Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Can you overstock forage?

Mark, I believe they are actually GSH, but Zett's calls them Silver Shiners. There was a brief discussion on this very issue some time ago and the opinion was that it may just be a marketing angle with the fish. GSH, as I understand it, are actually only gold during their spawning cycle. Every GSH I've ever seen has been silver, so obviously I've never seen them during spawning. You'd be safe getting them, I think.

Hey Mark...I've got a couple of guys from my club helping out,excellent fisherman, we are all self employed and can devote a minimum of 50 trips each this year. I normally have my wife in the boat with me(excellent fisherperson!), Tom(knucklehead) takes his brother and Wes(t-bone) takes his dad. At 8+ hrs per trip that works out to 3200 man-hours. Our goal is to take out every LMB under 14". What a miserable task but someones gotta do it!! We're in upstate SC just about a driver and a 2 iron south of Charlotte NC. These peolple aren't your cliche shopping buggy/ living under the bypass homeless people...they're "neuvo-poor". Mostly proud hard working people that just got caught in the housing meltdown and double digit unemployment. And yes we usually fillet them on board with a DC electric knife and take them to the shelters on ice. Thanks for your interest/replies...keep us/me posted on your pond and those crayfish!

That's a great way to do it. I always feel guilty about killing my 10-12" LMB. I usually stick a knife in their brain and throw them back for the CC. Since I don't have any catfish(hope) i guess I will eat them myself.

It is a real shame about how many people are still hurting. We have been luckier, economy wise than most of the country around here. There was an article in the paper about this 67 yr. old black couple that is about to lose their house ( very dilapidated) to foreclosure and they only owe $5000 on it. amazing.

Thanks Todd. I am rebuilding the forage base on the pond trying to give the transplanted fish something to eat. I measured some LMB yesterday and the 10-13" fish are weight and length proportionate. The 18" LMB are only 2.3-2.5 lbs. I would have thought the larger bass would have out competed the smaller ones for the limited forage?

Mark I looked up silver shiners and they are stream and river dwellers and also need moving water to spawn, if that's what Zett's is selling they probably won't reproduce in your pond.

Zett's calls them silver shiners, but they are indeed GSH... As Todd said, it's just their marketing strategy.

Interesting. Zett's has all ponds on their property to the best of my knowledge> Thanks for the reply.

OK Mark, will that be 50 or 100 pounds of GSH.

I'll take 50lbs please

Mark:

There was once enough forage for those LMB to get to that size, but not enough to sustain them at that size. The larger LMB are expending more energy for smaller bites of food, something that would be called "going on a diet" for us humans. Unfortunately, they were forced on the diet for too long of a long time, and lost too much weight.

Over the 3 year period I've had this pond, I've probably stocked minimum 300-400 Lbs of adult GSH with no establishment. If I had the cash (which I don't), I would stock 50 Lb/week of GSH Mid April through May, then I might have a fighting chance of establishing them, although last summer, I culled quite a few LMB and CC so I might be in better shape.

Sometimes no matter how many of a certain species you stock, if the habitat isn't right for them, they will never establish... Are there the correct areas for the GSH to spawn, the correct spawning material, the correct brooding areas, etc... If one or more of these are limited or missing, then they probably will never establish, even with more limited predation.

It's probably not perfect but I think they could spawn if they could stay alive long enough. I mean, I dump these guys in and the pond instantly comes alive, it's a blood bath, the shiners haven't a clue about predation. If anyone thinks their LMB pond is dead and boring, stock 50 Lbs of adult GSH; then sit back and enjoy your new pond (for a week or so)

I can believe it... Hatchery raised fish are dumber than a box of nails too. I've had better luck stocking smaller number of wild born fish as they grew up with big things trying to eat them.

SK63 you might try adding alot of temporary structure before stocking adult GSH, small tree's or large branches, particularly evergreens can be laid around edges of your pond with rope tied around one end and staked, this way later on you can pull them out when you have permanent structure.
I did this for the first 2 years of my pond and have a large GSH population established, I don't have LMB but the trout enjoy the shiners.

As we drew the big pond down and the water got scarcer the LMB had a feast on the exposed forage. Then we put them in a small pond full of frogs and stuff but no fish and they had another feast. Then when the big pond filled up after we reworked it we put them back(last fall) and I stocked 1000 FHM ang 400 little BG for feed. The water got cold quickly so they never had a chance to fatten up.

All in all I am amazed at the survivors and their relative health after 2 major transplants by hand and buckets. The goal was to save as many of the older fish as possible and in this we succeeded.

I just put another 2000 FHM and 3-4" BG in last week. If even 20% survive predation I feel by the fall things will begin to stabilize. I am going to add more FHM and BG later this month for the last time.