Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Variations on ponds in Nebraska

In December I will be closing on two pieces of property and each has a small pond. The first is a little over an acre, desperately weedy and in bad need of dredging. It is probably spring fed much of the year. I don't think there are currently any fish in it.
The second is more like two acres and your typical clay bottom, run off fed type. It has no weeds, is a bit cloudy and seems to be replete with small bullheads. At least that is all we caught in our one fishing trip.

Assuming I get the first pond deepened and the second proves to be still deep enough to support "real" fish, what different stocking could I do to make them different? I already have a larger BG, LMB, BC, CC pond. I also have a small quarter acre or so pond that I could use to grow some fish before stocking in one of these others. I know that TJ has a SMB, RE, YP or something not far from here.

I'll hang up and listen.

Is feeding and aeration on either or both of the new ponds a possibility?

SMB, YP, RES, GSH.

HSB, HBG, RES, YP, WE, GSH.

Either or both could be supplementally stocked in October with trout and they should live thru March.

Make durn sure you get all the BH. They are hard to kill, and I don't know if anything else besides LMB or Flatheads will control them, but then once they are introduced (especially the Flatheads), then other concerns come to mind.....

If there are weeds in the pond, and you can eradicate all the fish, I think the million GHS fry would take hold if you waited a couple months after they were stocked to put in FHM.

Aeration and feeding are possible on the first pond.
Feeding only on the second, though I guess we could do windmill aeration.

I think both of Scott's recommendations are perfect...bear in mind pellet program would be necessary to help provide forage with the lack of a super fecund sunfish species. This will help relieve pressure off your RES, YP, GSH and SMB YOY. Have you considered spotfin shiner instead of golden shiner? Max size still renders adults as primary forage as they're much smaller than max GSH. Travis also advocates some minnow species that are far more adept escaping predation than FHM. Killifish and Topminnow come to mind maybe? That might be a better forage base than the GSH - just my $.02.

I have another potential project: How about a single sex trophy lake?

Male BG, Female YP, SMB, HSB [unless beds made they likely won't reproduce]. This too would need to be on a pellet program, but you could seriously challenge the state record for YP, BG and SMB in this pond. I'm going to try a M BG, F YP, RES pond at my place designed specifically for ice fishing. It's only .15 acres, but could be a lot of fun.

Your idea of the single sex trophy lake intrigues me.
How many of each would you stock per acre?
Would you stock them all at the same time?
Are you going to come help me sex the YP and BG?

qty depends...you can always easily manage numbers as they aren't reproducing. I'd say 25 hsb, diff year classes if possible, 500 - 750 BG, 150-200 YP, 50-75 SMB. If you add RES they will reproduce but YOY will be hammered by everything else and they could grow nicely. You can always overstock and weed out the slow growers or reduce density if your fishery isn't growing well collectively. The key is going to be sourcing pellet trained fish then selecting gender. It can be done and would be worth the effort IMO. Also have a healthy AM budget - you could go through 200 lbs month I would think?

I think stocking at the same time is fine, as we're not trying to establish any forage base. As long as sizes are appropriate [don't stock 20" HSB then 1-2" YP, RES, SMB] you should be fine I think.

Yes, I can source adult HSB for you [14-16"] near lincoln, have all the CSBG you can want and Hofpar at NE Lake Mgmt can provide the YP. I don't have a problem sexing adult fish, it's just juveniles that confuse me. As long as we're stocking adults we won't have any issues. BG are the only species to really be worried about anyhow, I don't think a stray male YP will lend to YP overpopulation by any means.

Can I come ice fishing?

Sure you can come ice fishing, as advisor on the project you'd need to do a survey wouldn't you?

Could I add a few CC? Their yoy would get gulped up too wouldn't they?

The bullheads are the wild card. They are extremely hard to control and really tough to eradicate without chemicals.

Bullhead - on your second pond, if you do not plan to eradicate, then I think your best option clearly is LMB. A "standard" [meaning that there are other variations that also work ] stocking recommendation is 40 of the 8-12 inch LMB per acre. LMB will definitely control the bullies, and then you can see what the habitat really does. In some cases, a pond with bullies only will be muddy, but if you eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) them, the water actually may clear, depending on your substrate.

Great news on the ice fishing!

CC - well, I don't know if their populations would be managed or not. I can say a bullhead population became established in my pond despite a heavy top end predator base but, like yours, lack LMB which really love BH and I would imagine YOY CC too.

If I were you I'd leave the CC in your LMB pond and not introduce and keep it pure. I do know that CCs will hog your pellets, and if it's going to be a heavy pellet program fishery it could present problems. I know Bruce has had all kinds of issues with CCs coming in and hogging all the pellets...frustrating and expensive situation in his case.

They'll bully the other fish away from the pellets. Plus, they can be very hard to catch. (from experience)

Here's a shot of pond 2.

Mine is the one on the left. I'm going to try and contact the owner of the upper pond this winter. If he says his pond is full of bullheads, I suppose it is a no-brainer to go the LMB, BG route with this pond, because anytime we have a major rain, we'll have some wash into my pond.

Sure can see the difference in water quality between the two ponds, at least at the time of this photo. Is the upper pond more clear? If so, that's certainly good hope for your pond after you institute your management.

I don't know why they are such a different color. I'm hoping that the upper pond has been acting as a sediment trap for mine. We don't even close on the place for a couple of weeks, so I don't know too much yet. Hope to learn a lot more this winter and early in the spring.

Have you checked out the ponds yet to determine if this photo might have been after a rain event, during an algae bloom, etc? Good news is as you noted the top pond will act as a sediment trap, which is beneficial although it appears all surrounding area is grazing land? Bad news is you will receive a periodic dosage of his nutrients during overflow events - but assuming it's only the top layer of water I'd think it's much cleaner than taking the bottom layer. The biggest concern obviously is what fishery is established in the top pond.

If the owner could care less/not a pond management guy or fisherman, maybe you could offer to get his pond into shape for him by allowing you to by removing all resident fish and starting over. Of course in that scenario you are responsible for double the cost of renovation.

I agree you'd better at the very least fish that top pond to determine species present as that will dictate what you'll do with your pond. If GSF, LMB, CC, BG and BH are present, which I'll bet there are, your fishery options are limited. Have you done a analysis of depth or water chemistry [jar test] to determine why the water was cloudy? Hope it's just due to BH population...that can be fixed with CC and LMB. Maybe HSB too.

On pond 1, the single sex trophy lake, could hybrid blue gill be substituted for part or all of the male BG? I realize I might sacrifice top end size.

I think HBG would work there's been some discussion lately RE this scenario. Their gape though would allow them to hammer multispecies YOY which is something to take into consideration for anyone stocking them. Why not HBG and Male BG?

Is the HBG hammering multi-species YOY a good thing? In a trophy pond I would guess yes, but what do I know.
Was the "Why not HBG and Male BG?" a rhetorical question?

Depends on your goals...if you are doing single species pond this would not be a concern as there is no YOY. I guess the HBG can spawn, but again I think their offspring would be pounded before they became established.

If you were doing a pellet fed trophy pond I think the following species would be suitable and fun:

HSB
F YP
M BG
RES
SMB

I think HBG can fit in there or be added as additional species with little to no impact. They will help keep their own spawns in check if indeed they pull any. I do wonder if the F HBG and M BG would spawn, and if so, in what numbers? That could throw this entire formula out of whack or it could produce so few YOY that they'd merely serve as forage. Experts can weigh in on this issue.

Key to success here in my mind is finding feed trained fish, accurate sex identification, strong AM budget, and maintaining water quality will be very important with the additional nutrient load due to pellets/waste in small BOW. Aeration and irrigation would be important resources plus consideration for vegetation issues that will ensue due to very fertile water. Crayfish, GC, pond dyes or herbicides either separately or together should be considered. I would personally prefer going organic and getting strong Cray population started prior to stocking fish. They won't probably keep pond clean alone, but with careful GC stocking you should be okay. You will then have your FA increase as primary vegetation with your other vegetation being hammered, but FA is easily removed with rakes from time to time or copper treatments. Just some things that would be good to keep in mind.

TJ, I'd be more worried about the M BG and RES crossing than the M BG and HBG.

I love BG/RES hybrids! Would be an interesting addition.

Ok, here's the plan I have formulated:
Pond 1, assuming I get it dredged late winter early spring, I'll get about 100 RES and perhaps a handful of HBG from the fish truck and throw them in the pond. Then I'll get about 400 CSBG males from TJ or standard BG from the local fish farm. I'll also get enough YP from the fish farm to come up with 150 females. I'll also find a couple dozen HSB and 50 SMB if TJ has a good crop. I'll throw all this into the water and mix, feed and see what happens. I should also pick up some minnows or shiners along the way.
Pond 2. I'll see what the guy who owns the pond above knows about his pond. If he says it's full of bullheads and tests show that mine is deep enough and has no "real" fish in it I'll add any female BG that weren't throw into pond 1 and maybe a few RES also. I'll then add 100 LMB and perhaps a hundred CC. Perhaps also a few SMB and HSB.

Sounds like a plan! I will help in any manner I can. I anticipate having SMB ready this Spring provided the cannibalism isn't too rampant this Winter. I know there were once strong numbers, at this point though it's anyone's guess. The CSBG aren't going anywhere, and I can help there anytime.