Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Golden Shiners A Good Forage Source?

Would like to hear opinions on stocking golden shiners as an additional forage base. I'm guessing the advantages are that they get big enough to avoid some bass predation to spawn, and that they are faster and prefer more open water as well to avoid predation. On the other hand, beyond the occasional pesky golden shiner stealing your fishing bait what other problems can they cause?

let me start by saying hello. this is my first post. shiners have a few problems: one is they are known to be egg eaters. the other is they are prone to carrying diseases. if you have the option you might try threadfin shad.

I placed 4000 shiners in my lake over two years ago with no adverse effects that I know of - also established crawfish population which has diversified the food chain along with of course the coppernose

Critterhunter - the golden shiner has a reputation of being a fish that can be added to a pond, and provide some additional prey without causing any problems. Generally speaking, they only survive in ponds with enough aquatic plant coverage to protect them from predators. So, a pond with largemouth bass and little vegetation would probably result in the bass eating all of them.

The key to golden shiners is supposed to be that adults can reach that 10 or 12 inch size, and avoid most predation (at least if they have vegetation in which to hide). Those adults then spawn each spring, and the young shiners provide the food source for predators. When I worked in Kansas, it was pretty common to find 12 inch golden shiners, and they were pretty common in some of the ponds.

Having said these positive things, I'm actually a little frustrated with my attempts to get golden shiners established in several eastern South Dakota farm ponds that contain largemouth bass. I wonder if our shorter growing season keeps them smaller for a longer time, and the largemouths then are able to eliminate them. I've probably stocked golden shiners about a dozen times in a couple of ponds the last 5 years, and I rarely even sample a shiner.

So, the "reputation" for golden shiners in bass ponds is good if you have vegetation, but I haven't had much luck up here in the north country.

Hope this helps. Hopefully, you'll get some feedback from other parts of the country.

Dave

12" Golden shiners? Holy crap!
I guess if you are having trouble with growing them out in your area David, the chance of me seeing one of that size up in Canada, (If I ever do.. haven't trapped one out yet), is pretty much slim to none eh?

Pottsy -- I don't know!! Your white-tails are bigger up north, right??? :-)

Seriously, I remember my first job as a fisheries biologist in KS. Just after I got there, I went fishing on one of the gorgeous, small (100 acres) impoundments that I was assigned to manage. About my second cast with a small floating rapala, just twitching it on the surface, I caught a darn 12 inch golden shiner. Couldn't even believe it.

I've been stocking 6-8 inch goldens up here, which are as big as we can buy from the bait dealers. I don't think I've even seen a 10-incher as a result of our stockings.

Dave

Well, last year I was doing a bit of "fish trading" between two private ponds. One guy wanted more bluegill in his pond and the other wanted more bass. Being that the guy wanting bass had too many stunted bluegill and the guy wanting more bluegill(bass ate all the smaller ones) wanted to thin the bass, it all worked out in trade of whatever I could catch for them and place in a livewell. Anyway, the pond that was bluegill heavy had many large golden shiners in it (5-7") that I was catching. Now I wish I would have transered a trade on those too. Based on your replies and whgat I've read thus far I think I'll buy some to stock in my buddies bass heavy pond.

So what makes up the majority of a golden shiner's diet and what charataristics make them different from shad?
-Scott

Scott - It's hard to generalize about fish diets, because they can change from place to place, and across months. However, here goes.

Golden shiners primarily feed on zooplankton. They can, in some times and places, also eat aquatic stages of insects, such as chrinomids (midges or bloodworms) and other insects. At times, they can even have quite a bit of filamentous algae in their diets, although I'm not sure if they are eating it on purpose, or taking it in while feeding on zooplankton or insects.

Gizzard shad can at times (not always) really be tough on a pond fish community. If a pond gets a high density of large gizzard shad (they can reach 2 pounds and larger, and there can be hundreds of pounds per acre of water), it REALLY suppresses the food production for you sport fish. They also don't reproduce very much when there is a high density of adults, and then they produce few prey-size fish for the predators. An easy example of problems is bluegills -- bluegill growth and size invariably decline when gizzard shad are introduced.

Also, the young (age-0 or that year's hatch) gizzard shad grow very quickly, and often outgrow young predators. For example, gizzard shad often will be 4 inches long by August, and most largemouth bass hatched that year can no longer feed on them (too big to swallow).

So, I'd say those were the primary differences. Golden shiners are just a lot more vulnerable to predators, and with even a moderate largemouth bass density, I wouldn't expect high population density for the goldens. The only place I've seen excessive numbers of golden shiners that probably were causing a problem was in a trout impoundment.

Hopefully, we can get a few other folks to provide some comments on this subject. In my experience (which is not as broad as some other people on this site), the goldens can be a good choice for an additional prey source in a bass pond.

Dave

C.hunter, Dave has the habits of the goldens described acurately. I think they also eat fish fry and larvae. Sizes of young fish eaten depends on the species and shape. This has a minor impact on the fish community unless the goldens are real abundant. Since Dave caught a 12" shiner on a small rapala, this also confirms their tendency to eat real small fish when available. The main problem I have with goldens is they are bait stealers when fishing with live bait for panfish. Many find this not a problem.

Unless you have quite a few rooted weeds in your pond don't expect goldens to live very long when stocked into a pond w/ adult LMB. Weed beds are almost a necessity for maintaining goldens in a pond with bass esp. LMB. A 15" LMB can eat a 10"-12" shiner, no problem. As I think about it, a 13" LMB can probably easily eat a 10" shiner and rarely do goldens get 10" in my northern area. Your personal profile does not tell me where you live so my help stops there.

Do you happen to know if Golden Shiners do well in cage culture so that I can raise them to a decent size before releasing them into the lake?
(Tried it with Bluegill and it didnt work so great)
-Scott

I'm in Northeast Ohio. Anyway, my game plan now is to stock golden shiners as big as I can get. I know where I can get my hands on 5 to 8" ones that have pretty thick bodies. Since almost all the bass in this pond are well under 12" and skinny as a post I'm hoping the shiners will be just a bit too big for the bass to eat at present size. Plan to throw them in just before they are ready to spawn (less chance of the bass eating them before they can hatch some eggs).

I'd also be interested in hearing about how to raise golden shiners. I'd like to at least keep a few smaller ones in a 35 gal. aquarium and fatten them up before releasing them, or even try to raise their young to a good size and then release them as breeders. I also am toying with the idea of dumping some in a drainage ditch to breed and grow and net out. Might also try that with some fatheads for kicks.

Scott and Critterhunter: I have two booklets on culture of bait fishes. One is from Colorado State University (Steve Flickinger), and covers pond culture of fathead minnows and golden shiners. The other is entitled "Manual for Bait Fish Culture in the South," and is a joint publication of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service (J. Giudice, D. Gray, and J. Martin). Both are about 40 pages long. Scott- neither publication says much about cage culture. The "southern" booklet does say that golden shiners are more difficult to handle and transport than other bait species because this shiner has large, easily shed scales. Loss of scales can be a "portal of entry" for disease problems, of course.

Anyway, if either of you are still interested, send me an e-mail with your mailing address, and I can make a photocopy of a booklet for you. Let me know which one you prefer. They both have tons of factual information.

Dave

NOTE: When someone makes copies of articles for another the recipient should somehow try to compensate the photocopier. I would like copies of both and I am willing to pay for each. Where do we find your email address? Use private message icon?

I have raised golden shiners in a cage. Often in mixed culture with other fish such as bgill or perch. Never raised them in a cage at high densites above 5 fish per cubic foot. But I would not be afraid to try it based on my experiences so far.

I think trying to raise very many large g.shiners
20 to 50) in a 35g aquarium will present too many problems and make it a poor choice. Cage culture even in a small cage the size of a 55 gal barrel will be much more successful. At least 100 g.shiners (3"-6")could be raised in a small cage. I would not be afraid to try 200 in a 25"-30"dia cylindrical cage (w/ 3.5' under water, 12to17cuft). This equates to 8 to 16 fish per cubicfoot. The biggest problem for you will be in getting small sized feed for them. All fish that I raise in cages get 40% protein feed. Trout chow (40+% protein) is a balanced diet stand along food for contained fish. I don't want to take any chances from cheap feed; this is one less problem to consider. Too many other ways to have problems with raising fish in cages. Your major problem w/ shiners in a cage will be in getting real healthy shiners that have undergone minimal stress. Stressed fish going into a cage will likely result in high mortalities within the first 10 days. If these high mortalities occur early, most likely it was due to handling stress. I harvested and handled all shiners that I put into cages. I do not have any growth data for shiner growth in cages so I don't know how much they will grow per summer once they are mature.

What was the problem of raising bgill in your cage? (Post any response to this question as a separate topic such as: Bluegill in Cages, under 'Creating a Food Chain' OR 'Types of Fish to Choose'.)

Bill - I sent you a private e-mail message by clicking on your "Email Bill Cody" icon. I'm not sure why I don't have one -- I must not have done something right when I initially registered. I'll have to check.

Dave

Here's a little known factoid about commercial shiner production.
Most golden shiners raised commercially come from central Arkansas.
Back in the early 80's I was at one of those fish farms, talking with the production manager. I was asking about production methods, using husked spanish moss mats for shiners to lay eggs, and moving eggs vs. leaving them to hatch, that sort of talk. I asked him what size shiners they use for broodfish. He casually mentioned they change broodfish every year, so their broodfish are only a year old. I asked why. He told me that after their second year of reproduction, female golden shiners have an ovarian parasite that renders her sterile. So, two year old shiners must be sold.
Now, that was dang near 20 years ago, and I haven't asked the question since. But, late in 1981 I found a flyer from one of the agencies that explained the parasite, and how to manage around it.
So, don't automatically assume your shiners aren't surviving because bass eat them, or they don't have a place to spawn. There may be another reason.
I looked for that pamphlet, but it's gone. I probably used it back then, when times were tight. The paper was absorbent.

Thanks, Bob. Man, this is a CLASSIC example of the amazing information available at this site!

Dave

For those of you interested in golden shiners as a prey species, I did some more checking after Bob's comment on parasites in the females. I checked with my old fish culture professor (Steve Flickinger). His response follows.

"Dave, the parasite is Pleistophora ovarie. As the name implies, it invades ovaries, and of course older females have had more time to accumulate greater numbers of parasites. Upon discovery of the parasite, Stuttgart, AR people were recommending use of only age 1 broodstock. My minnow farmer contacts told me age 1 golden shiners are too unpredictable, and thus they used older shiners and increased the number of brooders to compensate for lower fecundity. Once upon a time there was a recognized subspecies of golden shiner for the more northern and western populations. It probably is all messed up now with bait bucket introductions. As I recall this parasite is found only in golden shiners, but I think another species is found in salmonids." End of quote from Doc Flickinger.

So, I guess I'll have to do some checking and see how widespread this parasite might be. At least initially, I think that I'll contact the state biologists, and ask if I can collect some wild golden shiners from them during next spring's electrofishing. Perhaps the wild populations might have few or no parasites?? Obviously, I have more questions than answers, but Bob has certainly re-awakened my interest in trying to get some golden shiners established in some of our ponds.

Dave Willis

Great discussion about shiners. How many per acre should I add if I want to try to get them established in my existing LMB/Bluegill pond? How many would one add to a new pond before LMB were introduced?

jb - Numbers to stock per acre will depend on who you talk to and each will give you a different answer. Here's mine.
1. For stocking a new pond for a first years production without predators the first year: 400-600 breeding sized fish per acre. (Densities can be as high as 1000/ac.) This 400-600 rate can pretty easily result in 18,000+ shiners per acre (200 lb/ac w/out feeding) . There are about 100 (3.5"-3.7")shiners per pound. Fry survival will depend on amount of plankton present at correct times during the hatching periods.
2. Personally I think it is a waste of money to try and get them established in a TYPICAL pond with LMB. If you add about 30 to 50 pounds of shiners per acre each year you might get a few to survive the bass predation. Depending. Rooted weeds covering 50% to 80% of the pond bottom would be enough cover to get a smaller initial stocking of shiners and their resulting offspring to survive. BUT this many weeds would also cause an overpopulation of bgill. A lot of the survivability success of stocked shiners will depend on how many bass you have present per acre to prey on them. Young bass (less than 13") will prey very heavily on shiners.

I think golden shiners work a lot better with SMB as predators. Here also, weeds are also paramount to shiner survival. SMB have smaller mouths and are not as prolific as LMB. Thus fewer young are being produced to prey on shiners. Shiners do not grow all that fast and even longer lengths are still fairly slender compared to a sunfish/bgill. Thus they stay an optimum forage width for fairly long.

Lots of things affect shiner survival regardles of the species of predator present.

Bill, thanks for tying this all together for me/us. I'll go with your suggestion and consider it a waste of money to try and establish them in my existing population, especially since I just added grass carp to control my weeds. I'll spend my money instead on breeder sized Coppernose to ensure good production with them (currently have some good bluegill), then when I have enough LMB of sufficient size, I'll try my luck with the Gizzard Shad. Thanks again. JB and Scott

jb - I agree, you will get more long term value/benefit from your money if you spend it on buying larger bgill and a fish food feeding program. If you had different pond conditions shiners would be more worth a try.

I'm still not completely sold on gizzard shad. I think you need really big bass to thin the larger individuals. Or have a way to manually or periodically thin large adults. A lot of a pond's fish productivity gets tied up in shad biomass instead of more "beneficial" panfish. Depending on how one defines beneficial. I think the concept of using g.shad to produce trophy LMB is valid but I don't think most pond owners can adequately manage a gizzard shad population. Bob Lusk and other g.shad aficionados should get together and write an article in PBoss magazine on how to manage g.shad populations in ponds. Hear that Mark McD???

If B.Lusk reads this, has he or others ever experienced alewives (alewife) as forage in ponds? It is an exotic and an invader from the Atlantic. The landlocked form is a planktivour and only reaches 3"-6" long similar to the threadfin shad. It tolerates northern winters, but is intolerant of sudden temperature changes then massive die offs can occur. Thus it has a bad reputation in the Great Lakes. Anyone with pond experience with this one?? If I get no response from this I may move it to its own topic. Any way to move this paragraph rather than completely retyping it?

Alewives sound interesting. I hope you find some good info on them. I'm too far north myself to use threadfin. By the way, Bob's book is very clear that Gizzard Shad are in all his managed ponds with 10lb bass. How big can I reasonably expect them (LMB)to grow in a well managed and fertilized pond with just LMB, bluegill and catfish?

jb - we are getting off the original topic of g.shiners. Will you post your "How big" question on the main board under its own fish mgmt topic? We may get some good responses to your query, but they will be burried here under the topic of g.shiners.

yep! good idea, -jb