Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Too many Yellow Perch?

Need some more advice. Original plan was BG/RES/YP/SMB in my new .7 acre pond. I put in 50 RES 3" , 50 BG 3", 30 BG 4-7" and FHM in early June. I added 25 YP 5-8" in July. I was going to add SMB 3-4" this fall. Goal is YP and SMB for the table, low maintenance as possible.
A buddy called me in early September - had some more YP - did I want them? I said yes go ahead and put them in but count and measure them (I was not home).
Turned out there were 112 fish from 5 to 9" heavy on the 8 and 9". Oops.
So the question is did I put in too many YP? I am thinking if I put in small SMB now they will all get eaten.
Could I just wait and see what happens with the YP as the dominant predator? I am concerned that the YP will not be able to keep the BG in check by themselves.
If I do have a problem it won't be until next year. But would I be better off trying to locate some larger SMB and get them in there now? If so how big? I am thinking they would need to be at least 6" to survive.
Would adding SMB next year be just as effective?
HSB might be easier to obtain. Thoughts?

Sounds like it's time to do a little ice fishing. I think a nine inch YP may be the best table fare ever invented. I'd harvest some of those new fish, and start putting harvest pressure on female bluegill next spring. My ponds are similar size so I don't think you have too much to worry about. There is a very good chance that you might have some YP reproduction next spring, so I'm sure that's where your concern comes in. Will you be feeding your fish? If so, then your YP will probably subsist on pellets and YOY bluegill. An 8-9 inch YP doesn't have a very big mouth so if you stock HSB or SMB that are bigger than that mouth I think a pellet fed YP won't harass them too much, then these predators will survive to, in turn, pressure any YOY YP. I'd be careful about waiting too long to introduce a predator because your YP could get out of hand. IIRC, the YP have the potential to become stunted. (I think BCody has made mention of this at least once. Somebody should know the relationship between perch mouth size and prey size because my YP mouths are tiny. I personally think that SMB will be a better predator on YP than HSB would be. HSB are kind of casual predators. An individual attack by an HSB is a vicious thing, but as a whole, HSB don't exert a lot of pressure on bluegill, or I assume yellow perch, like LMB or SMB would.

YP do overpopulate and cause problems. They will pressure BG yoy and YP yoy. BG over 3 in. will also pressure YP yoy. I would do as Bruce suggested plus put in a few adult SMB . You may well have to many adult YP able to spawn next spring. My guess (but not sure) is that the June 8 in. and Sept. 8-9 in. YP will spawn next spring. Will check on that.

All the YP will be capable of spawning April 2007. Assuming the YP came from a hatchery, then smaller YP 5"-7" were mostly males and larger ones 7"-9" were mostly females. If they were from a mixed wild population then youprobably got close to a 50:50 male female ratio. If from a hatchery removing the larger perch between now and spring will result in lowering the male to female ratio which could be good or bad - depending. I don't think you have too many YP for an ititial stocking. Fatheads from earlier stocking should be common to abaundant.

Next steps will depend on if YP were pellet trained and if they were eating pellets this fall. Non pellet eating YP will not likely return in a large pecentage to eating pellets. Non-pellet eating YP as adults are diffciult to train to eat pellets. Non-pellet eating YP will in themselves be predators on YOY fish because the BG and RES have very likely depleated or greatly reduced the invertebrate numbers thus forcing YP to be more piscivorous. My experience says that the size of YP that you have, will not put heavy predation pressure on a fall stocking of fingerling SMB at 3"-4" unless the minnow numbers are quite low. Fatheads overall will be much more abundant and easier to catch for YP than SMB. If you have ample fatheads then almost all SMB will face low predatory pressure untill the fathead numbers are low. By then hopefully the fingerling SMB will be a little larger and adapted to your pond setting. To be conservative you might want to stock 10%-15% more SMB numbers and then thin them if necessary when they are 8"-10" long and BG,RES and YP recruitment is too low. Expect to see fatheads dissappear in 2007. I recommmend a fall stocking of SMB if you have YOY minnows. If fathead numbers are relatively low then stock 10-30 lbs of fatheads with the SMB fingerlings. Locating SMB in spring can be quite difficult, stock now while they are readily available.

As previously mentioned, SMB will probably control BG and RES better than HSB. Always keep a close watch on the BG-RES numbers (2"-3") and manual thinning may be necessary esp one or two yrs after a poor SMB hatch. Do not harvest SMB until you notice recruitment of BG is lacking. Assuming forage fish densities are fairly equal SMB will forage on YP and minnows before BG or RES.

Question -- with 130+- BG/RES and 137 +- YP in a .7 acre pond which will spawn in the spring with no predator fish capable of eating them will they overpopulate the pond? While there may be enough adult YP , BG/RES and small SMB to put a dent in next springs yoy , if you add in FH and pellets I don't know. A tricky balance question. I would watch it closely as I would not want to be to far behind the forage curve with 2 populations of forage fish with known tendencies to overpopulate and stunt. The good part is the initial predators should have plenty to eat and it should be easy enough to remedy the problem in a pond that size.

As an addendum to Bill COdy's post:

Given that FHM are pretty cheap and SMB are relatively expensive, perhaps it would be a good idea to do a sacrificial stocking of Fatheads just ahead of adding any fingerling SMB at this time.

ewest - note that I mentioned in the post above - Always keep a close watch on the BG-RES numbers (2"-3") and manual thinning may be necessary. Manual thinning could include periodic seining the beach area or trapping. Small BG & YP readily enter wire mesh fish traps. Another idea to reduce numbers of YOY nest spawners is after a first nest spawn or the earliest BG spawn cycle periodically drag a wide pond rake through the beach area to reduce the number of successful BG-RES nests. Raking could also be performed on only a portion of the beach area to reduce the number of successful nests. If tree brush limbs are placed in several of the shore line areas (6"-24" deep) along the steep pond sides in late March YP eggs can be harvested daily and not allowed to hatch. Brush can then be removed in late April-May when YP are done spawning. This will dramatically reduce the numbers of YOY perch for that year. Trapping and seining can control the remaining YOY. There is a guy near me with a 0.5 ac pond that practically decimated his YP population by continuously trapping the YOY perch and harvesting the adults.

AATW may want to stock two sizes of SMB - fingerlings and subadults in the 5"-8" range. The problem is that 5"-8" SMB are very difficult to locate.

NOTE: To other new pond owners thinking of using the BG, RES, and YP combination, I personally would not add BG until the predators are established. One can stock RES with YP but cut back on the RES numbers. Add more RES later if necessary. It is much easier to add fish than remove them when you have too many fish. Since YP are a slender bodied fish it is very rare for them to become overabundant and stunted if predator numbers are adequate. The usual exception is when the pond has too much rooted vegetation and young YP have too many places to hide and predators cannot easily locate small YP.

The YP are all wild from Pymantuning Lake not too far from here. I did not plan on pellet feeding. I have a "maybe" line on some fingerling SMB but no source as of yet for anything larger. If I can get the smallies I will also get some more FHM. I have not seen many FHM since I put them in - I was wondering if the BG cleaned up on them already? The biggest BG that went in was 7-8". I caught one in August that was over 10".
Would 100 fingerling smallmouth be about right? along with 10lb of FHM just to keep the perch off the smallies?
No doubt I will be "behind the forage curve" for a couple of years. Hopefully the larger YP will help keep some control of both the panfish and the additional YP. There is a bit of brush and logs along with rocks and plants. I will watch for YP ribbons and BG nests in the beach and see if I can be an additional control.

OH yeah - I will also harvest some of the larger YP as Brucd suggested. I have tried tossing in some pellets (TSC) but the YP have shown no interest. The BG eat some but are not really very interested in the pellets either. Often the swim right up to a pellet and decide not to take it. Other times they take it and spit it out.
My back up plan (next year) would be to add some LMB but I would prefer not too - rather have the SMB. I have 4 LMB in my small pond that are around 10-12" last I saw one 2 months ago. How hard is it to determine the sex of LMB? I could put in either only male or only female if I was very confident of my ability to sex them.

Asleep - existing brush is probably too deep and inaccessable for removing YP egg strands. Temporary or removeable brush makes eggs easier to see and egg removal much easier. Fenders Fish Hatchery south of you near Charm usu has a few fingerling SMB in late fall: now to early Nov. Call for details.

Wild YP will be very difficult to ever get to eat pellets so count on them eating a fair amount of smaller fish. Your existing batch of YP and MAYBE to a small extent the larger BG probably ate a lot of the FHM. I would add 20 lbs of FHM - maybe 10 lbs early and 10 lbs when SMB are added. 10LBS of FHM will not last long with 137 adult YP. Getting the proper harvest rate of larger YP will be tricky. This will depend on how well the SMB are recruiting individuals each year.

Sexing LMB for the novice without training is difficult. Best way for a novice is to catch the LMB during spawn season and obvious presence of eggs or milt indicates sex.

Your problems of YP and RES will not be great in several years. Numbers of BG could be another story. I predict that any offspring from LMB will eventually result in them being the dominat predator. If you get offspring from LMB and unless you carefully manipulate the fishery, I predict in 6-10 yrs you will have an essentially BG-LMB pond. In my experiences perch do not "THRIVE" in SMALL, weed sparse, ponds for the long term with reproducing LMB unless the fishery is carefully manipulated.

Bill thanks for the comments and I agree with them and am stressing the "BALANCE" part of them. BTW the pond AATW is talking about has no LMB. The LMB are in his other pond.

AATW I would do what Bill has described. I would not put the LMB in , if at all, for a couple years. I think you can work through this without them and have a nice SMB/YP/BG/RES pond . You may need to add some FH yearly and work on keeping it in balance but that should be doable.

I edited Asleep At the Wheel's title of this "thread" to include - yellow perch instead of just perch. Southern pondowners often refer to sunfish types as perch. I thought adding detail to the title would save some confusion.

Ewest - okay on AATW's 4 LMB I fixed my post immediately above with LMB in it.

Bill I called the fish farm near Charm & New Bedford OH - he has 50 customers waiting for SMB including me. He said they are very scarce in the "mideast". I tried calling Zetts in Pa. after 5 pm - no answer. The place in Western NY you suggested I call got flushed out by the big rains this past summer and were still in recovery mode. Anybody have any source of SMB this month?

Scott:

You can try Jones Fish down Cincinnati way. I know Greg Grimes checked with them last month about SMB for a customer of his in (Indiana?); he thought they were pricey but I don't think availability was a problem.

Try Zett's during normal business hours. When I've called, it seems more like your calling a household vs. calling a business. I want to say that they are in Drifting, PA., and the number should have an 814 area code. I have the number in an old date book if you need it.

I never did end up ordering from them as my fish guy was able to come up with some smallies from another source. I don't think that other source is still viable.

Also do not forget to try Bryon Bezdek of Aquatic Management at Lisbon OH near you. 330-227-3242. If you are lucky Byron may have a few SMB this fall. SMB can get difficult to locate thus the higher price. If SMB are hard to find this fall what are your chances to find some SMB in the spring - scarse as "hens teeth".

I just spoke to Byron. His smallies are all gone for this year. His next batch should be available in Fall '07. From what I understood, he spawns them and grows them in his own pond. They are usually around 4" long when he sells them which is really pretty good.

Advice needed quick. I have located a source for some smallies and now need to put the order together. To make the minimum for free delivery I need to order $150 which is not hard to do.
They have SMB in two sizes: 3-4" for $3.95 and 5-8" for $8.50. I was thinking 10 of each plus 10 lb. of FHM ($82.50).
Reasoning being I am confident the bigger ones will be too large for the up to 10" yellow perch to eat. I would like to have another class to follow if possible and I am thinking the FHM will give the smaller ones a chance. I do have some structure - brush, rocks, plants, logs to hide in. Also I am hoping 10 of each will make sure I have some of both sexes so I get recruitment from the SMB.
Lastly I thought I might also get some HSB (8-10") to help hold down the panfish and an occasional "big fight" while fishing down the road. I was thinking of maybe 4 to 6.
Let me know if I am on the right track and the numbers are ok or need adjusted.

I think I would add 20 - 25 lbs of FH , hold off on the HSB till next fall and add a few more of each size SMB. If there are extra $s 4-6 HSB would be ok but for now better spent on SMB up to 20 of each and FH.

Asleep, Ouch on those SMB prices!!!! When I got my 3-5" fish about 1.5 years ago, they were $1.25 - $1.50 each. Did the gas prices hit the fish business that hard as well????

Here is where I went.
General Page:
http://www.fingerlakesaquaculture.com/Index.html

Price Page:
http://www.fingerlakesaquaculture.com/2005PriceList.html

He does ship via UPS and others. I picked mine up but never had a problem with any of them.

Thanks ewest, I am ordering 20, 20, 20# for now. HSB can come next trip.
Eric - I guess it is supply and demand. I called fingerlakesquaculture and had to leave a recorded message. Thanks for the connection - I will wait until tomorrow to order just in case. Appreciate you looking out for me.

No Prob Asleep!! I wish you the best of luck!! I was just taken aback a bit by the prices. If you ever need any other fish the person I listed above was great and did not try to see me anything more than what I wanted or needed. And the I never lost a one of them. All went in healthy and have grown out tons!!!

Asleep is probably getting his fish from Jones Fish Hatchery - Newtown OH. They have a policy of free delivery with a $150 order. Considering delivery is included and SMB are pretty scarse this fall, esp those larger than 5" the price is high but if fish survive then money was well spent. One always pays a premium for SMB. I think with fatheads present the 3"-4" SMB will survive okay. I think the 10" YP will mostly target the fish in the 2"-2.5" size range. Since Asleep in June put in 30 BG in the 4"-7" range, he should also have some YOY BG to help as forage and take even more predatory pressure off the 3"-4" SMB.

Asleep - If it was me I would reduce the FHM by approx 5-10 lbs and in their place get approx 5-10 lbs of golden shiners from Jones FH. They will do good as long term forage for YP and SMB.

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