Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Nw memb with 1 acre NW MN Stocking ?Crappie/SMB/YP

Hi Everyone,

I am a new member with a 6 year old pond. It's just shy of 1 acre. 15-20 feet in one end and shallower in the other. Very steep grade, with low vegitation. Ground water fed. We have wild waterfowl in the Spring and some diving ducks and occasional other fish hunters - cranes, king fisher etc.

Two years ago we stocked some FH minnows and threw in occasional WE, LMB and SMB. We had aeration in the deep end all year, and through winter until it froze up. We had a large winter kill with approx 80 fish, most were fairly large size. The minnows finally died out as well.

So this year I am starting from scratch again. I plan to get an aerator pump with diffusers in both ends in summer, and run shallow in winter.

I'd like a pond that I can get a meal from occasionally and some light fishing for fun. I don't plan to pellet feed. We are thinking of YP/Crappie/SMB. There is a fishery in our area www.fish4stocking.com/
that recomend this as one of their stocking plans: 50 3-4" SM
50 3-4" WE
200 HBG
200 304" YP
100 Black Crappies
100LB fat head

What is your opinon on this plan, as far as meeting my needs stated above?

Staci, welcome to the forum!

Personally,I would run from that hatchery due to the suggested stocking plan.

There is no where near enough forage fish to feed the predators you want. The 100# of Fatheads is way too high and I would never put in only hybrid bluegill UNLESS I was planning to feed as the HBG will not be able to reproduce very much forage and the offspring they do produce will be very poor in terms of growth in the future.

Crappie in a small body of water are a real gamble to keep under control without heavily fishing the pond also. The WE are Okay, but again, there will be nothing for them to feed on other than an annual YP spawn so the WE will never grow.

If your pond is aerated, I would have to question if the air supply line froze and blocked the air flow as even poor aeration will a pond open in at least a small area where the bubbles break the surface.

I'll let someone else with more knowledge of northern waters chime in on a reasonable stocking plan to help reach your goals, but any 1 acre pond will be very difficult to manage in terms of time if you want Black Crappie in it. This would be a perfect pond for Nate Herman (n8ly here) to suggest a stocking option that will be low maintenance.

Welcome to the forum Staci. Before stocking I would suggest finding out what caused the winter kill so it doesn't happen again.

I don't know if we can be sure why we had winterkill. I would assume due to low oxygen levels? We quit aerating when water hole froze oever, midwinter. And it was only in the deeper end. Our lines may have froze. We also had some extreme temps. -20 -30 below F. I am not quite sure if there is a way to keep lines open/and water hole clear in these kinds of temps? I hear you can pour alcohol down lines to keep from freezing?

I appreciate the quick response and would welcome any suggestions for stocking.

Are you sure all the fish in your pond are dead? You may want to see what you still have as that can strongly dictate exactly what you will want to stock...

I'm not totally sure. What's the best way to tell? We did throw in a couple of LMB and Blue gills last fall, they might still be in there.

Before the kill, we had a hell of a time cathing anything. We were able to cath a few SMB, but that's it. But we really only threw in a handful of fish througout the year, and close to 80 large fish on the surface after winter WE/LMB/SMB. No minnows that we can see yet this year. It seemed like they died out last year, as we couldn't see any and weren't able to sein (sp?)any out last fall either.

Fish a small hook, size 8-10 with a small piece of worm under a small float. That is your best bet to see if any fish are left. A small FHM can also be used in place of the small piece of worm, use a slightly larger hook, say a size 6. If you cannot catch anything with either method after trying some likely spots around the pond, you most likely are fish free.

OK I will give it a shot.

Staci,

Hopefully, our good friend Dr. Dave Willis of SDSU will see this. He, and his students, are the real experts for managed small waters in your region. They've done a lot of research that should answer a lot of your questions.

I certainly don't disagree with the posts above, especially from those of Rainman/Rex.

I have my ideas, but I think that Dr. Dave could provide much better information. It would really help if we knew how far north and west you are in Minnesota. There are a number of distinct regions in Minnesota. Even the differences between Fargo/Moorhead and the Rosseau-Warroad area are quite different.

Yellow perch and walleye probably would be a good choice, but I would certainly have to question the hybrid bluegill, and I'd really have to question the crappie for your size pond. Pure-strain bluegill should do OK with perch and walleye, but I'd be very cautious of putting any kind of crappie into anything less than several tens of acres.

If you are in NW Minnesota, you've got several weeks ahead that allow a really great stocking season. Don't make any rash decisions without a few more opinions.

Regards,
Ken

StaciMN welcome to PB forum, I'll throw my 2 cents in, pumpkinseeds and Golden shiners might provide your predators with a more reliable source of forage, they both are very tolerant to low O2 and cold.
Winter aeration can work well if you move your diffusers to shallow water and run the aerators 24-7, also use atleast a 3/4inch hose from the pump to the diffusers to reduce the possibility of freeze up, some foam pipe insulation from the pump till the hose enters the water helps too, it's worked for me.

For your 1 ac I would nix the blk crappie - too much trouble in a smaller pond. Initially I would not start with too many species. IMO if you want bass then use LMB with BG / HBG or SMB with yellow perch (YP). Don't ever mix LMB and SMB; they don't naturally do well together; LMB always win and quickly crowd out the smallies. Keeping smallies in a LMB pond requires lots of restocking larger SMB.

If you can keep the weeds to a minimum, YP-SMB is a good combination. SMB can control the YP in a low weed pond. Provide spawning substrate for SMB - see old post info here. In spring or fall start with FHM , maybe some crayfish and fingerling YP 200-300/ac. Let the YP grow all summmer then add fingerling SMB 40-60/ac in the fall. YP will spawn the next spring. I don't suggest BG with SMB. BG are too hard for SMB to adequately control.

You could stock YP,FHM, and walleye (WE). With this combination you would probably have to help the WE thin out the smaller YP 3"-5" in there are only 10-25 WE/ac. WE seem to grow slow in a pond setting. You could periodically keep adding a few WE each year (4-8) until they have good control of the YP numbers. Not enough YP for angling, then too many WE, remove some WE. You want WE to grow slow, stay smaller so they eat primarily small YP. WE 13-16" is cleanable for table use. If you use SMB & WE you may not have enough small fish to adequately feed both with out pellet feeding the YP unless overall fish numbers are low.

Another possibility is YP, HBG, WE FHM. I would not add too many HBG maybe 50-80/ac and add more as you harvest them. Another option is FHM,YP,HBG, SMB. I suggest HBG because they produce only a few offspring that the SMB would be able to adequately control. Another possiblity that many do not discuss is the HBG-SMB. A good SMB population should be able to control the limited reproduction of HBG. This could work okay with or without pellet feeding.

As 'apond' mentioned above, punpkinseed sunfish are a possibility for stocking but they are very hard to locate at hatcheries - fish farms; practically no one sells them.

Underwater weeds make it hard for predators to locate preyfish. Don't let weeds get out of hand and not cover more than 25-30% of the pond bottom- best is 10-20% coverage.

If your preferernce is for BG then use LMB with them. LMB will grow bigger and faster if you stock pure BG. LMB will stay smaller sized if you use hybrid bluegill (HBG). I would not mix BG and HBG.

One good thing about your pond is if you don't like the fishery and want to make a change just don't aerate in winter and nature eliminates your fish so you can start over.

Last winter, did you try to remove snow on a regular basis? Keeping 10-20% snow free should do a lot to prevent most winter kills if ice isn't too cloudy. If the airline has dips in it on the way to the pond, those dips will collect condensate water and free solid plugs that prevent air flow.

Thanks Everyone for all of the good info. I think after looking into the YP threads, and seeing the response here, I will go with the FHM, YP and SMB.

"In spring or fall start with FHM , maybe some crayfish and fingerling YP 200-300/ac. Let the YP grow all summmer then add fingerling SMB 40-60/ac in the fall."

As far as the winterkill, we didn't remove snow. At that time we weren't really managing the pond, just doing what we could to help it along.

I am planning on getting a new aerator. Do you suggest diffusers in both ends of pond all summer? Or just 24/7 in the shallow in winter? We will have to be more diligent in removing snow and workging to keep lines from freezing.

I am looking forward to see how it goes. Thanks for all of the great responses.

I also forgot to add that I live in Thief River Falls, approx. 80 miles from Canadian border and 5O miles from ND border.

Neat. Back in the 60s I knew Ron Stordahl, and several others from Thief River Falls, through amateur radio. For many years I've now been authorizing the sending of several million dollars a year to his little company! Does Ron still live there?

Firstly I suggest that you verify those depths of 15-20ft and prove that the depth is not 7-8ft. The shallower the more prone to winterkill. The sugggestion of using 3/4" pipe to the water line was good. In winter IMO you do not need to run the aerator 24/7, IF the frozen area above the diffuser has clear ice and no snow, due to recent refreezing. Restart aerator, reopen the boil zone area when new snow cover appears. However on-off aeration in winter runs the big risk of the check valve not operating properly at the diffuser and allowing water to enter the entire underwater airline. This allows a plug to freeze at the water line thus blocking airflow. To reduce the chance of a frozen plug forming, clean diffuser in fall before ice cover. Aerator should have a pressure relief valve on the manifold to protect the compressor from over pressurizing due to airline plug. Or just run 24/7 if you have the cash to expend for aerator electricity.

For winter operation I would operate one or both diffusers each pulled close together into shallower water 4-6ft. Aeration at this depth can still provide some warmer water refuge at the other end of the pond. Fish will seek their comfort zone. Removng some snow cover at the opposite end of the pond from the aerator would be very beneficial for helping oxygenate the areas at the far end of the pond. Although horizontal aeration currents travel pretty far in a small pond.

If you stock YP-SMB, this fishery combo can be very easily converted to a LMB-BG combo by just adding a few larger BG-LMB. They will do all the rest for almost complete conversion in 3-5 yrs. When you start the restocking process keep us advised of the progress.

Ron is till in town, running his little company.

I believe the depth is more like 12-15 feet and not 15-20ft.

Boyfriend did go out and fish it and got nothing. So we will assume no fish, starting from scratch.

I will keep everyone updated.