Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait golden shiners

I was thinking about ordering 250k golden shiner fry from Anderson's fish farm. My question is will any of these fry live long enough to grow big? My pond is 2/3 arce and I put 1000 CNBG in it about a month ago and I already have put some bass in the along with some native BG and RES. I put 2000 FHM in when I put in the 1000 CNBG and I havent seen any in probably 2 weeks. I need some type of forage for the panfish. I have been feeding floating pellets since I put in the CNBG and it appears that nothing is feeding on them.

Hi Matt

I'm really anxious to hear feedback on this question from those with experience. Without high qty of predators it's easy to start establishing a forage base...but how does one establish a forage base once other fish populations are developed? Can one do it in the existing watershed? Dig a forage pond? Use horse tanks to grow out the fry? I hope folks will chime in with their ideas.

If you have some very thick areas of vegetation, a few the 250,000 fry planted in that area may get large enough to establish and spawn.

The key to establishing forage fish species after you already have predators in your pond is to understand the biology of each of those species and understand what they need. If you have almost all 3:1 or 2:1 slopes, hardly any shallow areas and little aquatic vegetation cover it is unreasonable to expect you will be able to establish a forage fish population such as GSF or FHM.

How big and how many LMB ? The forage for the CNBG assuming they are small is your plankton not the FH. There are ways to establish forage into an existing population but they are not necessarily easy. They involve protection or large numbers or size.

Ewest

Everyone okay down there? I heard you some of Nebraska's Tornadoes touched down. Thoughts are with all y'all there.

TJ

Thanks - all ok here. Bad weather last 3 nights including now and its effecting my net connection.

Yes, the CNBG are small. They were 1-2 inches when I put them in. I put in less than 10 bass, but they were out of another pond. Since then they must have spawned because I have caught serveral 4-8 inch bass and all the bass I put in were 1-3 pounds. So I guess the bass must have eaten the FHM, or unless they for some reason are hanging out in deeper water.