Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait A good source for threadfin shad?

Any suggestions on where I can purchase quality threadfin shad? Have any of you had luck raising thread fins in a forage pond before stocking them? I have found places that sell gizzard shad but I have heard many stories of gizzard shad growing too large to be eaten and over populating lakes.

Any thoughts?

I would think that in Florida you could have bass large enough to eat gizzard shad. I would think that a seven or eight pound bass could handle a one pound gizzard shad? When I went fishing on Stick Marsh we used live shiners that were about a pound.

So you would suggest gizzard shad instead of threadfins? I have been reading up on threadfins and apparently they are hard to transport and establish. Can gizzard shad be stocked in less fertile waters?

The thing is I have not been able to find anyone who will deliver threadfins to florida. The closest place I have found is based out of alabama. They didnt want to risk transporting the threadfins for more than three hours on the road.

GTS, how far down in FLA are you? Greg Grimes might cover the upper part and I think he does threadfin stocking. Seasonally, of course.

I'm in hillsborough county about 15 miles east of Tampa.

Do you think I would have a better chance of establishing golden shiners, threadfin shad or gizzard shad in an 8 acre pond that has a relatively young bass population? I have bluegill and red ear stocked as forage but I feel that the bass are putting quite a strain on them.

Not GShad in a pond with young LMB. You need to have 25-30 % of your LMB over 18 inches at a minimum to even consider them. Many studies show a very high % of a pond's carrying capacity used up in GShad to the detriment of all other species.

Find TShad and or GShiners to establish.

if I end up deliverying for client in orlando we could help with del cost. Only spring of course so let us know if interested. thanks

If you do go with the threadfins, stock them in the spring like Greg said. The idea is to stock them just before they spawn. With a young bass population, they should establish easily. You are far enough south you also don't have to worry about winter kills with threadfins.

With golden shiners(GSH), if you have a young bass population, stock 5 pounds per acre of larger adult GSH. Say, fish 5-6" plus in size. At that size, they should mostly avoid predation by your new bass and will pull of a spawn. I think GSH would also be a good addition to your pond if you are trying to grow larger bass...

personally i think you should go with both Golden Shiners and Threadfin Shad. You COULD have Gizzards but i would only use it on a pond with some monster bass, im talking a pond 5+ years old with some big fish or if your goign to have people electrofish it yearly. Bluegill and Readear sunfish wont sustain a bass population for that long so i would add
Golden Shiners
Threadfin Shad
Fathead Minnows
Crawfish

Gizzard shad grow significantly bigger than one pound. I saw a photo of one online recently that looked like it was at least seventeen inches and three pounds. Here's an article that says they grow up to 18", and that stripers were originally stocked into inland reservoirs to control the gizzard shad the LMB couldn't eat:

http://www.insideline.net/1999/price-0910-99.html

I would be wary of them. But the flip side is, they have been used successfully by some prominent Southern pond management companies to grow very large LMB.

Walt a 21" gizzard on Ray Scotts lake few years ago. Here is a few pics on our shad page. http://lakework.com/photo_gallery/gallery2/v/Fish+ID/Shad/
I think there a near neccesity to produce good numbers of bass over 10 lbs. They come with many issues and talk most out of stocking but in the right situation (as Ewest stated) with proper goals they grow some giant bass.

Here are some GShad.

Yikes it would take one HUGE bass to eat that Gshad!

Greg some of the baits we were using on stick marsh were about the size of the gizzard shad in your album. Eric is right it takes a very large bass to eat something that big but how are you going to raise a monster bass on fatheads. I would not consider stocking gizzard shad unless you have some fairly large bass already or you will end up with a mess and you maight end up with a pond of gizzard shad anyway. I didn't stock shad in my pond but ended up with both gizzard and threadfin after a flood we had two years ago. So the question is do you risk making a mess in order to try to grow trophy bass? I think some of us on the forum would take the risk knowing the possible outcome but weigh what Eric is saying carefully. threadfins are a safer choice without the risks.

It has been said that gshad have an adverse affect on the growth of young bluegill because the shad consume zooplankton also. Is this true? Threadfins eat plankton also, but since they are small I guess that have less affect on the bluegill population? How much do golden shiners compete with bluegill?

I would think if their total biomass was equal, Gizzards and Threadfin would consume about the same amount of plankton.

Threadfins and gizzard both are the worst thing you could ever do to a pond if you care about big bluegill at all. They're great for growing big bass, but to answer your question, GTS, they most definitely eat plankton, like it was going out of style. I'm working with a 56-acre lake right now that has small bluegill (average 5" or so); one of the first things the owner told me the first time we talked was that his lake used to have "huge" bluegill but that he didn't know what had happened to them but they were a fraction of the size they used to be. He had mentioned that he had stocked threadfin and gizzard four or five years ago, so I asked him if that was about the time his bluegill started declining, and he said, "Oh yeah, come to think of it, it was." He likes catching big bass but also is an avid bluegill angler; the people who managed the lake previously had just not asked enough questions, or else had not listened too closely to his answers.

As to GSH, they too most definitely compete with bluegill for food. There's a lake around 150 acres near my hometown that years ago, before TWRA took it over, produced bluegill approaching three pounds - I've seen two of them mounted, just beasts. So TWRA stocked GSH in the lake, and now it's overrun with them, and the bluegill are a fraction of the size they once were. I fished it once this spring, fished several different spots all around the lake, and I couldn't even get my bait to the bluegill because it was being taken almost every cast, everywhere I fished, by 8" GSH. The few bluegill I caught were small, under 6". I haven't been back since. There are a few big LMB in the lake now but the GSH have ruined the bluegill fishing.

I've never seen a lake where threadfin, gizzard, or GSH were stocked that the bluegill average size didn't plummet.

Normally I only feed the bluegill during the winter months(what passes for winter here), but I was about to start feeding regurlarly anyway. Would the feedings offset any negative effects on the bluegill? I know that gizzard shad will eat the feed, so I guess they are completely out of the question. That said would shiners or threadfins fit better?

I would stock shiners because they are natural and grow great in your location. TShad will work but they require a plankton bloom and may effect your BG size unless properly managed. You also have the option of tilapia as they occur all around your location but they could effect the BG as well.

Which fish is your top priority, GTS? If it's LMB, you'll get bigger LMB by stocking GSH than you would have otherwise, and adding threadfin to the mix will help the bass even more. But if bluegill are your top priority, GSH or threadfin either one will cut at least in half your maximum bluegill size, as well as your average. It's a pretty simple equation - a large percentage of their diet is comprised of the same foods that bluegill eat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_shiner

So they will directly compete with bluegill for food, and that only ends one way, with smaller bluegill. If bass are your primary focus, GSH and threadfin both will help you to achieve bigger ones; if bluegill are top priority, GSH and threadfin will make it almost impossible to achieve trophy bluegill. Feeding won't even close to make up the difference. You'll get decent-sized bluegill - a few - but you won't get trophy-class fish. The lake I mention above in which the bluegill size was killed by the addition of threadfins, has had an automatic feeder on it for five years, and the bluegill are slightly larger than they are in the rest of the lake, but they still only average 5-6" though the feeder goes off twice a day with Aquamax food.

It really depends on your pond/lake. Its productivity will be key. So it all depends. Walt could be right as to what he experienced but it may be different with your situation. I have seen lakes in central Fla with carrying capacity of 2500-3000 lbs per acre loaded with big fish including both shads , CNBG , shiners and tilapia all mixed together. I have also seen lakes that are lucky to have 100 lbs of fish per acre.

Walt are these lakes fertile or do you think that makes a difference? Is there not anything that can control the gizzard shad if they start to take over? Can hybrid striped bass grow large enough to make a difference since gizzard shad and hybrids tend to patrol the same waters? Walt I don't know where you rate catfish but I would tell people to be careful about stocking catfish. I was told that they would not reproduce and their numbers could be easily controled but that has not been my experience. They seem to outcompete everything at the feeder.

Walt, the logic of reduced growth in BG from competition from TFS and GSH eating the same thing makes sense to me. But, what I question is the severity of the reduction in growth. I'll preface the rest with the fact that I have NO experience with any of it, but am contemplating introducing TFS and GSH into my 5 acre pond next spring. I understand your experience suggests significantly lower growth rates and I appreciate your covering this topic. I've not read or seen any studies relating to the competition, but would think there should be something out there as this is seems to me to be a very important topic..What I think I hear from you is that it is very, very difficult to get large( a relative term, but let's say 8-10lb) bass and large (8-10") BG in the same pond. Is Talapia,where they are legal, then the best alternative to providing additional forage for bass growth??? Again, I don't in anyway dispute what you are saying, but further clarification would help me make an informed decision...du

The lakes I referenced are fertile - they're all fertilized, the 150-acre one by TWRA and the 56-acre one by moi (previously by a man who works for the owner). Added fertility is just more plankton for the GSH and shad to hog from the bluegill.

Here's what I think: bluegill may get pretty good-sized in extremely optimal, unusual circumstances such as the phosphate pits in FL that Eric mentions, but they'll never reach their maximum potential in BOW that have significant numbers (and the numbers will be significant if they're introduced) of either GSH, threadfin, or gizzard. I've wondered for a while now why the FL state record for bluegill (2lbs. 15 oz.) is smaller than the records of several states farther north with drastically shorter growing seasons; but if these other forage species are very common in FL, that could certainly explain it. Most state-record bluegill came from ponds, including the world record (Ketona Lake, AL, 1950, caught by T.S. Hudson on a topwater bass plug); ponds, until recently, usually didn't have GSH or shad. Just my opinion on the matter.

As to controlling gizzard shad, hybrids don't get large enough to eat an 18" gizzard shad - nothing short of a striper or a muskie or a flathead catfish is going to eat a really big gizzard. And even with one of those species it would have to be a really exceptional fish that doesn't come along every day.

On catfish, I agree with you 100% - if you plan on feeding bluegill, skip the CC unless you enjoy frustration and wasted money. In my observation they don't just outcompete the bluegill, the bigger CC will bully them away from the food so they get little to none. A ten-pound CC tail-slapping a 9" bluegill is akin to a normal-sized pondmeister such as myself trying to block Albert Haynesworth - ain't gonna be pretty.

Good questions, DU. There have been studies done on the negative impact of shad on bluegill growth. Here are two on the negative effects of gizzard shad, both in ponds and reservoirs; one study was in NE, the other in IL:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14662602

http://afsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1577/M04-008.1

Threadfin shad and GSH are not mentioned, of course, but they eat the same foods as gizzard shad; the key is the competition with bluegill for food sources. Every time I've ever fished a lake in which any of the three had been stocked, the average bluegill size was cut at least in half of what it had been.

Tilapia are perhaps a slightly better option, as far as the bluegill are concerned, but they love pellet food and will thus compete with the bluegill on that front.

It is very difficult to manage for both trophy bass and trophy bluegill. The two ways to go about it are 1) regimented harvest of both such that neither ever becomes overcrowded, a "balanced" pond such as most state game and fish agencies used to recommend, and 2) stocking of a predator above the bass, northern pike or tiger muskie being my preference, that will keep the bluegill and bass both thinned. With either method, you probably wouldn't get LMB as big on the top end as you would with a very forage-heavy approach, but you'll still get bass much bigger than if you let them overcrowd to make the bluegill bigger, and you'll get huge bluegill if you feed and fertilize.

I would say, if trophy LMB are your primary goal, go ahead and stock tilapia, and probably also GSH; with regular feeding by automatic feeders, you can still get some big bluegill, they just won't be two-pounders. If you want two-pound bluegill, though, don't stock anything that's going to compete with them for food.