Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Open water forage for us northern guys???

I read that emerald shiners occupy open water like threadfin shad do.

Are they a suitable alternative for us guys in the north? New Jersey specifically.

The goal is to build a healthy diversified food chain for smallies without having to add any other predatory type fish to the pond.

I've read that smallies can't really keep bluegill in check, so if I can avoid that problem I would like to. I couldn't imagine an overpopulation of minnows ever really being a problem. I mean, whats the worst that happens? You let your buddies take excess minnows for bait?

Emerald shiners are a great shiner for open water habitats, however the big problem with them in ponds is they will not produce young ones. Many around the Great Lakes have tried to get them to spawn in ponds for the bait business and very little success occurred. Other pond spawning shiners that that could be possibilities are the golden shiner, spotfin shiner, satinfin shiner and steel color shiner. The big problem is the last three are almost impossible to source from fish farms. A few isolated growers are now raising the spotfin shiner for the bait business around Lake Erie. As forage for smallies in ponds think diversity of natural items including yellow perch, crayfish, and using pellet trained smallies. A little research was done with lake chubsuckers (LCS) as forage for SMB in small waters. Again, problem is LCS are hard to source from fish farms. It seems much of the good forage items for smallies has to be collected from the wild. Dr Willis here is doing some work with pumpkinseed sunfish as forage for SMB. See Jul-Aug 2010 Pond Boss back issure article " SMALLMOUTH BASS AND PUMPKINSEEDS". Will Schreck, Brian Graeb and Dr. Willis look at some test results about smallmouth bass growth before and after introduction of pumpkinseed sunfish.
See this article that I wrote for Pond Boss magazine about the topic:
http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/growing-smallmouth-bass.html

Welcome to the forum greatwhiteape, as far as forage for your SMB, a discussion about emerald shiners on here 2 years ago suggested that they would probably not reproduce in a pond, this was info from one of out fish experts CJBS2003, he mentioned small minnow alternatives like spotfin shiners, bluntnose minnows,or banded killifish.
Golden shiners are a very prolific forage although they can get quite large if your SMB are too small to control the larger ones.

You can disregard my info, I see Bill beat me to it.

All members have good input here, that is what makes this pond management forum GREAT! Numerous members have smallies in their ponds with varying degrees of success. I have raised smallies in a 1/3 acre, mud bottom, 7 ft deep pond with the splash zone lined with broken concrete. Feeding them pellets grows great smallies. See this link for info of how several members here are pellet training their own fingerling smallies.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=301044#Post301044

See this discussion for one option of using SMB with LMB and BG.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=301048#Post301048

I think that when you put SMB with BG-LMB the level of management is great for both SMB & large BG to succeed in the same pond. SMB need to be periodically restocked for them to succeed long term. Larger SMB at 8"-10" for stockers are expensive if you can locate them.

If the SMB get large enough, I don't think the GSH would be too big. I'll bet a 20" SMB could slurp them down. If they got to be too numerous (GSH) would stocking HSB be an option for you?

I think the SMB would be great in a pond with too many GSH. It is hard to believe a pond could be overpopulated with SMB & GSH. I would like to see and sample that pond. Excess shiners could be moved to another pond as forage. The good thing about 8" GSH there should always be some shiner broodstock for producing small shiners each year. I think the most common problem with GSH in a smallie pond is there would usually be too few GSH. There is a small pond near me with SMB, RES, and GSH. GSH are only scarse in this pond and the majority of the ones present are large 8"-9".

All the YOY are getting eaten!

Bill, those were kind of my thoughts. I didn't really think that you could have too many minnows in a bass pond.

Eastern silvery minnows would be a good species to consider in ponds with SMB in the eastern US. Again, sourcing them is the challenge!

If anyone knows more about SMB forage in ponds, it's Bill Cody!

not sure how legal it is but if you go to pymatuning lake and set out a dozen or so minnow traps in the right area you could quickly get a thousand spotail shiners that would do good in a relatively clear pond with a good amount of vegetation. I know this works, at least it did in my pond... but, and a big but, if you already have lots of bass in your pond a thousand or so spotail shiners is not going to be nearly enough

Good info from Bill Cody, as always. I have a couple of tidbits to add on pumpkinseeds (PKS) and smallmouth bass. First, I believe pondmeisters should think of PKS as a prey species, not so much a sport fish. So, this is not like the LMB-BLG combination where production of big bluegills is one possible management strategy. First of all, PKS don't have as large a maximum size as BLG. An 8 inch PKS is a big one. Second, in that Schreck article/study that Bill mentioned, the PKS really became overabundant. That gravel pit was full of small PKS, which of course provided prey for SMB but not really any angling opportunity. We did move adult PKS into another pond a couple of years ago. It is about 7 acres and has SMB as the predator. It's probably too soon to really evaluate what will happen there after only 2 years. However, this summer, the PKS were about 6 inches and really pretty! The kids and grandkids had a ball catching them while some of the adults fished for the SMB. So, the PKS were big enough to catch, but not really big enough to fillet. :-) The longer term question will be if the PKS continue to become more abundant, and then have an even smaller maximum size. We'll need a couple more years of watching this pond.

Dave,

With pumpkinseeds not being nearly as prolific as bluegill I always thought that smallmouth would adequately keep them in check.

Do you think that its a possibility that you have too much cover in your pond? I have been doing a lot of research on smallies and thought that PKS would be ideal in my neck of the woods.

Thanks for the input.

Prof Cornwell wrote an article in PB on SMB ponds using FH and GShiners which did well.

If you are looking for a compatible sunfish species with SMB, another sunfish species to consider, especially those in the eastern part of the country are RBS. They are even less prolific than PKS. They are more fusiform, meaning SMB can more effectively prey on them. Like PKS though, they rarely grow over 8" with a rare one reaching 10-11". They are often found with SMB in rivers here in the east, so their habitat preference is very similar. They are commercially available as well to include a golden morph, similar to the golden morph form of the rainbow trout.

CJ, the reason that I like the pumpkinseed too is because they are mollusk eaters. They're the northern equivalent of the redear in the food chain. They will eat things, and make use of food in the pond that other fish will not.

Here in New Jersey blue spotted sunfish are always an option too. They only get to maybe 4 inches though if you find a whopper. I've never seen a four incher anyway LOL. They're mollusk eaters.

Great ape -- the pond where the PKS overpopulated is a very steep sided gravel pit. Also very clear. It does have some Chara (musk grass) around the perimeter in summer, but that dies back in fall when smallies should really be on the feed bag. If the SMB were going to control the PKS in any of the ponds we manage, I thought it would be there! We find the PKS here to be multiple spawners just like the bluegill. Maybe our experience is different from yours?

Bluespotted sunfish do well in NJ because they like their close relatives the banded and blackbanded sunfish like soft acidic waters with very heavy vegetation growth. Not really the same habitat a good SMB pond would be. NJ's Pine Barrens have many acidic soft bodies of water in them where these sunfish species do well.

RBS also feed on mollusks and are very capable of eating hard shelled organisms. A small sunfish possibly suited to SMB would be the orangespotted sunfish. I am sure Dave has experience with them. I don't have much as they aren't native to the eastern US. I just began experimenting with them when I bought some last year. There are other little known sunfish species that could be considered. I stocked a small number of longear sunfish into my pond. I will see how they perform. They max out around 8", with few getting over 6". Their close relative the dollar sunfish is even smaller, only reaching about 5". There is also the bantam, redspotted and spotted sunfish. They are more southern species, but are found about as far north as southern Ill., so should be adaptable to at least areas where RES could survive.

CJ -- yes, we got orangespots to survive with smallies, but did not see any change in the SMB sizes. At least they persisted!

Dave,

I'm not necessarily looking for any magic bullet to make huge fat smallies. I am of the school of thought that a solid and diverse food chain where you make the most use out of all of the resources in your pond is the best choice.

So, if they will persist in the pond and grow to a size where the smallies will eat them and get a belly full then they are doing their part. They are especially doing their part if they are eating snails or other crap in the pond and turning that into bass food.

@ Dave

About the PKS being multiple spawners like bluegill...I'm just going off of fecundity numbers that I have studied. I haven't ever done any field research on the subject.

GWA -- you probably know as much as me. :-) I don't have much experience with PKS so far. The PKS don't seem very abundant in our SD lakes with many fish species. In the couple of ponds where they are just in with smallies, they seem to be reproducing like crazy. I also tried to establish them in a pond with a very diverse fish community (walleye, LMB, SMB, and yellow perch as potential predators and bluegills as potential competitors), and they didn't seem to "take." Now we have a lot more PKS that we can use for stocking/transfer, and we'll try some more. Just sort of splashing around [no pun intended ].

Dave, in the ponds where PKS overpopulated where there any GSH in those ponds? The reason I ask is that in my 1 acre pond the GSH are very abundant but the PKS population is much smaller and the trout always were well fed even though they ate very little trout feed.

I wonder if the GSH have a big impact in controlling the PKS numbers by preying heavily on the fry.

I've noticed in my small backyard pond which has 9 larger PKS, and one very aggressive 6" GSH who appears to bully the PKS even though they are larger.

Maybe a combination of PKS and GSH might make a good combination for a forage base for SMB and prevent PKS from overpopulating. Just my simple observations.

I believe that Largemouth bass prey more heavily on fry than Smallmouth bass would. It seems that Smallmouth tend to prefer things other than fish when they are smaller, tending to eat insect larvae if they are available only becoming piscivorous later in life when they pumpkinseeds have already had a chance to mature and spawn. That is one theory anyway.

Once you get into the sunfish area of the food chain things do get a little hectic for a smallmouth pond.

Adirondack -- no, we didn't have any golden shiners. In fact, I don't even have a source (sad, I know; ). I tried to start some in a few ponds quite a few years ago, including one with only GSH, fathead minnows, and orangespotted sunfish, just so I would have a source. They didn't survive and reproduce in any of them, and I didn't pursue it. I know we have GSH in quite a few western SD ponds and public impoundments; I meant to go out and get some to start my own source here, but didn't get it done. In general, having more than one prey species may help buffer the other? I didn't think of the GSH as another predator. Your observations are interesting with that pond combination.

GWA -- I'm with you on LMB vs. SMB. In all our food habits studies, the SMB are much more likely to feed on insects, crayfish, etc. (some fish, of course). However, as you know, we never say never. I recall one year where the SMB just went crazy feeding on age-0 yellow perch in one study lake. It really caught me by surprise, as it likely affected the abundance of that year class of yellow perch. However, we are trying to "study" that occurence again, and in the same lake under similar age-0 perch abundances, we're back to SMB feeding more on insects and crayfish. Go figure.