Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Bluegill

I have a 2 acre pond with YP and LMB, with moderate to heavy weeds. My purpose for the pond is a good LMB pond. Fish are around 8-10 inches now. Should I add bluegill to the mix?

LMG?

BB?

Sorry about that guys, LMB!

LMB are known to heavily feed on both species YP and BG, I would say it would be OK to add BG to the mix but they may compete with the perch for food, wait for an expert to see this thread.

It is difficult to grow good sized LMB without BG. For the most part BG are the back bone of almost any LMB fishery. I think you will find over time, your LMB will remove your YP without annual or biannual stocking of larger fish, say 7-8"+. Adding BG is a good idea if growing nice sized LMB is your goal...

How about some Golden Shiners, Travis? Or is MT Emerald Shiner territory?

I absolutely love a pond without bluegill in it just because it is so rare to find! Would supplemental feeding the pond with Aquamax 600 be an option for you?

Good thinking...Nothing but fat YP and LMB lining up along the feeders. Maybe a dozen HSB to make things more interesting...

Emerald shiner don't reproduce in ponds, so they aren't a viable forage fish. Not completely sure what cyprinids would be native to MT and suitable for pond forage. I am not sure GSH are native to MT. If legal to stock they could work. Ideally, pellet trained YP and LMB would produce the most reliable fishery...

Well none of the fish are trained, how do you train them, I wouldnt mind feeding some pellets but dont really want to spend the money if they wont eat them. If you start feeding pellets and the fish take to them, will you have to feed them for the rest of time or do the fish eat pellets and natural. what about winter!

You purchase pellet trained fish from a hatchery and fin clip them for later ID. As you fish, remove all not pellet trained fish leaving the pellet trained ones behind. This can be difficult to do in an already established pond though. Ideally it's best to start with pellet trained fish at initial stocking. LMB can sometimes learn to feed on pellets later in life but this is generally under poor crowded conditions where they are starved. I am not aware of YP learning to eat pellets in pond conditions if not trained early on as fingerlings.

Pellet trained fish will eat natural feed. This includes winter time when pellets cannot be fed, plus the metabolism of fish in the winter is so low, most species aren't doing much feeding anyways. YP may be an exception to this but they can and will feed on natural feeds during the iced over months.

So that situation seem time consuming and difficult. My Problem is i live in the middle of nowhere and it is difficult to even get fish much less pellet trained fish. I am over 3 hours from any fishery and I think it only has trout.

Going back to your initial post, yes add as large a BG as you can procure if your goal is a good LMB pond. YP alone will almost never produce a good LMB pond.

Interesting Tidbit From our Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.
Bluegill often overpopulate in northern latitudes when stocked
with largemouth bass due to slow growth of largemouth bass, high survivability of age-0 bluegill,
and earlier age of maturation of bluegill. Growth of largemouth bass is slow in Montana ponds and
reservoirs because they usually provide limited fisheries and do not reproduce well in
because of the short growing season (100-180 days). It is generally recommended to stock
largemouth bass without a forage fish in Montana, as the juveniles will act as the forage fish.
Sometimes fathead minnows are recommended as a forage base for largemouth bass.

Yes, this is where many often go wrong for the region their pond is in. In GA or TX for example, one can stock BG well in advance of LMB and still obtain excellent results. It is actually good to give BG a head start in most cases in the far south. You try that in northern areas and IME most middle latitude states and you're asking for stunted sunfish and bass that never can keep up and do poorly. Much of this depends on your goals as well, but we're assuming a balanced fishery, but original stocking is IME often the same for different goals it is the management of the stocking that produces those goals.

This scenario assumes you are starting with LMB and BG in the same general size range. Generally common stocking size fish are in the 2"-3" range. Stocking different sized fish can change everything. This is why it is important to not only give a number of fish to stock but also the size they should be...

I really like to start off with forage fish that aren't spiny. For example the commonly stocked GSH and FHM, giving them at least a year to reproduce after stocking depending on the original number of these fish stocked per acre. FHM are absoluely essential for this, GSH are optional depending on goals. After that 1 year or sometimes more, I then stock the 2"-3" LMB and give them at least another year of growth. This means they are usually 6"-8" the following season and if things went well, many should be 8" with some pushing 10". If you stock advanced size LMB, you can cut out that year waiting period as the LMB will already be big enough to handle the addition of BG. I really like my LMB to be 8"+ before I stock my BG. Then I stock 3"-4" BG. Usually by this time, the bass have removed most if not all of the FHM. 3"-4" BG are usually on the cusp of maturity and are close if not already capable of spawning. I really want to time this first spawning of BG with the same year my originally stocked LMB begin spawning. The BG begin spawning just in time to feed the newly born LMB as the FHM are now gone. The new baby bass are now able to heavily prey on the small BG and the original stockers are big enough to feed on the many BG who survive the YOY bass predation, becoming too big for them but not too big for the original stockers who have no trouble feeding on 2"-3" BG. This most likely will lead to hungry stunted bass in southern states, but has worked quite well in the Mid Atlantic up into the northeast where I have tried it. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for you in MT.

Also, it's important to understand when fish reach maturity. There are many variables to when each species reach maturity to keep in mind though. Nothing is an absolute.

Generally in northern areas:
BG mature at about 1 year of age and 3"-4".
LMB mature at about 3 years of age and 9"-12".

Again, there are a piles or factors that affect this. In populations of BG where food is abundant, they may reach 6" by their first year. They could be 6" by early October, certainly large enough to be mature but not sexually mature yet. However, by spring and 1 YOA they'll be ready to spawn. Or you could have an extremely dense population of BG where food is extremely limited. A BG in this pond could only be 1" by early October and may not reach sexual maturity until it is 2 years old at 3". This is rarely the case in new ponds though as fish density is low and food is usually quite abundant.