Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking I am trying it anyway.

Last fall I stocked my new .5 acre pond with 20 5" walleye, along with some FHM. The following spring I added another 20 about the same size. A month later I added 100 1.5" HBG with about 20 4". A few weeks later I added about 80 5-8" BC. I have been adding gallons of FHM several diffrent times over the summer. I'm counting on the walleyes and HBGs not to spawn much, if at all. I have cought all three species and all have shown considerable growth. BC at 11", Walleye at 10" and HBG at 4". My problem is that I recently have found 1.5" BC in my traps. NOT GOOD. I was hopeing the BC would hold off on spawning until next spring. That would alow Walleye and HBG to develop alittle more size, to control my BC populations. Am I way out of line trying to stock BC useing walleye and HBG as PRED? Pond conditions. 11'deep, LOTS OF FROGS, had some F alge not to bad. Goal is a BC pond with out bass. Thank you for reading this long post and any replies.

You are walking on very thin ice with this fish combination. Pray hard for sub-zero temperatures. Your "schooling" will be forth coming as your pond ages.

You know, I have a hypothesis that catfish fry are best controlled by large numbers of small BG. The CC in my bass-heavy (hence a little short on small BG, by design) pond seem to have had more success at recruiting than is usually reported to be the case. Your pond, with HBG and WE would also be lacking huge number of small Lepomis mouths, hence perhaps the successful BC recruitment.

Theo - Do you suppose MN is talking about his "BC" as channel catfish CC, blue catfish BC, or black crappie BCP? I maybe incorrectly assumed BC to be black crappie. MN correct and enlighten us.

I was assuming he was talking Blue Cats, for which I can at least wildly speculate about wrt my CC. Black Crappie would be an entirely different can of worms that I would have to think hard about and then keep my mouth shut, lest near-total ignorance become painfully obvious.

I also wondered what "BC" stood for as far as a fish.

I think MN Fisherman has talked about Crappie in the pase, so that must be it.

Sorry about that. Yes, I was talking about black croppie. I understand the over population issues that come with croppie. Maybe my choice of preditor isn't aggressive enuff. I have considered addeing 1 12" northern pike to the already unasured mix. This fish would make short work of anything .25 of his size. I'm hopeing. I know, your thinking, "has this guy read anything on this site before?" I'm sure I'm going against all that is pond law, but I realy want quality croppie and realy don't want bass. Thanks, and sorry again for the BC.

MN I thought you were talking about BC black crappie and agree with Bill. Good luck and please keep us posted. If you want to know some more about the subject look at this thread and the links contained in it. A very through discussion of crappie in ponds and more. This info may help you pull this off.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000461

Thanks Ewest. The thread you have provided, gives me hope. It seems that the most commonly used fish to control populations in a pond is bass. I think in a half acre pond, 1 northern pike my help keep things in line. "I know thin ice". Thanks

MN - how about 1 musky instead of a northern? They are a little more warm water tolerant and might do better during the summer months in a small pond.

Thats not a bad idea. I think my local fish guy might even sell them.

If you can get Tiger Musky, I believe they cannot spawn.

MN :

One of the things that you will have to watch is the possibility of the BC dying from the cold. Here is the problem -- if they die your pond goal and the forage for the eyes are gone. If the BC live then you will need predators that can control the large numbers of BC offspring (up to 180,000) per female per year one year and then maybe small #s the next year (large variation of BC spawn from year to year).

You might think about some larger eyes along with the esox. A few adult BG might help as a source of back up forage if you have a BC year class failure and they will also eat BC yoy to 2in. in size. FH will remain important in the mix.

MN will not have to be concerned with n.pike, musky or tiger musky bringing off a spawn where the young survive in his 0.5 are pond. His biggest problem will be keeping adequate sizes and abundance of forage fish to feed his overabundance of predators. I predict that his food chain will keep breaking. Instead of a pike why not periodically drag a seine through the beach or shallow zone to catch and sort fish?

Good point Bill. In a small pond Man can be the balancer if he is willing to do a little work. Seine , trap , catch and keep , sort for the weak and small, supp. feeding or adding forage are all ways to improve and balance your pond.

Certainly, I defer to Bill's input.

I do have a curiosity to hear about someone's experience of having a single pike or musky (or a definite controlled number of the same) in a small pond.

I know one of our newer members has said he believes he has one pike in his pond, but I'm not sure he's certain that there's only one in there.

I know we also have another member in WV IIRC (that one's for you Theo) who has several musky who were feeding on an over-population of carp.

There's a slight novelty factor about having a pike or musky in a pond and I think that connects to an innate desire to treat the pond as a large aquarium. But I very much agree that such a scenario is not easily self sustainable regarding the predator/prey relationship.

I gotta say it would be cool to have a big ugly northern pike patroling the pond. He could be a real suprize for some unsuspecting friends of mine. I would be more than happy to do the work of neting some of the small guys out, if it ment quality fish. I hope the heavy pred population will also keep the croppies down for awhile. It's to late now, already in it "about 11' deep or so". Thanks for the great info.

I don't have a cool saying at the end of my post.

MN, From fishing experiance and reserch with Musky and tigar Musky and pike. I have to say I dont think you will be to happy with that fish in there. For one he will prob not key on the fish you want him to, my guess is the slenderer walleye will be his fist choice, but then when it comes to your other fish spawning, forget it it will terrorize them and hunt shallows all threw spawns. As Musky get bigger they have a tendancy to go after the bigger fish to. I cant tell you how many times we caught 2-4 pound bass with huge bites in them. They will lurk in places where you want your sportfish to be so you cant fish for them, they wont be there because they will be scared to death. The musky and Tmusky have there place but I doubt a .05 acre pond is it.

Sunil and MN - I learned from my experiences with a male and female n.pike in my 3/4 ac pond. I stocked them as around 15"-22" fish. After several years I managed to remove the male fish but the female, as it got large, always either broke or cut my line before I could land it. I would usually hook the pike while fishing for other fish. The last time that I did catch it and get it close to shore it was a large fish, however it managed to thrash near shore and broke the line. You don't lip lift a big pike , and without a net they are sort of hard to land. Anyway this fish finally died probably of old age or heat stress and it was 39" long - impressive fish. Once the pike died, it was not long and I started seeing and catching LMB in the 10"-14" range again. That one pike had a big appetite. Often it would hang around the fish feeding area and you could see her eat bass that were there looking for BG.

Ewest - Yes - "Seine , trap , catch and keep , sort for the weak and small, supp. feeding or adding forage are all ways to improve and balance your pond." These are very good ways to help the predators maintain a balance. More pondowners should do it.

Thanks Bill. I liked hearing about that.

Can anyone find an old post I made about a guy in New Jersey who caught a large musky while shore fishing?

I'll try to re-post it. It's just like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, repeatedly.

EDIT: Dude was from Maryland. Here's the link:
http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=002132

Sunil and Others - now you understand why I said "You don't lip lift a big pike, and without a net they are sort of hard to land." In fact if you are not real careful it can be dangerous like the angler in your link discovered. Once they are landed, I have seen large pike thrash about pretty wildly in the bottom of a boat. Any exposed hooks are weapons on a thrashing fish.