds that haven't yet been stocked with bass. The basis for the theory is that LMB in an existing pond will eliminate the fatheads.

Based on my experience, I have to question this theory. I have a couple of very old, kind of small ponds....one probably over 70 years old. Both have populations of fatheads, never artifically stocked, to my knowledge...not huge numbers but walking around the banks you can see them scurring off.

Fatheads reproduce...a lot. So, if I see a few, I believe many, many have been lunch or dinner for the BG and LMB. Granted, they are small bites...but lots of small bites add up.

I'm wondering if there have been any scientific studies of the long term surviability of Fatheads in ponds with good structure and with predators present? I'm wondering if the theory I mentioned above isn't somewhat flawed? The number of fathead offspring produced must be considered in evaluating their worth.

My experience (granted its limited to my little world) says that Fatheads are wonderful contributors to the food chain...and my inclination is to recommend to anyone, even in an existing pond, to stock fatheads. You must have good structure to give them some protection, but with structure they are a plus.

Any studies available? Anyone think, like I do, that it is correct to recommend fathead stocking in an existing LMB pond with adequate structure?

I love fatheads too. Anything that will spawn on a floating styrofoam cup is alright by me. They also use artificial feel very effectively so you can move biomass up the food chain to your predators.

My impression has always been that the biggest problem with stocking them is that is many instances the predators knock 'em back so hard that you don't get adequate "value" out of your investment. If all fatheads are eliminated before they can spawn you've basically thrown your money away. I think Meadowlark is right that what might be most important is that the fatheads have adequate cover so that they aren't all eliminated.

Another problem is that fatheads probably compete directly with bluegill and crappie for zooplankton and a pound of fatheads is a pound of bluegill lost. Fatheads don't filet out real well so you need other fish to eat them for us anglers to benefit.

It's a complex issue for sure.

I buy 100 dollars worth a couple times year, I have a fenced off area approx 10'x10' 2'deep that I have been watching them in since ice thawed. I have softball size rip rap around 1/2 the pond banks and they are all along this bank in the rocks also. The last time I bought fatheads was back in june of 04 and when I bring them home and turn them lose, the bass go nuts feeding and I get a pretty good view of how my bass are doing. I agree that they are expensive snack, but at nite I like to walk around pond with spot lite and the bass like to all stage around outside area of the fenced in area trying to get a midnite snack. Just my observations.

The things said here about fathead minnows are usually the common, typical features about these minnows. But like manyother things in nature never say never. Exceptions do occur.

Without LOTS of or expansive areas of dense cover, the predators in most all cases are able to hunt them down and eat all of the adults during the non-breeding season when both sexes are vulnerable. Thus when it is time for the next spawning season none or very few remain for spawning. However, 1. in a pond with expansive cover such as bunches of weed beds, 2. a fair amount of shallow water refugia, 3. one with less than the normal predator density and or 4. one with quite a bit of different types of alternative forage items for predators besides fatheads, then some adult fatheads can survive all year to spawn the next spring. So it is possible to have some fatheads permanently present in a pond but this is the exceptional case not the common occurrence. I think it is the exception because most ponds do not have several of the required four items that I mentioned above. As it has been noted here previously, fatheads are slow swimmers compared to many of the other species of minnows and shiners. This makes them real vulnerable to most any fish big enough to swallow them. Capturing them is usually not a problem.

Meadowlark - lots of studies have been done with fathead stocking in ponds with existing predators, but most of them were nonscientific studies. And many try each year to repeat the test by buying and restocking more fatheads; results are almost always the same. In almost all studies the fatheads do not survive from one breeding season to the next. This is how the general ideas or rule of thumb was developed for them. You have one of the few exceptional cases. What do you attribute to your success when almost every one else fails to maintain a permenant breeding population of fatheads? What are you doing differently than everyone else?

PO, how did you fence off your fatheads? What kind of fencing did you use?

RobA, I said plastic fence was about 1/4 but I think it is more like 1/2 round openings. got stuff at menards in fencing dept. Then bought the electric fence stakes that have a v shaped wedge at bottom, these stakes are about 3' long. One nice thing my pond has a thumb shaped inlet that I just had to fence straight acrossed. I drove stakes in first then just weaved fencing down on stakes thru about every 6th hole then went to next stake and repeated. I put a couple small christmas trees in this area and they have alot algae clinging to branches that fatheads are all around. Will get bluegill minnows in this area to but I net them out as they get bigger. Fun to watch small minnows swim thru fencing into deeper water just to dart back as bigger fish come toward fencing.

Meadowlark...capture some of those minnows and make double sure they are fathead. I would just about bet they are gambusia. Gambusia live in shallow water, fatheads try to live deeper.
Regarding fencing...I did that a couple of times in Texas, with stacks of wooden pallets nailed together inside the fence for spawning. I expected fatheads to stay there. Little did I know the hard-headed creatures were hellbent to be someone else's snack. They didnt' stay put. They had food, a place to breed, television, and friends. But, off they went...to those pond's extinction list.

Same experience as Bob Lusk,I install floating cedar for fathead minnow spawning (see pic on PondBoss photo page 4 for latest installation on ice)Outside round of (tied off) cedar gets a 1 inch mesh curtain draped down to the pond bottom for protection. The entire structure moves with the water level.Great area for fathead spawning as the LMB line up outside the curtain and the fatheads swim right to them. I may try Lusks HBO idea to see if they will stay in their home a little longer.

I considered it, but I did not bring up the possibility that Meadowlark's theory of thriving "fenced-in" fatheads could be another species of fish other than fatheads. Depending on the available niches in his "fenced area" a few resident fatheads could hang out there. However I agree with others that most of the non-spawning fathead adults will instinctively seek refuge in deeper water and tend not "hangout" in shallows. Shallow areas are very vulnerable to bird AND fish predators. Fatheads probably "think" they would rather "take their chances" with fish vs birds.

Meadowlark should capture some of the ADULT resident "fenced-in minnows", lay a couple out and get a good close up picture of them. There are enough "fish people" here to determine if they are fatheads or not.

Wo... there is another kind of minnow that will reproduce quickly inside of a shallow fenced in area and provide a good meal for LMB? What are they? I'll take some of those! Seems easy.

Pat Paulsen said "all the Fatheads go to Congress."
So maybe to keep them interested, you need to let them watch C-Span.

Oaky, I will try to catch some of these minnows I call fatheads for your identification. The older ponds that have these ongoing resident populations of "fatheads" have lots of vegetation around the water line....lots of weeds/grass growing in the shallows and this is where these "fatheads" hang out and seek protection from the predators. By shallows I'm talking about 3 to 6 inches deep just along the banks and in the spillways. They are on the small side and may prove difficult to catch. Interesting, and all this time I thought they were fatheads.

Bill Cody, Got your pic's last night thanks a lot. My son went out last night and dip netted out about 50 of these minnows in 3 little scoups and now have them in small aquarium inside. Sounds like me and meadowlark might have same type minnows in our ponds after reading his latest post. All I know is that they are multiplying. I will take pic's when my wife gets home from work this evening and have her send them to you, she's alot quicker at all of this. I'll see if she knows how to post pictures here so others can see. Thanks

Gambusias look like gray guppies. They have big bellies and bear live young too. Bob Lusk once said that they don't provide enough forage to consider but I think they provide some which is better than nothing and they are a neat fish. Worth having.
The "pink" variety of fathead doesn't get talked about a lot. They get eaten even faster. I have some in with my catfish and when I had thousands of tiny catfish swimming around, my fatheads were almost wiped out. They rebounded after the catfish grew larger. My guess is that the tiny catfish were nest robbers and cleaned up on the fry as well.
I added redear sunfish last year. We'll see what happens.

Just a funny side note to this thread. This is the longest that I've seen a discussion like this go without calling them "flatheads". I guess you catch those right along the the "Shinners" and "Strippers" I keep reading about.

Just kidding guys, but it makes you wonder if we're all in the same icthyology text book.

Sorry Bill for not getting pic's of my minnows. But I forgot that we were taking MOM out for supper on the Big Heart day last nite, so got home late. Anyway after seeing BrianH and Bob Lusk post on (gambusias) I went on the net to find pic's and BAM without a doubt in my mind that is what I have instead of Fatheads. How did they get here? Were they in with the fatheads I buy each year, because all this time I thought they were fatheads since they were multiplying so much and all around banks. Will they be alright to leave in pond. Today here in Indiana it is sunny and warm high 65 and I went out to walk pond and they are all around banks. Guess next time I buy fatheads I'll look at one close-up, as before we just came home and turned them lose and watched the action. Love this site learn something every day. Thanks guys

PO - If your fatheads came from or were raised by a southern supplier then it is very likely there were some in with the stocked fatheads. There has been some discussion about them here in the past and a search for mosquito fish and or Gambusia will produce more info. They like anything else have pros and cons. I have worked with them in the northern midwest. They are an exotic in our region. When you have a "good bass" population of mixed sizes the smaller bass will eliminate them esp during winter ice cover unless your pond is unique.

Has anyone else run into suppliers stocking fatheads along with other undesireables like bullheads? I've seen this accidently done. How many times do you actually get all fatheads? I would assume this to be remote unless each one is identified prior to pond entry. With each injection of fatheads the risk presents itself. Depending on the pond situation are the risks really worth it? A strong predator base would probably make the presence of these fish a non-noticable problem but bullheads can be prolific spawners.

Bill & PO,

Sent you each an e-mail with picture of my minnow attached. I wish I could post it here, but can't get it to work. Is it a fathead? Or ??

I buy lots of fish from commercial farmers. They won't stay in business long if they mix unwanted fish into the fish they sell. Word travels fast, and all it takes is a couple guys in our business to spread the word about a particular supplier. So, while there may be an occasional gambusia mixed with fatheads, I would never expect to see bullheads, green sunfish or any undesirable fish in supplies of fatheads from my suppliers. On occasion, a commercial fish farmer does wind up with a tainted pond, where species are mixed. They tell you that, and dramatically discount the fish, or keep them to feed to broodfish bass or catfish.

Contaminated fish is not a big problem with some suppliers whereas a few hatcheries are known for their contamination. I see most of the contamination coming from fish raised in "wild" ponds" or remote ponds. Also sometimes fish are raised in poly culture ponds (one or two speces together or even multi-species ponds) and then sorted before sale. Sorting is sometimes less than perfect.

Medowlark - Got your emailed picture of your prolific fish that likes "life behind the fence". As surmised by Bob and Ted, the fish in question are Gambusia affinis aka mosquito fish not fathead minnows.

Okay, my challenge to the fathead theory is hereby withdrawn....but now I have to jump in to the old "where did they come from" question...but we've beat that one to death on this forum.

These minnows are in two very remote, old ponds that have not been stocked in over 50 years. Not only do I not know how they got there, I marvel at their survival for all those years. Those Gambusia are sure hardy little fish...and at 1 to 2 inches must provide some limited sustenance in the food chain. Go Gambusia!

Small bass absolutely love to eat the surface swimming Gambusia. Bass attack them from underneath.

Hmmm...you have given me an idea for a new fly...the Gambusia