Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Creak chub?

Well back in November of last year when adding minnow forage it appears a creak chub managed to end up in the pond.

Fishing for perch off the dock my son caught on about 5"s long about 1" round. I have looked all morning at different minnow pictures and have come up with a creak chub as an ID.

Is there anyone who can educate me on these and are they a good forage fish for the perch pond?

Cheers Don.

What else is in the pond? Creek chub need moving water to spawn, so in a pond they cannot reproduce.

Well I stocked with fishing minnows from a bait supplier and put in about 36 dozen emerald shiners, Just recently about three weeks maybe four weeks ago we put in 5 dozen fathead minnows.

These are all I stocked or placed into my pond. I am guessing that this guy was in the original minnow stock back in November because of the size of him. I do have a water fall feature on the pond with river rock deep into the pond under the falls.

Water fall

Cheers Don.

P.S. we let him go back into the pond.

I creek chubs to my LMB pond as food.

Creek chubs in a pond with a solid predator base are fine. They don't reproduce so they'll just become a nice snack. They will never be a quality forage item, however, since they do not reproduce in still water. Travis has noted that they are not to be used in ponds that do not have an apex predator like largemouth since they are very gluttonous fish with a fairly large mouth for their size. They will directly compete with panfish and others.

Some pictures of two minnows Andrew caught today off the dock with some worms. I am sure one if an emerald shiner the other maybe this said creak chub.

Cheers Don.

The emerald shiner was hooked in the belly some how. We chopped him up to catch some of the larger perch and here is a few pictures of some we did catch.

These were all stocked last November at 4-6 inch and seem to be running in the 7-8" range the odd 9.5"er. They did have a light spring spawn as we are catching small 4-5" very slim big eye large mouth perch. Next time we will snag a picture of these little perch.

Cheers Don.

Yes, first one is a creek chub.

CJBS?? - Maybe the 1st one could be another form of chub that occurs in ON. In the picture the mouth doesn't look quite big enough for a creek chub. I am not real familiar with all the chub species. I think the second picture is a common shiner aka striped shiner. which was probably mixed in with the emerald shiners. It is possible the supplier of the emerald shiners got them from a river or large stream which explains the chub and common shiner in your pond. Neither will spawn in your pond but if the chub is a creek chub it will grow to 10" and eat young perch esp fry to 1" long. If you catch it again use it for cut bait.

How big do fathead minnows need to be to re populate in a pond? I really only put the fathead in July 1st and they were between 2-2.5"s long. See picture added.

I have thousands and thousands of small clear .25" up to 1" schools of minnows all around the pond. I let the water go again to that greeny blue colour and backed off on the pond dye once I spotted these guys. The first school I seen have doubled in size.

Cheers Don.

I see a couple of crayfish in the bottom of that net too!

IIRC they'll reproduce at 2".

Yeah Bill, I agree the top one isn't a creek chub. Most likely a river chub. They are generally found in larger bodies of water than creek chubs. It may also be a fallfish. The bottom one does appear to be a common shiner. Common shiners, especially in the north will live in lakes if they have streams to ascend to spawn in.

DonoBBD - most all you small new fish are fatheads. FHM are prolific.

Don, listen to the fish ID experts above. I thought it looked very creek chub to me as well, but Bill and Travis know their species IDs much better than I do.

Thanks so much guys. Your all a vast encyclopedia of information.
Fatheads (the new minnow schools)they must be. Hope they are good for the perch population soon to be maxed out in two more year I feel at this rate. Then the hard part.... managing it. Anyone can drop some fish in a wet hole but I think the management is the hardest part.

Yes paper shell crayfish. About 400 went in this spring after they would have populated. I have seen many molts but only two or three swimming around since we dropped them in. The rip rap on the shore they just love. Food for the perch as well I hope.

I am doing my best and I am a perfectionist. What I learn I try not to forget.

Cheers Don.

Here is some more pictures of another one my son caught today. I really don't know what it is but I am hoping what this is... is the emerald shiners.

Any help ID this guy. The boy put him back in.

Cheers Don.

Notice the relatively large diamond shaped scales of the mid body section a key feature of common shiners.

Well well the common shiners pictured above that have that nice green colour to them have managed to spawn. We have been able to net them but will post pictures of the ones we trapped. The above minnow have spawned some how in our pond. I don't know how they lay their eggs but off the end of the water fall there was a huge mat of alga that was hair like and waving with the water flow.

Pictures to follow. These minnows are just about clear still at 1" where the fatheads are bronze/black at 1". If they are not common shiner I do not know what their are.

Cheers Don.

The water fall and moving water with stream like conditions could have been a big influence for the eggs hatching. We are looking forward to the pictures.

Can you include photos of the waterfall and moving water areas? I am curious to see what the conditions are...

I will get some pictures of the small minnows tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcnwm6kr2g

Here is the water fall. Under the water there is what we call beach stone. It is 2-4" river rock washed to smooth round stones. This is holding my rubber down that gos another 15 feet into the pond. The current that flows off the last rocks on the water fall flows down through these stones. I can't get a picture of the alga that was hanging off the falls because my water level is way way down. We are back to the un disturbed clay. The banks are still leaking and will take more time to pack or settle in.

The alga was like a long 3-4 foot hair like green alga. You could see it waving in the current off the falls.

Let me get some pictures of the small minnows. The minnow trap should be able to catch these little guys.

Cheers Don.

The waterfall may very well create enough moving water for successful reproduction of some species of fish that would require current for their eggs to hatch. I successfully hatched several different species of "stream" fish in a koi pond set up where I connected two koi ponds with an artificial stream. The current was enough for spawning success...

Here is some pictures of the little guys. We have them from 1/2" all the way up to 4"s. They all seem to have this green colour to them.






Cheers Don.

Definitely not creek chubs. Possibly GSH or another shiner species.

I tried, but from those pictures I couldn't see if the lateral line took a big dip or not. Even when I increased the picture size - it didnt' help any.