Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Stocking Coppernose

We have an 80 acre lake in central Alabama that has some very deep water (40') in several places. We also have an underweight Bass problem due to our inability to remove Bass under 15". Next Spring we plan several shockings to remove Bass, creating more cover and structure for our fish, increased fertilizing (using liquid fert), and restocking Coppernose to provide a solid food source for our Bass. Currently we have a fair population of CNB but they are all brooders because of the lack of cover. We currently run 11 feeders. So after all that how many Coppernose do you think we should stock?

How overcrowded are the LMB? What is their condition ? Do you see lots of 3-4 inch CNBG ? Are there any other forage species ? What is your goal for the lake ?

Thanks for your reply ewest, electro evaluations suggest we remove 1k every year until "balanced". Bass removed have a relative weight of 90 and a psd of 68. Not many CNBG in the 3-4 range due to lack of cover. There is a fair population of shad but even this has declined due to our inability to keep a heavy bloom going. At one time there were a decent population Golden Shiners but I'm afraid they have been consumed. Our goal is a trophy F-1 lake and also to increase our Bass population to where we catch 20 Bass on an average trip. We have not met these goals as of yet, but we are going to give it our best shot in 2012.

You will need more forage and an understanding of what a trophy LMB lake means. Everything following in this post is based on the assumption that you want a trophy LMB lake (not a balanced fishery). Suggest you call the Pond Boss office and order the book Raising Trophy Bass.

What is the cause of not being able to keep a bloom ? I have not seen a long term successful trophy LMB lake without shad and including gizzard shad which I rarely suggest. Many threads here on the topic. It can be done without shad but requires supplemental stocking of lots of forage in the right size (read that as high cost).

The shad are very high value forage for LMB and in the right situation (lots of big 20 inch + trophy LMB required) and properly managed gizzard shad will work. Shad make the lake more productive as they use the part of the lake that the BG are not effectively using.

If your shad and GShiner populations are declining you have a growing problem that I don't think you can fix with just CNBG/BG if you really want a trophy LMB lake.

IMO if you want a trophy LMB lake you are going to have to fill the lake's capacity to grow forage (big forage) which will require BG/CNBG and an pelagic (open water) forage fish (shad , shiners) as well. Another good option would be tilapia in addition to shad and BG. All of that would be in addition to removing at a minimum of 20 lbs of LMB per acre per year (1600 lbs.) mostly from the 10-12 inch size group and as the LMB size scale moves up then from the over populated class size.

One other point (method) of raising trophy LMB is with feed trained LMB and feeding them with LMB pellets (trout mimic nutritionally) as well as natural forage.

What did the shocking report suggest ?

Why is that? I second the suggestion to get the book. Be cautious of the Gizzard shad. If the LMB aren't large enough to eat them, they can overpopulate the lake.

I normally stock 200-700 intermediate (3-5") coppernose per acre into lakes that have an overcrowded bass population. How much depends on the the situation. This is usually coupled with a harvest plan that is much higher than what you have stated, especially for a fertilized and fed 80 acre lake. It is hard to say with any certainty though, without doing an electrosurvey and seeing the results.

-HH

Thanks guys, ewest to answer your question on the algae bloom, I think we just didn't use enough granular fert to keep an 18 to 24" bloom. I have found out that liquid fert is more expensive but much more efficient to use in a large deep lake like ours. PS I'm ordering The trophy Bass book today.

We have made a promise in 2012 to expend all of our lake budget to try and get turned in the right direction. Here is what I think are the most important issues listed below in order of priority:

Evaluate once and shock additional two or three times to remove undersized Bass.

Lime to help balance ph, liquid fert to keep bloom 18 to 24".

Create cover, Christmas trees, drop trees on shoreline, and create at least 10 concrete block structures.

Increase forage as budget will allow. Stock additional CNB, Threadfins (I'm afraid of Gizzards), and possibly Talapia.

Continue feeding existing Bream in lake.

What do you guys think about this?

I wish your 80 acre lake was in Texas and you were wanting to generate some income to offset the cost of all this forage.

I think the 1000 fish harvest is probably way to low for a overpopulated lake that is on a feeding and fertilization program. Removing 3200 to 4000 LMB per year would be more in the neighborhood. Liming the lake provided your alkalanity is out of whack would be huge to hold your bloom. But, you better hold onto your wallet to properly lime an 80 acre lake. Adding forage is great, but harvesting the smaller fish is a lot less expesnive and can have dramatically postive impact. If their is money left over, after liming and fertilizing I would vote for Tilapia, Gizzard Shad or Threadfin before more bluegill. The Bluegill popultion will come back in the right size classes if you can take pressure off of the existing bluegill through additional forage species. I keep mentioning costs, because you can money whip the lake and get results, or you can spend a lot less and still get some great results. Harvest and get your water right and the forage can wait.

In Al, Lime should run less than $8/ton, spread. T-fin shad and replacement forage will be pricey, but easily accomplished in your area. My worry is that with so little plant cover, your stockings are going to just be expensive fish food and never establish. Tilapia would be a huge plus for you and your goals. Tilapia will go the farthest in increasing your LMB growth and overall water quality/fish health, and at the best price than any other correction suggested.

I'm with salex and the others on far more small LMB being removed...plus removing ANY (large or small) LMB that appears less than very healthy.

Rex where in the world are you getting these lime prices? Lime in bulk delivered in most of the SE is $23-$32/ton. If you got a source of $8 please let me know about it. In additon you have the cost of spreading lime on top of the lime cost.

I suggest kingfish if alkalnity is less than 15 ppm to lime at a rate of 4 tons/acre. This is a big project. Love to see if we can be of service. It is pricey to do the lime correctly when talking about 80 acres. However if done right it may be good for 3-4 years.

Also have you tried water soluble fertilizer it is easier to apply than liquid and it might come out cheaper as well as more productive. Due to different water quality requirments we are leaning to a two prong approach of using both a liquid and our 10-52-4 water souble. Seems nitrogen limtied is much more common than once thought thus the reason for liquid use at times.

What type fish food are you using? That will make a difference as well on bluegill growth to aid in bass growth. I suggest cover being close to your 11 feeders.

I agree wiht Salex 1000 lbs is a low target number for 80 acres. You might be saying trophy bass and meaning quality bass. If shooting for 20 bass/day of 3-5 lbs with occasional trophy I call that quality bass. Trophy would be a couple bass a day but pushing double digits or more.

To answer your original question it really does depend. Many times with low bluegill we try to harvest bass first, add cover, then come back with 250 4-5 inch cnbg/acre to more quickly built back their populaiton. We have went as high as 1000/acre if budget allowed.

Good luck let us know if you have further questions, good plans so far.

When I have priced liming in Texas it is about $25.00 a ton for the lime. Add $25.00 to $75.00 a ton to spread it, depending on who and the equipment used. Even at rock bottom prices of $50 a ton (which I doubt you can really find) applied at 5 tons per acre you are looking at $20,000. Reality is that it is closer to $30k or more to lime a lake of this size.

Kind of weird. But I wanted to comment on my own post. Wow that is a first.

Like Greg mentioned, the lime lasts 3 to 4 years. I've also heard as long as 5 or 6 years. But lets take 4 years as an average. That is about $7,500 a year; which seems more pallatable than $30k. I know it is semantics, but it sounds a whole lot better.

Just curious, would it be a total waste to just fertilize a portion of the lake, say 50% on the side in which the planktom gets blown to? I know the pitfalls of cutting corners, but is something better than nothing, or is it a case of do it completely or don't do it at all?

You really have to do the whole thing. Since the fertilizer mixes with the water there is no realistic way to keep it in one area. It is not expensive. A 25lb bag of water soluable fertilizer ($40-$50) covers about 4 acres of water. Usually a few applications a year gets a bloom during the growing season.

You can fertilize in less than all the water and in a less than the called for amount . The results are better than nothing but not optimum. Example if the visibility goes from 46 inches to 34 inches it is not optimum but is still a lot better than staying at 46.

As an FYI larger lime projects cost less per acre than smaller ones. We lime ponds but for a 10 ton job travel with the barge, linning up a tractor for loading etc. it will be minimum $50/ton. For a larger 100 ton job it is more of the $35/ton variety and for a job like this where 300 tons is more involved it is $30/ton or maybe less. Yes you need to look at this as a capital investment that pays divendedns over a 4 year period. My guess would be 300 ton job for kingfish would cost about $16,000 so annual cost of $4000 or $50/acre/yr.

We have modified fertilization schedules. Some clients have excessive water so the program does not start until June ( nromally March or April) others do not want the look of 18 inches of visiblity. So they are not maximizing the produciton level but improving it.

To me the key is consistency you dont want to haphazardly toss out fertilizer. If visibilites are always 48 incehs and you want to strive for 36 inches monitor just like a normal program and apply to achieve this it is much more productive than the clearer water. A big concern doing this however is vegetation, if vegetation is existing it makes matter much worse.

Thanks Greg and others for your helpful comments. Our Alkalinity is 34.2 and ph at 6.5 so next February we plan to add 17.5 tons ag lime in three areas that are freshwater run ins. We plan on using spreader trucks to back up to these areas and "spread" the lime in this manner. Last year we tried the barge spread but since we are doing this ourselves found it to be a real hassle.
Since we are not going to be able to remove 1500 bass perhaps we can come to what Greg calls a "quality" lake for now then over the years work toward a "trophy " lake. One thing I have not mentioned is the overall number of bass caught regardless of size is not very good. I would at least like to catch more bass quality or not. Perhaps we should lower our 15" min to 12", feed the hell out of what we have using bream, shad, and talapia, to reach quality status, then shoot for trophy status. How does that sound?

Kingfish as a consultnat I would never recommend messing with only .2 tons/acre. Also given your alkalnity rates I would not recommend liming at all. That is outstanding for the SE. Most of our ponds are 8-10 ppm and we try hard to get above 20 ppm.

If your not catching many bass then yes fertility would be a strong recommendation. Plus recommendations are based on the 80 acre lake being fairly fertilie what is the visbility most of the time? To achieve quality status honestly you should take bass that are skinny. Hard to enforce those types rules but those fisherman in the know need to release helathy bass and take those that are nto so helathy regardless of length.

Not that it matters now probably but in central AL the lime cost should be around $22/ton.

Feel free to contact us for further advice. I hope this comes off right but feel you are not getting 100% of the advice you need for your goals.

As an FYI larger lime projects cost less per acre than smaller ones. We lime ponds but for a 10 ton job travel with the barge, linning up a tractor for loading etc. it will be minimum $50/ton. For a larger 100 ton job it is more of the $35/ton variety and for a job like this where 300 tons is more involved it is $30/ton or maybe less.

Greg, is the lime in addtion to these prices or do these prices include lime?

Correction, that 34.2 ppm sounded too good to be true so I checked on a couple of evaluations from the past. That should read 10.8 ppm which sounds "normal" for our neck of the woods. Sorry

10.8 ppm alkalinity is too low for a good plankton bloom. You need 17 to 20 at least. 35 would be good. If it was 10.8 then that is a big part of why the fertilizer did not work well.

ewest, Is liming the most effective way to raise alkalinity?

See the PM I sent. Yes adding ag lime is the best way.

Yes 10.8 is more like what we get around here as well for alkalinity. YOu need to strongly consider budget but my recommendation is a minmum 300 tons so large disparity vs. 17.5 tons.

Also placing where water runs in might help somewhat but what you really are trying to do is lime the pond bottom to change soil chemistry not very effective in three areas for lake this size.

Steve those rates are barge fees. In addition is cost of lime and if not onsite equipment rental for lime loading.

Thanks Greg, we just finished our 2012 budget for the lake and we are putting in 150 tons of lime, three full loads of shad, and at least three shocks to remove bass under 15". Also we intend to create as much bream and minnow cover we can. Hopefully this will get us headed in the right direction.

Question, can any of you enlighten us on liquid ag lime? Pros, cons etc.