Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Yellow Perch/Smallmouth or Largemouth Bass???

If it was me I'd first pick the fatties and then probe 'em with a tube to be sure. I posted something on that here once.

Are you picking the females because of ease of identification Cecil or because you feel they control BG better, or both?

I'd lean towards the females, they get bigger, therefore they should need more food, plus they should have a larger gape as well.

TJ:

If you get too tired to make it to Cecil's, there's an extra room here as well.

Thanks guys - I appreciate the offers! Having a pond with 12" RES and CSBG, 20" SMB, 15" YP, 28" HSB and a bonus 6-7 lb LMB is not a bad prospect.

sexing LMB:

Attempts have
been made to sex adult largemouth bass by looking at the shape of the scaleless area around the
urogenital opening. The scaleless area tends to be more or less circular in males and more elliptical in
females. This method frequently leads to misidentification of sex. Sexing of brood fish can be done in
LARGEMOUTH BASS WHITE PAPER (MARCH 29, 2000) PAGE 5
the spring prior to spawning when the female has a distended abdomen, and a red swollen protruding
vent. The males may be emitting milt. The most accurate way to sex largemouth bass is to insert a
small tube into the vent and look for eggs or milt.

I think I'll go with the latter approach.

Better safe than sorry... Once you goof up, there is no return!

If I was raising green carp (which I'm not anymore) I would pick the females because they reach larger trophy size (or at least this is the general consensus.) However if one is using them to control smaller fish perhaps the males would be a better choice?

Been there done that! Accidentally dropped one male perch in female only yellow perch pond before the last drain down. I ended up with several hundred 6 to 7 inch perch later in the year. Stupid me I was checking to see if the mesh size was right on a cage to keep him in, and he jumped out of my hand!

Fortunately there was silver lining, as I had to drain the pond down anyway (due to dyke damage by five star moles, which wasn't as bad as I thought.) I recovered many of them, put them in a cage with feed trained perch of similar size. Most of them are now veracious pellet feeders.

The search function works well. Here are 3 prior threads on sexing LMB and or BG including pics.

I agree with CB1 on the female LMB. This is especially true if they are Fla's or F-1s or F-X's.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=103605&fpart=1


http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post156959

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post171624

This is great Eric, thank you.

Service with a .

Hi,

I live in southern Indiana. I have a 1.65 acre pond. It has steep slopes the depth down the middle from one end of the pond to the other is 24 feet. It is half full. No fish. I love fishing. I want to be able to get a good system together. I would love yellow perch, smallmouth, redear, catfish, and because of the depth put and take rainbow. I don’t even know if this is all possible or feasible. I will regularly take out the channel cats. Basically I don’t want fish I can go catch on every other pond in a 2 mile area. I want to know where to start how to stock etc. I know it’s a tall order but I have read a lot on this forum and others. Hopefully someone can get me going on when to add forage fish etc and if this combination would even work. Thank you in advance.

Put small forage (FHM, Gambusia, perhaps GSH) this year. Stock the rest next year.

What stocking amounts, also will the combination work? Thank you. Nervous about doing it right is an understatement. Lol

Hello Smalllunker. You might be better off making your own thread to discuss the questions you have asked. This thread is from 11 years ago. You have some interesting goals in mind and I'm curious to see how it all pans out. Sounds exciting.

If you want SMB that spawn, it's best to build spawning structure now before the pond fills. Can't hurt to dump in some FHM now, but get them from a reputable supplier to avoid stocking problem fish contaminating the FHMs. I have a 1-acre pond with SMB and YP with FHM, GSH, lake chubsucker, and papershell crayfish in it. Only added 20 total SMB (10 in 2 consecutive years), but they spawned. Some big SMB in the pond now. I stocked light and was patient about getting the forage base established before adding the SMB.