Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Kinda glad I found this site.......

but not sure if I'm ready to hear how my "fly by the seat of my pants" pond non-management favors?

I had a pond dug approx. 11 years ago (1 acre with the deepest depth 21 feet & average 10 feet depth) and feel ashamed for the following info:
I stocked BG, LMB, Crappie & White Amurs. All, but the white amurs, were just caught from local ponds and dumped into mine. No counts and all sizes with the largest LMB at 5 lbs.

I have a windmill aerator and a fountain for circulation.

Throughout the years I've caught nice fat LMB, Crappie & BG. Lots of BG and LMB nests and fry. Last year I started catching long but very skinny LMB. The LMB, 12" and under, look healthy. So, I built a holding pen in hopes to raise Golden Shiners in and release over structure. They are spawning now in the company of bull frog tadpoles. Hoping, eventually, they will multiply on their own (outside of the pen) and feed my starving LMB.

I since found this site and realize that I'm lost. I read here that Golden shiners can take over a pond! Should I be concerned? Is there another reason my larger LMB look as they do? Will these tadpoles screw up my Golden Shiners pen? Thanks

Welcome vasf50!
The golden shiners should help. It's the crappie that are most likely the problem. If they pulled off a good spawn with good recruitment they could be eating all your LMB forage.
But let some of the good pondmiesters advise. I'm not a LMB guy.

If LMB are your main focus, the GSH will help you to grow larger ones. You might also look into installing an automatic feeder or two, which will result in the bluegill spawning more and thus producing more forage for the bass. It'll also help to offset the competition for food with the bluegill that the GSH will bring so that your bluegill size doesn't go down too much.

It sounds as though very likely your pond has become bass-heavy. That's good if bluegill are your main focus; it's also good in the respect that you have crappie in the pond, and the large numbers of small bass will make it less likely that the crappie will overrun the pond. It's definitely not ideal in terms of producing large bass.

GSH can become very numerous in a pond or lake that isn't bass-heavy; they're not likely to do so in a pond that is. They will compete with your bluegill for food. But if LMB are the main focus, they can help.

One thing to keep an eye on: stocking GSH could take some of the bass pressure off the crappie, since GSH are more fusiform than crappie and thus more ideal prey. One of the lakes I've seen that had been overrun by tiny, very poor crappie (4-5" average and so thin you could almost see through them), had GSH in it. The lake had huge bass, but it was definitely overrun with tiny crappie. And there weren't a lot of bass in the lake; just a few monsters. That was a thirty-acre lake.

What are your goals for the lake? What's the main species of interest?

You might think about stocking a few HSB. They would help keep the crappie in check, and you could cull some bass so the remaining bass grow better, without having to worry about the crappie exploding.

1st, thanks for the replies! Well, I would like to have the LMB as the main focus. I'm not sure about the Crappie multiplying cause I have only caught large ones (strange). How many HSB would I need? I also thought about removing every Crappie caught. I didn't realize they were such eaters. Here are a few pics..one of the pond and holding pen. thanks

Welcome to the forum. The pond looks beautiful! I think you are on the right track getting a population of GSH going ASAP for forage, the crappie will love the smaller ones, and the LMB will chow down on them no matter what the size.

I agree, adding a feeder (the good ones aren't cheap, but you will have less headaches and better results if you bite the bullet and get a good one in the beginning) will help the BG grow and produce more fry.

Look in the Common Pond Q&A(archives) for a post called Relative Weight chart. Look up LMB (largemouth bass) and see how that chart compares to your fish. If your fish are weighing less than the fish in the chart, you should either remove some LMB from the pond or pour the forage to them. The only problem with not removing some LMB if your fish are underweight is that for every pound of weight added to a single LMB, it needs to consume 10# of forage fish. Depending on the number of LMB in your pond it might not be possible to add as much forage fish as you need without overcrowding your pond. As said above, the crappie in your pond are competing against the smaller LMB for the same food. If you want to have large LMB in the pond, I'd remove as many crappies as you can catch.

What are your goals for the pond?

I forgot to ask, what type of netting did you use on the water side of your holding pen? The water looks pretty clear, how far can you see down into the water?

Definitely a good idea to harvest every crappie you catch. Numbers-wise on the HSB, I haven't stocked them myself previously but am going to soon in one of the ponds I work with; I would think twenty to thirty 8" or better would be enough. Don't stock them smaller than that or they'll just get munched by the bass.

What Ric said is right on about the crappie taking forage from the bass - almost certainly that's at least part of the problem. It may be a big part of it. The more you can thin out the crappie, the better your bass are going to do.

If bass are the main goal, you could also think about stocking threadfin shad. I don't know how they do in OH, if that's above their range; if they'll live even in the warm months, they'll help pack on the pounds for your bass.

Threadfins are way too warm blooded for Ohio. They die at 42 degrees F, and our ponds have already started freezing at that temp.

Wow! 42 deg ice! Theo, will 42 deg ice melt if you take it out of Ohio where it's say, 40deg?

It depends on whether you go North or South.

The netting is 1/8" opening uv stability black plastic. Its staggered in height with 3 layers of said material. The bottom has a full length chain attached to the netting 1 foot from the bottom so it seals (so far so good) any gaps with the pond's bottom. I'm sure that the fry can/will swim out so, the outside edge of the netting is lined with 4 fresh cut pine trees for cover. The water level is 8" to 10" low and is pretty clear at 3 to 4 feet.

I'm shooting for a healthy BG and LMB population and was very upset with the condition of these LMB. I put this life pool here and feel it's my responsibility not to starve any of them. I recently caught a 16" LMB with a normal size head and a body of a 10" fish. Should I thin out some of the LMB right away, if so, what size should be removed, or see if the GSH will solve it. I have 15 pounds (GSH). in this pen and was told that this would be the only spawn for the year. Should I put some in the main water now? Thanks for sharing and giving me the proper tools too turn this thing around.

I must be further north cause my pond starts freezing at 48 deg.

B50

Really nice BOW and a nice pen system too - obviously built without the benefit of reading forum posts for years on how to construct it....color me impressed.

I'm not a LMB guy either - but you'll get direction on your question of whether or not to cull some LMB quickly.

Welcome to the forum.

I wouldn't remove bass until you have another predator in there, i.e. HSB (or northern pike, or tiger muskie) to control the crappie. But the second you have the other predator in place, removing several bass as soon as possible would be a good idea.

You might start by removing crappie, as they could be as much of the problem as too many bass.

The bass to remove normally would be the ones 12" and under, but if they're that unhealthy, you might just remove any bass that's under 20" unless it's atypically healthy.

The GSH aren't going to solve it without removing crappie and bass both.

If it was my pond, I'd remove every crappie that I caught, and every LMB that was under weight. I'd specifically target the crappie, and remove any underweight LMB that were incedentally caught. If you have 16" LMB that has a body of a 10" fish, that 16" is weighing somewhere around .5# vs. the 2.1# that it should weigh. A fish that malnurished will never realize it's potential, and you're wasting LMB food that would be feeding a healthier fish. 15# of GSH will only put a pound and a half of weight on one LMB. Depending on how many LMB you have in the pond, you've got a long uphill battle to build their weight back up unless you reduce the competition for food.

NP are a terrible recommendation for a small pond. They are not selective as to what they eat and won't necessarily eat what you want them too. NP can reproduce like crazy too and you'd probably end up with a NP monoculture eventually. It's cool to catch one but they lose their appeal after you've caught 300 of them in a week the size of your forearm.

I'm with esshup all the way. You'll see much better results from reducing competition rather than trying to feed the masses.

Ryan, we've been through this once before; evidently you missed it, so I'll fill you in. I've personally stocked NP in the past, more than once, with great success; one of the very best ponds I ever worked with, which was a grand total of one acre bigger than the one under discussion in this thread, had 20 - yes, 20, 12" each - northern pike stocked the first year I began working with it because it was horribly, grotesquely overpopulated with GSF and almost nothing else. I won't give all the details as I've done so more than once in more than one previous thread, but the cogent ones are that three years after the pike were stocked, the pike had not remotely taken over the pond or eaten every fish in the pond, four- to six-pound LMB were being caught with great regularity including a 7.5 caught by a close friend and one that might've gone thirteen or better -- northern-strain LMB - lost by my grandfather, and the bluegill population had rebounded and there were dozens of bluegill well over a pound feeding at both locations in the pond where I fed by hand, some of them probably a pound and a half or better.

There are certainly varying opinions on here on many subjects. It's perhaps a little better to say when disagreeing, "I personally disagree with that recommendation," rather than classifying the recommendation as "terrible." Especially if you've never employed the recommendation yourself, which I have. And there are other pond managers on here who regularly stock pike and tiger muskie both in ponds of all sizes, FYI.

Feel free to correct me, but my experience shows NP are less tolerant of warm and turbid waters and require ample aquatic vegetation to reproduce succesfully. In Eastern NE NP have been stocked into warmer, clay bottomed reservoirs that have sparce aquatic veg and they have repeatedly failed to gain a foothold. In W NE - especially the Sandhills lakes that are spring fed, shallow and have ample aquatic vegetation - the NP thrive.

Even with that in mind, I have no idea how hospitible NP would find Ohio BOWS - but if someone was looking for a true ultra apex predator to help control LMB and BG YOY wouldn't sterile Tigers make sense? Tigers and Muskie actually do WELL in Eastern NE in the clay reservoirs, tolerant of warmer and more turbid waters, obviously.

I don't know how an apex predator beyond LMB would affect this pond in question, FAR beyond my experience - and I don't recall many posts discussing the merits or disadvantages of stocking NP, TM, or Muskie. I can say I find this topic fascinating and would love to learn more, however.

I do know for my own situation in my main 4 ac pond, where I have BG reproducing and only SMB and HSB to control their populations, Mr Lusk suggested I add 10 TM's to help control the BG and add more if it seems necessary. This is not about my ponds, but thought this advice from Bob was important to consider for BASF.

Thanks, TJ. It's heartening to hear that no less than the Obi Wan Kinobe (sp?) of pond management sometimes recommends esocids for ponds. Basf, you probably already know this, but Bob Lusk founded Pond Boss magazine and this site, and is the preeminent pond expert in the country. He's kind of the EF Hutton of pond management.

The pike that I stocked didn't spawn successfully as far as I observed; I never saw or caught any small ones, or heard of any being caught. I didn't expect them to spawn in a TN pond and stocked them just to get the GSF under control, which they did admirably. I didn't expect them to have such a positive effect on the LMB, but became a believer when I saw said effect.

As TJ noted, Tiger Muskie are sterile and can't reproduce, so if you decided to go the esox route, that would be a very easy way to ensure they didn't spawn. Everything TJ said about the very specific conditions pike require to spawn agrees with everything I've read about them, so there's a good likelihood they're not going to spawn successfully in a lot of ponds anyway; but the TM option makes it a moot point.

Lots to consider! More than one way to skin a cat, ~a~? The amount of food required to add one pound to a LMB has opened my eyes. You all have, I think, hit the nail on the head as to my problem. Relying on only logic, every solution offered seems like a step in the right direction and I thank you. Question: could or should I buy a large quantity of GSH to buy some time during this transition of introducing a different type of predator? Will the bullfrog tadpoles put a major dent in my GSH eggs an fry? I can count over 50 of these tadpoles resting on the pallets and stones at any one time.

Things have changed in our lives lately with the loss of my father-in-law and my mother with cancer so, I have not had the time to read many threads on this great site. I can't wait to catch up with the world and spend some more time here learning. basf

bsf50, Sorry to hear about your families losses. Take care of your pond the best you can in off times but remember your family needs you more than your pond.

Again sorry for your losses.

If you do go the Esox route, I would highly recommend tiger musky to avoid any chance of reproduction. However, NP rarely spawn successfully in small ponds but with your luck you'd have the right conditions in your pond. I would also recommend you not stock more than 2 or 3 at most in your 1 acre pond. Keep in mind a pond on average can support about 100 pounds of predators per acre. 2 Tiger musky, 5 years later can weight 30 or 40 pounds combined, that's 30-40% of your predator biomass! This would be the main reason I would recommend you go with thinning out your bass yourself and not letting tiger muskies do it for you. Also, you control what is taken out, where as the tiger muskies control what is taken out. If you are trying to establish GSH, the tigers are gonna mostly eat on them first and the bass second. Just like bass, tigers like GSH over spiny fish. In the case of TJ's pond, it's 4 acres, 4 times the size of your pond. That difference gives a little more room to play with... Unless you have a huge desire to have large Esox species in your pond, a fyke net is a much better options for controlling panfish in a pond. You set it up, check the next day and remove the fish. If you see fish you don't want to remove, you toss them back... Prime example of the results of using a fyke net. They work quite well on tiny crappie as well... Note, that the large GSF caught was able to be salvaged for display in an aquarium.

Interesting observation. Two guys, both with different experiences on one species of fish. And they aren't that far apart geographically. Other environmental factors must be the determinant and thus nothing is settled. Just more knowledge added.

- thanks Guv DD1.

basf50:

My condolences to you and your framily. By all means take care of your mom first, the pond will always be there.

The bullfrog tadpoles might eat some of the GSH eggs, but at this time of the year, the GSH won't be spawning, so you shouldn't have to worry about that - they only spawn once a year.

BASF50

I too am very sorry about your recent loss. Everything takes a back seat to family - my best to you.

Onto your pond - I'm sorry to keep referencing my BOW's but that's the only experience I have to relate - so I promise I'm not trying to hijack this post!!

I have been placing 6 minnow traps along the edges of my main pond which was stocked with 15 lbs of FHM and around 300 GSH [3-6"]and 1200 PK Shrimp. Stockings occured from Sept 08 to June 09 with only RES, YP, HSB and 1-2" BG as predators. When I checked my traps I was pretty surprised at what I found: Each trap had around 100 organisms - 50% bullfrog tadpoles of varying lengths, 40% GSH from 2-4", and 10% FHM. I was expecting around 80% FHM and 20% GSH.

What have I learned? I had sparce to nonexistent aquatic vegetation at the time of stocking my forage, only pallets and rock for FHM spawning habitat. However, my GSH have obviously flourished, and are present in numbers I find hard to believe. I have also learned that lacking a apex predator I have an overabundance of bullfrogs and bullfrog tadpoles, however, they have not affected my GSH population or recruitment in any manner. My research would suggest to expect good things from GSH reproduction, and I would not fear predation by tadpoles.

GSH only spawn once a year? I has told around 5 times a year and they seem to be spawning now on the mats. I recently read they hatch in 4 to 5 days and have yet to see any signs of.

This info came from the hatchery and was also told that after a White Amur reaches over 24", the can become carnivorous. He told of a recent seminar in Michigan, where the are outlawed, they had evidence of White Amurs with fish skulls in their stomach. Is this true? Again, thanks.

Cheapest fyke net found so far is over a grand... ouch!